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Latest Netflix Earnings Report Mixed
nmpost writes with one interpretation of Netflix's Q2 results (PDF). From the article: "The beginning of the end may be at hand for Netflix. On Tuesday, the movie rental company posted its second quarter results, and they were not promising. While the company returned to profitability following a first quarter loss, Netflix had a 91% drop in net income. The company's troubles began when it attempted to split its DVD-by-mail and streaming services, effectively doubling the price it was charging customers. External forces are now beginning to weigh on the company, and its doom appears to be within sight. The biggest challenges facing Netflix over the coming months are going to be competition and licensing fees. Three huge companies are competing against Netflix in the streaming arena, which has already surpassed its DVD-by-mail business. Amazon, Apple, and Google all offer streaming content as well. As movie and television studios began to demand higher licensing fees, Netflix will not be able to pay, while these tech giants will. Netflix will eventually be priced out of the market."
Engadget, on the other hand, shines some positive light on the report: "The results are in from its Q2 2012 earnings report, and it's claiming 27.56 million streaming subscribers worldwide, up from 26 million last quarter. In the US alone that includes 23.94 million customers, after it reported 23.4 million in Q1, while DVD customers dropped by 850k to 9.24 million." So it appears that Netflix is either gaining new streaming customers, or converting those expensive DVD customers into more lucrative streaming-only customers.
Since nearly all the content people want to watch needs to be licensed willingly be the major studios, this should be no surprise. They'll just keep raising their rates until Netflix goes out of business. This is the inevitable failure of a permission-based service provider.
At least with DVDs they weren't existing at the whim of the studios. They could make them horribly angry and still operate legally. With streaming they have no such independence.
I maintain one DVD out with my Netflix streaming. Sometimes the DVD rental the only way to get certain things, which is why I laugh in the face of anyone saying "discs are dead, grandpa!" It's not a tech issue but an IP one.
All I want is a flat rate, one stop shop for streaming anything ever made. Completely possible techwise, utterly undoable from an IP standpoint. iTunes works well enough with my AppleTV, but sometimes the cost of a series is more than buying used DVDs (or even Blu-Rays) on amazon. It's variable enough that I have to check every time.
I'm lucky enough to know people with similar tastes who like to buy DVD box sets, and I can borrow/copy a lot of stuff.
NetFlix may not survive, but even if they die out I couldn't be happier for their contribution to the world.
You may not like their policies, business decisions or CEO, but NetFlix was a pioneer in their field. They were the first company to provide cheap, easy, unlimited streaming compatible with dozens of devices. That genie is out of the bottle now, and while there's a long battle ahead over licensing fees, royalties, etc ... there has been a permanent shift in the way we watch movies.
NetFlix has also established a very nice base price-point. If Amazon, Apple, Google or any other competitor want to charge more than $8-10 a month, they'd better provide some added value.
This signature is false.
A note to the MPAA. You better be careful what you wish for.
My family loves and adores Netflix. It is an creative and innovative method of consuming entertainment.
If the MPAA succeeds in their obscene desire to destroy Netflix at any cost, I WILL NEVER EVER respect their "IP" rights. I will steal any content I want.
I am sick to death of the entertainment industry on bing hellbent on not letting me enjoy the entertainment they are selling in the way I choose to.
They should view Netflix as a godsend that enables them to have a future. Instead they view it as the enemy.
If they destroy Netflix, I will have no ethical problem stealing what the movie and TV industry creates. Their obscene greed and arrogance doesn't give them any moral standing to lecture the customers who they depend on for their existence.
GIVE US WHAT WE WANT! Oh and what we want is to not wait months after DVDs are released to stream movies, and we don't want to pay $5 to rent a streaming video, and we don't think ridiculous DRM schemes (hello ultraviolet) are reasonable.
If I want to watch Breaking Bad I can pay google $8 per season or $2 per episode, or I can pay Amazon $22 per season (!!!).
Or I can pay Netflix flat rate of $20 and watch all four seasons, then watch Dexter, Weeds, Black Adder, for no extra cost.
How is Google/Amazon's model even remotely a threat to Netflix?
Clearly I'm missing something.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Netflix had an opportunity to transform their business and their clientele but chose instead to overreact. They should have slowly phased out DVD-by-mail by paring down the available DVD catalog in favor of streaming offerings without charging their customers higher fees. I personally would not have been offended by having to stream a show or a movie because it was no longer offered as a DVD. I might have been disappointed that Blu-Ray was no longer an option for certain things but doubt I would have quit as a subscriber over that. They took exactly the wrong action: cut down my options and ask me to pay double. Instant ragequit.
We really need your help
http://www.gofundme.com/help-sherry
You must be from Hollywood.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
They have and they are. The current show Lillyhammer is pretty good, assuming you can read. Some people seem to not be able to, thus subtitled programs are too complicated for them.
The next big thing is new episodes of Arrested Development, which I am very interested in.
The current state of the art is offered by pirates: here's the file and it Just Works, with whatever software you want to use, on any box that you want to play it on, to be played at any time of day that you want.
Why would that surprise you?
Free market economies only work when something is scarce - for example, there's no market for breathable air, nor is there a market for seawater on a coast. Sequences of bits aren't naturally scarce, because computers are really good at copying sequences of bits for very very low cost. So in order to make something that is not scarce scarce, there's a giant legal and technological mechanism put in place. That technology and law must by necessity cripple the normal abilities of computers to prevent them from doing what they normally can do.
I am officially gone from
Hastings is on the MS board. Netflix chose silverlight to promote silverlight. It really is that simple.
It works on linux if MS would hand over the DRM binary, they will not ever do that.
At minimum wage cheap entertainment is a key thing. He cannot afford many of the amusements I have and enjoy. He has a hard enough life without you trying reduce him to a machine. Humans need entertainment as surely as they need food and water.
A roku or better yet a used one would be something he would be well served to have. It is costs no more than a trip to the movies for two people and will let him use services far cheaper than cable television. While I was not at minimum wage I remember when $50 was a large purchase for me and at that time I needed entertainment and escape more than ever.