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Nearly 4 Million People In US Still Subscribe To Netflix DVDs By Mail (recode.net)
The biggest Netflix-related news today is that the company is raising its streaming videos prices, from $9.99 a month to $10.99. But there is another interesting nugget of information to consider: Netflix still has 3.7 million DVD subscribers in the U.S. who get their discs delivered through the mail for the same $7.99 a month it had previously cost. Recode reports: That's down 17 percent from a year ago, and is much smaller than Netflix's nearly 52 million domestic streaming subscribers, but it's still sizable. Netflix first separated out its DVD and streaming subscription services in July 2011, charging $7.99 each ($15.98 for both). Streaming was originally an added bonus for DVD subscribers at no extra cost. Are you one of the 3.7 million Netflix users who still get DVDs sent in the mail? If so, what's keeping you from embracing the digital age and streaming movies via the internet?
Are you one of the 3.7 million Netflix users who still get DVDs sent in the mail? If so, what's keeping you from embracing the digital age and streaming movies via the internet?
DVDs are digital - hell it's right in the acronym Digital versatile disc. Just because someone wants a physical copy for some reason doesn't mean it magically was transformed into analog by the postal service.
That said if we wanted to really entertain the question of why someone would want DVDs by mail - ignoring the stupidity of the way the question was posed in this summary - there is still at least one good reason for it on Netflix. Their DVD library is much larger than their streaming library. If you want to see something that is 2-7 years old, there is a really good chance it is available for streaming. Outside that range, your chances are not very good. There are a lot of really good titles available that you simply can't stream. One great example that is relevant right now is Blade Runner. If you don't own it and you want to see the original version before going to the theatre to see the new one, you can't stream it on Netflix, they don't stream it. You can't buy it today brand new at Best Buy, Target, or Walmart as it was pulled off the shelves by the studio. Some of the retailers claim they could ship it to you next week if you buy it today but there's no guarantee. Netflix will tell you when you'll have it.
Beyond that, the single disc service is only $8 per month. Most Netflix subscribers have a card on file with them that automatically gets billed; I suspect a majority of these people wouldn't notice another $8 from their card every month one way or the other. I know I have weeks where my gas consumption fluctuates by a lot more than $8 and I don't spend much time worrying about it.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
We still have DVD rental stores and RedBoxes everywhere.
Turns out you can't stream much on 0.9 Mbps DSL.
Crappy rural broadband that services the 90% of the continental U.S. where the least-crowded 50% of the population lives just doesn't cut it for streaming services.
Hey! That's Trump country. They don't need no broadband. Ajit Pai said so last week.
I think it's incredibly misleading to ask why DVD/BluRay subscribers have "not embraced streaming yet".
Guess what - we have. I have not had a tuner for many years, ONLY watching shows and most other things via streaming. I have subscribed to Netflix stream since they first offered it, but was streaming TV shows long before that... I also at times use the HBO and Stars apps to watch movies through. Heck, I even subscribe to the Comic Con app to watch movies and shows....
I subscribe to the DVD service for the same reason Willy Sutton robbed banks - that's where the money (movies) is (are).
Yes HBO has a lot of movies, so does Stars. But between them there are still a lot of newer released movies you are not going to see for a long time. If I want to see Wonder Woman for example, I'm either going to pay a lot to rent it online for $6 - half of a monthly subscription for DVDs + Streaming. With the disc I can take as long as I like to watch it, then send it back in...
Basically, physical disc rental is useful for (A) very popular content or (b) very niche content that no-one online is going to offer via streaming. There's still enough of that I end up getting 4-5 discs every month, making it worthwhile to keep the DVD part of my Netflix subscription.
So next time don't look down on DVD subscribers, perhaps they are simply more avid media consumers than you are and need that channel of content still.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Because Hollywood managed to pull the wool over regulators' eyes, and convince them that digital bits comprising a movie transmitted over a wire are somehow different from digital bits stored on a disc and transmitted via the postal service.
If you buy a license to view a digital movie, the means by which you get that digital copy should be irrelevant - streaming, disc, OTA TV broadcast, etc. Likewise if a rental company has rights to rent those digital bits to people, the means by which they deliver it (streaming or disc) should be irrelevant.
Several reasons.
(1) Inertia. For years, it wasn't even possible to stream on Linux (at least without some clumsy Wine shenanigans), and my TV box is a linux box. Now I think the Linux browsers do support it, but, eh.
(2) DRM. Yeah, I know, DVDs have it too, but it's long been cracked, so to my mind that makes it a lesser evil. No, I don't pirate the DVDs or keep copies of the content. But, technically, I have to violated the DMCA to play legally obtained DVDs on my own computer, since I need to download DeCSS. Still, I don't want to support DRM-based models if I can avoid it, and I'm not happy that all streaming is DRM-encumbered.
(3) Watching offline. If I want to go back and rewatch a scene, it doesn't use extra bandwidth. If the Internet glitches while I'm watching, I don't have pauses or glitches in may playback. Yeah, sometimes a disk is damaged, and that's annoying. But, I've got far more control over the disk while I have it than I would over a stream. *IF* we could download streams for later watching offline, I would consider a streaming service.
(4) Streaming service selections are ridiculous. You have to subscribe to a whole bunch of them if you want to be able to get everything; this quickly becomes prohibitively expensive. I'm not going to pay $10/month *JUST* to watch Star Trek Discovery without commercials. Hell, it would be more economical to wait a year or two and buy the DVD boxed set! There really needs to be a massive collapse of the streaming market as people buying it realize that they're paying way much for the few things they watch on any given service. On the other hand, Netflix DVDs have many things, the big gap being recent TV series, particularly series that are tied to streaming services.