Netflix - Not bad! Qwikster - uh, never mind...

btw it pains me to be defending a big multinational corporation but i am 2xmo and illiterate so the only way i can entertain myself is on the computer

Yesterday I was telling some friends about how much I liked "The Woman in the Dunes", and they were like "Is it on Netflix", and I said "on disc, not streaming" and they were like "uuuuuuggggghhhhh too much effort" and it sort of made me want to die.

*eh* is it "childish" for me to complain that a service i'm currently happy with (and i didn't bitch about the price increase at all fwiw) is now way worse and more complicated? *eh* whatever...i guess

i just added a bunch of movies i wanted to see to my dvd queue, and none of them were available streaming? tevs sucks 2 b me i guess but whaddya gonna do?

― the 500 gats of bartholomew thuggins (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, September 19, 2011 3:45 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yesterday I was telling some friends about how much I liked "The Woman in the Dunes", and they were like "Is it on Netflix", and I said "on disc, not streaming" and they were like "uuuuuuggggghhhhh too much effort" and it sort of made me want to die.

― polyphonic, Monday, September 19, 2011 4:56 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

haha yeah that is bizarre -- like ok longer wait but effort!?

you can only complain if it costs more than you would willingly pay for what you're getting. as long as it costs less - and, I think for most people, it still does? - people are getting a lot of consumer surplus from this service

I think you have to do a mental experiment, like, take yourself back to 1998 and imagine that a genie appeared and said 'I can have basically any movie, except some shit only morbius cares about, appear in your mailbox the day after you ask for it, are you willing to pay 10 bucks a month for this? ps you will also have the option to watch trashy b-movies on your computer if you pay extra money'

cable tv back in 1998 was way more awesome and way cheaper but on downside, no wire, no curb your enthusiasm.

cable tv probably cost a lot more than 10 bucks back then too

that was when people were paying like $4 for a blockbuster movie w/ a $3248712 late fee

lol matt

streaming skinemax

it was about $10/mo i think. for basic anyway. it was also a lot easier to pirate before digital.

wait max –– i kinda disagree w/ you on the principle that netflix is a lone bastion in an ideological battle over content distribution, and that if it fails it's gonna be all a la carte direct-from-production-company choose-your-own-adventure pricing schemes . There are always going to be centralized distribution models, and amazon, hulu+, crackle, whatever apple's got planned, etc., are leagues behind netflix in terms of library depth, but are also viable options and potentially successful models for the not-so-distant future. obv. the current netflix streaming vision (divorced from the dvd distro business) is failing to attract the right kind of attention from the right kind of studios, and flogging a huge but actually pretty-shitty library - unless they've got some commitment from the studios for new top-shelf content - as its own thing is hardly the best way to reward the long-time subscribers who've helped make netflix the juggernaut it is today.

(i don't have a complaint about the dvd svc, by the way)

I'm certainly not mad about it. And the small hassle of having two services won't even bother me that much.

I'm just interested in the business angle on this. It seems risky. And I'm trying and failing understand why basically splitting up the services that way makes any difference. If they are done with DVDs why not just quit that business?

max kinda relentlessly otm but still I mean who besides max doesn't love to just kvetch about shit, I mean what the hell, besides they called the new model "quikster," this is practically begging for abuse imo

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/09/netflix_failed_to_secure_the_q.html

yeah and "qwikster" jfc, might as well just call it "Hotmail Videotapes" or something actually that's a much better name

"hipster"

"DVD's By Mail"

"Cash 4 Movies"

i think max is basically right that this is netflix's ball to drop and they haven't really dropped it, at least not YET -- imo most big paradigm shifts and business model changes happen when the next big thing shows up and announces itself, not just when the last big thing makes a couple mistakes (although obv those 2 things often coincide)

"google plus"

"Celluloid Stories by Post"

"The Pony What Carries Movie Shows to Your Veranda"

"Movie Envelope"

movie envelope is worth domain squatting on!

Just buy the name from these guys:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oeiq0YWERNM/TayMfvFMnkI/AAAAAAAACac/C4XegFEbfO4/s1600/Mr%2BMovie.jpg

how about 'The Envelope Pushers'

c'mon, makes 'em sound edgy

"Movie Envelope" is genius

unless someone knocks on my door with a cool linkup between my laptop and my tv and installs it for me for free.

you can get an hdmi cable for like five bucks, if your laptop and tv are not super old

"the envelope pushers" sounds like a coen bros movie starring zack galifianakis as a lowly clerk whose only friend is john tuturro who has an artificial limb that is only good for pushing envelopes.

i was gonna say it sounds like something for anal fetishists

http://www.deadline.com/2011/09/netflix-ceo-reed-hastings-apology-fails-to-stop-stock-slide/

ha there is a slide in that netflix corporate powerpoint titled "MOSTLY, THOUGH, RAPID RECOVERY IS THE RIGHT MODEL"
"-Just fix problems quickly"

"your neighbor with all the movies and games and chloroform and locked basement..."

unless someone knocks on my door with a cool linkup between my laptop and my tv and installs it for me for free.

you can get an hdmi cable for like five bucks, if your laptop and tv are not super old

― hardcore oatmeal (Jordan), Monday, September 19, 2011 5:21 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

is that you knocking on the door of my apartment, jordan? if it's not that doesn't change anything i said fyi

technologically incompetent people like me who are fairly complacent with the last cheap thing we got are the majority, i mean

maybe Movie Envelope should have a tech support branch called Plugs and Holes

that's the adult wing

I mean Netflix/Quixster is emphatically not a new business model, and its current success is in large part due to savvy decisions made 5-10 years ago. It's in a dangerous position in that it has no easy avenue toward content creation, nor a direct pipeline to private resources it can offer/withhold exclusively. And maybe it's currently lacking the leverage to acquire new content. I mean, even Disney has a vault to fall back on during lean years. As middle-man/purveyor (but not producer) Netflix Quixster has got to position itself as offering something that other companies can't, and that comes in the form of 'choice.' If it can build up a library independent of its DVD business, and offer exclusives or an agglomeration of Good Titles in a centralized clearinghouse, it'll survive. If Quixster can't convince potential content providers to share content (b/c producers can always do it on their own, at their own terms) for convenience's sake, they've lost the market. Divorcing Netflix and Quixster may make negotiations a little easier, but it's very risky for the brass to risk losing subscribers when they need all the market dominance they can muster.

The only thing I'll miss with the starz deal is Spartacus.

They're producing that $100 million original series with Kevin Spacey, with a pilot episode directed by David Fincher, so that's something.

They're producing that $100 million original series with Kevin Spacey, with a pilot episode directed by David Fincher, so that's something.

I saw that. It's a remake of the BBC House of Cards series, yes? That sounds like their target demographic.

There are always going to be centralized distribution models, and amazon, hulu+, crackle, whatever apple's got planned, etc., are leagues behind netflix in terms of library depth, but are also viable options and potentially successful models for the not-so-distant future. obv. the current netflix streaming vision (divorced from the dvd distro business) is failing to attract the right kind of attention from the right kind of studios, and flogging a huge but actually pretty-shitty library - unless they've got some commitment from the studios for new top-shelf content - as its own thing is hardly the best way to reward the long-time subscribers who've helped make netflix the juggernaut it is today.

welll the only one thats currently comparable to netflix is amazon, as hulu and crackle are studio-owned and whatever it is that apple introduces will be overpriced, DRMd to oblivion, etc. and amazon's streaming shit is just a side business for the company anyway.

the thing is that if netflix fails itll make centralized services *more difficult* (rather than opening up a space for them), since studios will see an opening (as sony already has w/ crackle) to create their own streaming services.

netflix's library sucks not because they haven't "attracted the right kind of attention" but because the studios are holding out and hoping that it will die so that they can come in and do their own thing. the future of "the content business" is distribution and studios are desperate to get in on it--i think this is a *horrible* idea (media companies are already too big and it makes movies and tv shows [and news and the internet] suck!)

so while in some sense netflix is screwing its customers right now--its also (imo! others may disagree) looking out for their... well, i dont want to say best interests, but looking out for better interests than anyone else currently involved in this whole sordid industry. (especially since the government is clearly not looking out for your interests.)

I mean Netflix/Quixster is emphatically not a new business model, and its current success is in large part due to savvy decisions made 5-10 years ago. It's in a dangerous position in that it has no easy avenue toward content creation, nor a direct pipeline to private resources it can offer/withhold exclusively. And maybe it's currently lacking the leverage to acquire new content. I mean, even Disney has a vault to fall back on during lean years. As middle-man/purveyor (but not producer) Netflix Quixster has got to position itself as offering something that other companies can't, and that comes in the form of 'choice.' If it can build up a library independent of its DVD business, and offer exclusives or an agglomeration of Good Titles in a centralized clearinghouse, it'll survive. If Quixster can't convince potential content providers to share content (b/c producers can always do it on their own, at their own terms) for convenience's sake, they've lost the market. Divorcing Netflix and Quixster may make negotiations a little easier, but it's very risky for the brass to risk losing subscribers when they need all the market dominance they can muster.

― remy bean, Monday, September 19, 2011 5:34 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah see i agree with all of this--and i agree that theyre taking a risk here, too. but its probably a risk id take! people underestimate how quickly this all will change, i think.

whiney otm itt, i didn't even realize there was a price raise or that i should change my plan because whatever dvd i want just showing up in my mailbox is still magical and incredibly cheap to any child of the blockbuster era, who gives a damn if the price goes up a little

this is me basically. Besides, when I watch movies I want to escape my computer.

also i guess it's only more expensive now if you stream AND rent dvds regularly? what percentage of their customer base could that possibly describe? seems like most people lean hard to one or the other.

i do both actually but id probably pay twice as much as i do now--its replaced cable for me

Ah, see, I don't pay for cable -- I rent cable dramas all the time though. For bachelors Netflix has been an awesome experience, well worth the subscription I've paid since 2004: watch a movie a night, return it, get it another. I keep my queue down to five or six movies at most though cuz long lists startle me.

yeah it's like 16 bucks a month?