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Netflix Won't Join Apple's Video Streaming Service (cnet.com)

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings confirmed that his company won't be playing a role in Apple's upcoming video streaming service. From a report: "We want to have people watch our content on our service," he said Monday. "We've chosen not to integrate into their service." Apple is expected to reveal its offering at an event next Monday. Apple is trying to supplement its original shows by finalizing deals with networks like HBO, Showtime and Starz to license a library of already released content. Hastings pointed out that Netflix has already been competing with Amazon, so it's used to rivals with deep pockets. "You do your best job when you have great competitors," he said, but he acknowledged that sourcing original content is getting more expensive.

46 comments

  1. Original Content? by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 4, Insightful

    he acknowledged that sourcing original content is getting more expensive

    I have no doubt that sourcing original content is expensive - But there is so much existing content that could be offered that never is -

    M*A*S*H
    St. Elsewhere
    Hill Street Blues
    Northern Exposure
    Max Headroom
    Boston Legal
    The X-Files
    Miami Vice
    24
    ER

    I'm sure everyone here could come up with their own list...

    1. Re:Original Content? by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 2

      Yes, I believe that would be covered by the phrase "license a library of already released content."

      --
      http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    2. Re:Original Content? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Law and Order - why do we never see that any more?

    3. Re:Original Content? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i download this stuff off of bitorrent all the time. who cares if the content losers want to put a tollbooth up and fragment - get if for yourself. if you are worried get it on a cloud instance or behind a vpn,

    4. Re:Original Content? by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 3

      Because sometimes, you (or your wife) just wanna push the "Netflix" button on your TV remote.

    5. Re:Original Content? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is more money to be made on new content. Suppressing existing content helps ensure that it does not compete against new content.

      The music industry does this too.

    6. Re: Original Content? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All that stuff is on Bittorrent. What is your point?

    7. Re: Original Content? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Sure, but when you spend 2 weeks downloading the content, you appreciate it more.

    8. Re:Original Content? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you're only ever going to watch reruns of the same dozen shows then just buy (or torrent) the episodes and skip the middleman

    9. Re:Original Content? by grep+-v+'.*'+* · · Score: 1

      I'm sure everyone here could come up with their own list

      I have my own list. It's all available (and has been) on my Plex server. Most of it's not new, and the few things that are magically have No Commercials. Hell, I'm STILL catching up on a few things and they've been finished for decades.

      The same with music albums from the '70s and '80s - for some reason they're not making those much anymore.

      --
      If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
    10. Re:Original Content? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amazon Prime has Boston Legal.

      These things are usually exclusive to whatever service nabs them, right?

    11. Re:Original Content? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would watch the hell out of M*A*S*H!

      God that show was perfect.

    12. Re:Original Content? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Because there's two networks currently running 24/7 Law & Order episodes so you can literally watch it any time you want over the air for free.

    13. Re: Original Content? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      not all of us are leeches.

    14. Re:Original Content? by jjbenz · · Score: 1

      Hell yeah. One of the best shows ever.

    15. Re: Original Content? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sucks to be you!

    16. Re:Original Content? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Any such old content that I like I already have locally. The last thing I really want is a shit ton of old stuff for streaming. I would never subscribe to any service for their ancient content.

  2. Video on demand is becoming ever more crowded by rmdingler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Amazon Prime, HBO Now, Hulu, Youtube, TV channels themselves, Playstation Vue, Sling, Hotstar... Apple and Disney are coming in as well.

    Sadly contrary to the rules of market forces, this additional competition may not benefit the consumer with lower prices and a better product.

    Fractured access to what you wish to watch renders each platform somewhat less likely to provide it, resulting in the need to subscribe to more and more platforms, erasing much/all of the savings of cord-cutting.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:Video on demand is becoming ever more crowded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "That particular form of entertainment did not last much beyond the year 2040." - Data STTNG S1E26. Maybe this is how. I'm not interested in a fractured system.

    2. Re:Video on demand is becoming ever more crowded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree with most of your post, though I take exception to the word "need."

      There are so many other uses for one's time. Entertaining uses. One can simply watch less, and introduce more variety into one's life.

      Once upon a time, that's what the phrase "cord-cutting" actually meant. Now it has the watered-down meaning of subscribing to cheap streaming services instead of expensive cable services.

      Cut the cord for real. Things will only improve for you when you do.

    3. Re:Video on demand is becoming ever more crowded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > contrary to the rules of market forces

      That's because you're dealing with copyright. That grants exclusive right to a particular movie/story/franchise. It's not like farming or manufacturing, where the land/equipment can be shifted around to producing different products based on demand (growing wheat instead of crown, reconfiguring a factory to produce tablets instead of phones).

      On the other hand, most people who don't want to put up with this system will just pirate the content.

    4. Re:Video on demand is becoming ever more crowded by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      It will generate a new weirdness in content consumption, invisible content creators.

      Here is how it will work. Most subscribed content is commercial free and to be honest, that is the only way you can 'sell' it in numbers. So advertising free, well, that means that off channel content advertisements are never seen and these people are not watching free to air either, so they do not see alternate content in any real sense.

      Right now the exclusive content is running on old publicly known content, new content is only seen by the streamers on your services and you can only effectively market that content on free to air services and that is rapidly becoming wasted money, only people who can not afford commercial free streaming content are still there.

      So no chance to pump your 'unknown' content to new users to bring them to your services, you are forced to sell content cheap to your competitors to get it seen, else are unaware of it. Claim all the exclusive content you want, it is all unknown to users outside of your user content.

      So sell it a year old to your competitors but problem there, people prefer to binge watch a season, rather than individual episodes. So maybe two years after the content has come out. Natural corporate solutions, cartels form to conspire a price and sell each others content with a two year delay and share customers with nearly identical services.

      If they try to play the exclusive game, they will isolate effective advertisement of their content to their own platform only, they have nothing to sell to users on other platforms because they have no real awareness of the entertainment worth of that content. Once you stream commercial free, you do not go back of full of shit commercial screaming at you content, you simply do not. After a five years of largely TV commercial free life, the negative impact of them screaming in my face, is really quite bad, I will actively stop me from buying that product or dealing with that company, it is really personal environment invasive and feels really quite offensive.

      Force ads on me with Youtube and make no mistake you are actively going out of your way to make sure I am NOT a customer, seriously. Youtube ads need to be voluntary after content because idiots are paying you to lose customers right now.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    5. Re:Video on demand is becoming ever more crowded by Can'tNot · · Score: 1

      erasing much/all of the savings of cord-cutting

      I expect that in the end a full complement of streaming services will cost more than a full cable package, simply because there aren't any commercials. Although, realistically, they'll probably just add commercials at some point. Streaming does provide a little savings in the form of removing a middle-man, the cable TV company, but I can't imagine that offsetting the extra money from advertising.

    6. Re:Video on demand is becoming ever more crowded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      why don't you try cutting the cord and seeing if your life really improves (obviously you haven't as you are still on the web), idiots like you are happy to tell other people how they should live but don't do it themselves are just sad hypocrites

    7. Re:Video on demand is becoming ever more crowded by gravewax · · Score: 1

      It may for some, for me it will just drive me back to torrenting. If I can't access a wide range of content (that I want) at a reasonable price from just one or at most 2 providers I just won't pay any of them. certainly won't be subscribing to apple or the upcoming Disney and it is already right at the point where paying any one or 2 does not provide a sufficient variety of content, especially with the reduction in Netflix content.

    8. Re:Video on demand is becoming ever more crowded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not interested in a fractured system.

      Especially if it means paying a dozen subscriptions and having a total bill that's just as bad as the cable bills of old.

    9. Re:Video on demand is becoming ever more crowded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I disagree. This is actually, what a market should look like.

      Here's the kicker: me subscribing to any of these for any length of time, will be entirely dependent upon content.
      What's that? Said service wants a year membership? NOPE! This isn't cable! That service will get blacklisted until they offer month to month, or by show season length. Move on to the next.

      That said, I'm finding less and less time, and interest, for streaming content period. Maybe I'm an outlier, but as a 40yo in IT, and with disposable income, I'm certainly in their target demographic for nostalgia, and new offerings. And a lot of today's offerings are much to be desired truth be told.

    10. Re:Video on demand is becoming ever more crowded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If people could for one minute have self control and not have the desire to access any and all shows at all times then they could realize savings. But we have been conditioned to think we are "losers" if we can flip a switch and watch anything we want. Even if it costs us a small fortune.

    11. Re:Video on demand is becoming ever more crowded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah. It just means people will either rotate services, rather than stay subscribed to any year round, or get so frustrated with the fracturing they give up streaming altogether.

      Of course there's always the ones that will just go illegal because it's more convenient than trying to stay legal by paying all these different companies to watch the one or two shows worth watching on each service.

  3. Good by dohzer · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Good. I don't want to have to install iTunes to use Netflix.
    Or whatever silly things Apple makes you do these days to use their services.

  4. Compulsory licensing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can we just please have compulsory licensing of video content. Even if it's restricted to content over 5 - 10 years old or whatever it would make for vastly more useful streaming services. It worked with audio recordings to make the radio industry possible.

  5. war by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is a battle ongoing by the old guard of TV, e.g. cable companies, to stop the emergence of Netflix as a competing broadcast force. One of the things they can flex is removing content from Netflix or preventing it altogether. It is one of the reasons Netflix is raising their subscription fee and dumping so much money into original content. Original content is content these other networks can't take away from them and retains viewers who would otherwise leave due to lack of content as a direct result of the removal of old licensed content.

    1. Re:war by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is also why spacey, lewis, etc had to be destroyed.

    2. Re:war by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure Spacey destroyed himself.

  6. Delivery should be separated from Content by aberglas · · Score: 1

    The internet is better than cable, but Netflix is still an issue.

    TVs only work properly on a few providers. There should be no need for a special app to view content. Just a URL. And maybe some sort of centralized billing.

  7. I didn't think any other company was... by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    I thought Apple's service was all original content anyway, so is this really a story? The bigger question is are ANY other companies known to be in on Apple's service? I had not heard of any. I didn't think it was going to be a Netflix competitor, but rather something more like HBO with custom programming...

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:I didn't think any other company was... by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      I thought Apple's service was all original content anyway, so is this really a story? The bigger question is are ANY other companies known to be in on Apple's service? I had not heard of any. I didn't think it was going to be a Netflix competitor, but rather something more like HBO with custom programming...

      I think Apple's service is less content provider and more content aggregator. If we take what Apple has done with AppleTV, and why Netflix is entering into this discussion, you basically tell Apple (or subscribe through Apple) to the TV providers you want. Apple handles the billing and all that and you get a list of shows you can watch

      In the end, there can be 1000 different content providers, you subscribe to some of them through Apple, and Apple generates a TV grid and search results based on what you can get.

      That's why Netflix is saying they will not participate - Apple may want access to search Netflix's content archives so if a user subscribes to Netflix, they can search Netflix through the general Apple interface.

      You want to watch TV, Apple makes it easy by aggregating all the providers together so you get one TV grid if you want to watch something upcoming or new, or if you search, Apple will search those provider's back catalogs as well.

      So instead of trying to manually manage 100 providers. Apple's service does it for you, searching and "what's on TV now and in the future" And if you let Apple, they can handle the billing as well making it trivially easy to subscribe to new providers like Disney without having to do it manually.

  8. why the hell would Netflix be there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's Apple's service.

    I don't expect to see a Big Mac on the menu when I visit Burger King.

    Has some tech journo or sperg Slash editor just got it all wrong?

  9. Good for Netflix by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We need more companies to say "Fuck apple"

    1. Re:Good for Netflix by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      we need more consumers to say that as well.

    2. Re:Good for Netflix by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well Said!!!

  10. What a shock by Altus · · Score: 1

    Netflix never supports any integration... they don't even work with search on any platform I'm aware of. They want to be the one and only but might find themselves in for a rude awakening as new services start to eat their lunch. If I'm signed up for a number of services Im likely to lean heavily on platform based searches (particularly as voice search has become more popular) if results aren't showing up for Netflix I might find myself going to the app less and less, which might result in ultimately dropping the service.

    --

    "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson

  11. They will learn by trevc · · Score: 1

    I guess they are just going to have to learn the hard way then.

  12. Buy up all the PC's you can right now! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This, along with Google and Microsoft's highest priority to stream games on these low cost devices is no accident, it's orchestrated by the highest levels of illuminati.
    They want to take away our PC's so we can't do the things we want unless we work for them. They alone will make their own custom machines that will lead to the demise of home PC's. You'll just have a streaming device, or a tablet/phone that you won't be able to code on. You'll only code on their machines with their permission to do their stuff. Mostly as slave labor.
    H1B's are the dry run. Soon all programmers will be slaves.

    Do society a favor and buy up all the PC's, video cards, hard drives, RAM, etc. and load them up with linux and disconnect them from the internet! You have been warned!

    -From the Future