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Netflix Killing DVDs Like Apple Killed Floppies?
cheezitmike writes "While there has been lots of outcry about Netflix separating their DVD service from their streaming service, media expert Eric Garland says they're just doing to the DVD what Apple did to the floppy disk. 'I was reminded of so many precedents: Facebook revamping its user interface, the introduction of the first Blueberry iMac, the one with the conspicuously missing 3.5-inch floppy drive on the front. All of these were moments when there was a paradigm shift that led to an immediate public outcry. People made a lot of noise and had a lot of complaints. People were very upset about these shifts...until they weren't. In the news cycle, the outcry is significant and it is problematic, but it's also important to note how quickly these things are forgotten.'"
What did apple do to floppies?
Apple has never been relevant enough on the desktop to kill any desktop technology. PC CD-Rs and then the internet killed floppy drives.
No, it's nothing like that. CD-ROMs were already well adopted by the time floppies came along, and there was no licensing issue going from floppy to optical media the way there is when going from optical to streaming.
So no, the comparison isn't meaningful.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Apple did not build their business model on providing floppy disks to people like Netflix did with DVDs. What's more, floppy disks faded into disuse due to higher capacity formats being available. With ISP data caps and poor streaming quality, DVDs are simply better for most people compared to streaming only service.
All Netflix is doing is chasing away customers. The reasons behind this can be debated, costs etc, but the end result is the same. More money for less service means fewer customers.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Maybe if they offered their entire DVD library via streaming. But even then, there are still many people who don't have streaming hooked up to their TV or are in a rural area where they have no access to broadband.
Have you seen the lines at redbox units on the weekend? Four and five people deep at out local Kroger, with two redbox vending machines.
like Vanilla Ice was able to kill our brain like a poisonous mushroom?
Can we get any other good examples?
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
No, I don't think so - not for a while. The Redbox model is highly productive. People still want the premium editions, still want the Blu-Rays. Not everyone has the bandwith needed for high quality streaming. People still prize the reliability and dependency of physical media, ESPECIALLY with how sometimes things just disappear from Netflix. If Netflix is killing DVDs (Which I'll admit is possible), I don't see DVDs dying for about a decade, at least, as the content models have to shift first - and those guys are notorious for suing the pants off of everyone, getting stupid laws passed to protect their industry, and have tons of money to fight with.
In looking at how I consume media from Netflix I have basically been mostly a streaming customer since they have started expanding their selection. In the past year I have gotten 1 new DVD that I have gotten around to watching. I don't have cable and live in a low area so over the air digital TV is mostly out (I only get 2 channels now) so most of my "TV" is done streaming over the internet. My wife or I can watch most recent episodes of shows we like from Hulu, or directly from the networks, and for older shows and movies we can watch them off of Netflix. The $9 a month I pay is great for the all I can eat video buffet I currently enjoy, I don't even mind the commercials on the free Hulu or network sites since that is what you get when watching cable or over the air TV anyway. I would have had the internet connection I have anyway since I do push a lot of data in and out of my computer each month any way.
Time to offend someone
For the record, the iMac that debuted without a floppy drive came in only one color: Bondi Blue. The Blueberry iMac was part of a later generation.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
But I don't think they can be blamed for DVD's demise. PC Games almost went from CD distribution direct to digital, very few years on DVD.
I would say that the wide-adoption of corporate/small-business e-mail systems in the mid-late 90s killed the floppy disk. Up until then, legal assistants, secretaries, financial analysts, and other workers on the lower-rungs would truck a floppy disk from desk to desk to collaborate with colleagues, present work to the boss, or deliver documents to clients. With e-mail, the small files that could go on floppy disks could more easily be sent more easily with even the slower LAN and shared-internet connections.
Gee, I dunno dumbass... people who needed to SAVE stuff ? In 1998, a CD burner cost about $700, plus another $200 for the SCSI adapter. I know, I was the only guy in town with one, and business was gooooood!
They're assuming that everyone has cheap, reliable, easily available broadband. Whether it be for movies, operating system downloads, or just everyday use, this is a patently false assumption. When the floppy was killed, DVD/CD media was an immediately available replacement for many, if not all users simply by visiting their local store. In this case, users are at the behest of other companies who do not have a financial incentive to provide service to many areas - let alone ensure reliability or access. This is before we even mention the picture & sound quality or the constant "rebuffering" waits. Yes, all you lovely people who loudly proclaim the death of physical media for downloading - many of us envy your ability to make that change. And before someone says "Well move to somewhere that it's available", I live in a major metropolitan area, top 25 DMA. The internet service sucks due to poor infrastructure, regardless of who you subscribe to. And let's not forget bandwidth caps. Downloading/streaming only is not yet a viable permanent solution.
Apple may have been among the first to stop supporting floppies, but only a fanboy would claim that removing them from Apple machines that made up a minute percentage of the desktop market somehow killed them. Floppies simply became obsolete, though I still had to find a floppy disk to install a BIOS upgrade on a new system as late as 2008.
The Mac Zealot RDF version of history says "Apple stopped including floppies and they died off!" However if you look at what actually happened it was more like they stopped shipping floppies and users had to run out and buy USB floppy drives because there was no replacement. I remember at the newspaper I worked at when we got a bunch of iMacs for our newsroom, and they all needed to have floppy drives so that journalists could transfer stories to and from them.
The floppy started dying when CD-RWs got cheap, and also to an extent with zip disks (anyone else remember those). However CD-RWs were kinda inconvenient as a replacement and zips not all that universal. When it really started dying off was when USB drives got cheap. They were a complete and easy replacement for floppies. There was no reason to use a floppy instead of one.
That Apple stopped shipping floppies and they then died off years later is of no real relevance. While it helped the process along, it did not cause it by any stretch of the imagination. They stopped using floppies long before there was a useful replacement, hence people had to add them back.
Now Netflix is different. What they are doing, along with others like Steam, is offering a service that provides an alternative to DVDs. Thus they really are helping to kill it off. They aren't saying "We are taking away the hardware, you figure out what to do," they are saying "Here's something that makes the hardware unnecessary, if you want."
As Netflix is AFAIK an american thing the rest of the world is still using DVD's.
Apple killed the floppy? They killed a technology by omitting it from a product whose market share couldn't even be measured in single-digit percentages? I know Steve Jobs is amazing and all, but that's just super human.
Apple merely recognized the obsolescence of the floppy disk, and omitted it because it was overhead that provided little value. Netflix is recognizing that streaming is the future of their business, and is acting to make that future as lucrative as possible.
The article assumes these companies are causing trends, when they are merely reacting to them.
Floppy died a painfully slow death, but did thanks to Zip disks (100MB capacity, and could survive back-pack abuse much better than the 3.5" 1.44MB cousin) Which worked for a while (having to carry around the Zip drive... but really USB flash killed it all. Highly durable, will survive laundry. Small, fast, and accepted everywhere.
DVDs in comparison are fragile. Scratched media. Over-powered lasers (lie on some Sony players) kill RW disks.
And for those of us on the "edge" wireless and dropbox is replacing any media at all.
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