I’m surprised to see it’s still active. I thought they were about to drop it when I stopped my account–that was 2 or 3 years ago. I very rarely watch things on streaming.
I’d still use it if the throttling and lack of Saturday service hadn’t made it too much of a pain.
I do remember working with a snarky millennial that used to sneer at anyone who rent or bought movies on DVD or Blu Ray, he’d go into some long rant about routing the VPN through Sweden or something like that and then using bit torrent to get this movie or that tv show.
I don’t think he liked it when I pointed out to him that 's got a professional job now, he’s not a starving student, and he can afford to pay for his entertainment.
That’s pretty common for any company in any industry with multiple lines of business.
The legacy line of business is still profitable, but shrinking over time. So, it makes sense to continue it and milk the profits, but it’s a bad idea to concentrate on it, because it’s going away.
The new line of business is growing, so it makes sense to concentrate on growth over profits, funding that growth with the profitable legacy business.
This pattern holds basically everywhere for everything.
Except I see no reason why the legacy service should go away. The first-sale doctrine vs the need to negotiate streaming rights means that many titles will be available only on physical discs.
/thread
Interesting article, thanks. It does say their profit margins continue to grow.
Yeah, I am opposed to torrenting, but even if someone feels the opposite, it doesn’t explain why paying Netflix for streaming content is totally cool but paying them for access to a much larger library of titles on disc is laughably behind the times.
Right? What kind of progress will it be when we can more and more easily call up any of a smaller subset of titles in various devices with a voice command (as on my Apple TV 4K), but there is a larger and larger universe of titles, including genuine cinematic classics, that are not available at all?
Another problem with the idea of streaming everything is the fragmented nature of the streaming universe. There are three or four major streaming services and many smaller ones. Much content is available only on one service (and not just the proprietary stuff). It would be one thing if you could pay a one-time fee to watch a particular movie or TV show but most of those services want you to subscribe.
Personally, I’m still more surprised that channel-style TV still exists and am shocked every time I hear someone mentioning it.
Amazon has been working on streaming sports. That’s probably the nail in the coffin, if they can do it well enough.
But anyways, Netflix’s DVD service? Seems reasonable. I’d be curious how the selection compares to iTunes.
Y’know, your friends’ reaction to Quikster… I mean, Netflix Disks In Your Mailbox Service could be just harmless surprise. I had the same reaction when a friend of mine pulled out an old flip phone and Enterprise Communicator’ed it open. “Whoa, they still MAKE those?”
And because he was a friend, of course we had to give him a hard time about it.
So develop a thick skin, and have a handy line ready (“Yeah, I get DVDs in the mail, haven’t you read my reviews on my MySpace page?”).
Physical media is on the way out. Most people don’t care about or notice the difference in streaming quality vs. blue ray. So yeah, you’re not cool if you have to walk up to a mechanism and load a disc into it.
I actually rented a blue ray from RedBox over the weekend. I don’t do it often enough to justify the Netflix disc plan.
I disagree. If I’m watching an old TV series from the 1980s, no, there isn’t much of a difference as long as they are no cuts.
But for a recent film, there is a world of difference.
There’s a neighborhood DVD store, and every time I see it I’m astonished they’ve managed to stay in business. They’ve diversified into comics and t-shirts and tchotchkes and shit like that, but still.
But still, yesterday, I walked down there to rent the first DVD of Legion Season 1, because I couldn’t find a cheap way to watch it online; and while I was there I snagged Mary Poppins for my kid, because she really needs a better nanny–err, because she was with me and wanted something to watch too.
Nothing wrong with physical media at all; it just serves a different purpose from streaming services.
(ETA: reply to dalej42)
I’m sure there is, but I’m sure most people don’t care. Streaming quality is absolutely fine to me, and far better than the quality I grew up with. I’ve never watched a movie on Netflix and complained about the quality, and I work in the visual arts (though not motion picture.)
Aside from lacking many old movies:
Netflix streaming [del]has[/del]* the Fellowship of the Ring… but not the Two Towers or Return of the King. And you can forget any special editions.
*I think it was there a few days ago…? Possibly it was actually on another service. Looks like it was added in January.
It has Doctor Strange and Civil War… but not any other Captain America or Avengers. It has Thor Ragnarok (in the last 2 days or something!) but not the first two. It has Guardians of the Galaxy 2, but not 1. In many cases these films are surprisingly watchable without having to know all the background, but it’s still helpful to be able to see the other ones first.
So back in the day we’d do like 4 DVDs at a time. We’ve since curtailed that, and do most of our watching on streaming, but maintain a DVD account at a slower trickle.
Something I found funny is the DVD side of Netflix is technically a separate company (DVD.COM) under the Netflix umbrella. A few years back when they suggested doing that (I think it was going to be called Flickster) everyone lost their shit and yet they did it quietly and the world didn’t end.
I don’t like this analogy TBH. It’s not the flip phone that accesses more stuff the smartphone can’t get to. And again, I do also have streaming Netflix.
I also really don’t think it’s just harmless surprise in most cases. On podcasts when it’s referenced, it’s always described as something in the realm of their Midwestern dad’s corny jokes or their mom’s Xmas sweaters. The most positive you could interpret it is as a deeply patronizing “awww, that’s adorable” pat on the head. Like if you still have dial-up AOL. Just look at the article in the OP.
It was Qwikster, but yeah: I thought that controversy was dumb. I actually wish they had gone through with it: I think it might reduce some of this snarky tittering if I could reference a different and newer company. “DVD.com” is no good because DVDs really are an outmoded technology. I rent exclusively Blu-rays unless a classic film I really want to see is only available on DVD.
That’s the reason why I still have a large MP3 music library. I like having specific songs available for when I want to listen to them. I don’t have to depend upon a streaming service that only has incomplete access to the artists I like to listen to or can cut out at any time.
Hey, call me old fashioned but I still use the Netflix DVD service and like it. I also buy DVDs from the local thrift shops too.
I think it’s called different strokes…
As I recall, there were good reasons that people were unhappy about the proposed sell off of the DVD-by-mail service. For one thing, it would have meant two separate queues and paying a lot more money for those who subscribed to both services. As I remember the proposal came as a surprise to many Netflix executives, and also, as I remember, they hadn’t even secured the name “Qwikster” and it was in use by another company.
Netflix lost about a million customers and the stock price took a nosedive. They changed their minds, of course, and ultimately regained the customers and the market cap. (Actually, you would have made out very well had you bought the stock at the time and kept it until now.)
Yeah, this is me. The public library is my Netflix. The only drawback is the waiting list for popular new releases, like the latest season of Game of Thrones. Once in a while I’ll get something from Redbox, but that’s rare.
All three are currently on Hulu.