Posted on 11/25/2010 4:24:51 AM PST by abb
In a matter of months, the movie delivery company Netflix has gone from being the fastest-growing first-class mail customer of the United States Postal Service to the biggest source of streaming Web traffic in North America during peak evening hours.
That transformation — from a mail-order business to a technology company — is revolutionizing the way millions of people watch television, but it’s also proving to be a big headache for TV providers and movie studios, which increasingly see Netflix as a competitive threat, even as they sell Netflix their content.
The dilemma for Hollywood was neatly spelled out in a Netflix announcement Monday of a new subscription service: $7.99 a month for unlimited downloads of movies and television shows, compared with $19.99 a month for a plan that allows the subscriber to have three discs out at a time, sent through the mail, plus unlimited downloads. For studios that a few years ago were selling new DVDs for $30, that represents a huge drop in profits.
“Right now, Netflix is a distribution platform, and has very little competition, but that’s changing,” said Warren N. Lieberfarb, a consultant who played a critical role in creating the DVD while at Warner Brothers.
For the first time, the company will spend more over the holidays to stream movies than to ship DVDs in its familiar red envelopes (although it is still spending more than half a billion dollars on postage this year). And that shift coincides with an ominous development for cable companies, which long controlled home entertainment: for the first time in their history, cable television subscriptions fell in the United States in the last two quarters — a trend some attribute to the rise of Netflix, which allows consumers to bypass their cable box to stream movies and shows.
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(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The USPO will probably end Saturday delivery to save $$, but it will only accelerate their decline by making individuals and companies look for alternatives. That being said, there will always be a demand for physical mail—its just getting less every year. The trick is how to do it in cost effective manner while staying profitable.
Article fails to mention that for an increase from $8.99 to $9.99, you can get unlimited downloads AND unlimited DVD/month rentals as long as you only have ONE DVD out at a time.
Well, if only "streaming" is allowed, probably. But "streaming" has never made any sense at all to me. Set up things so their customers can actually automatically DOWNLOAD the movies they want to see. If "copyright" issues crop up, make it so that you have to download FROM NETFLIX a "Netflix only" media player and encrypt the transmitted movies. Encryption key technology is surely sufficient these days to allow such an approach.
” Now with the interweb thingy we can pick what to read, what to watch and on our OUR timetable.
And if the news doesn’t suit us, we can actually go out and do our own news reporting and publish it for the world to see/read/hear. “
Ahhhhh, well we haven’t seen the hand of government weigh in on this yet. It happened too fast, but they’ll catch up.
The wet blanket of government taxation and regulation will take care of this temporary imbalance in what you think you want and what government knows you need.
Look for dramatically increased taxes on high-speed internet to prop up those things that you are allowed to express your opinion of through the freedom to ignore.
You can’t allow everyone to get anything if government is to prosper. Somewhere, somehow government will insert itself in the middle of the “on demand” equation because not to do so would allow too much freedom to citizens. I mean, what if too many people watched the “TEA party channel”, for example.
“Net Neutrality” is the first step - it seems like a good thing at first, but in the end it’s actually the government telling private companies what they can do with their property. It is not a stretch to see that there could be vast government servers that will provide must-carry “approved” content.
Yep, that could be very true in the near future (too near). Besides a majority of this country who do use computers STILL have dial-up as their only viable option, so streaming vids is just a far away dream for us. A good portion of Netflix catalog is not available for streaming, anyhow. We use Netflix by mail. Love it!
The lack of quality content is a problem. All of these channels, nothing worth watching
Ain’t happening.
Just as the Holy Roman church recoiled from the horror of the invention of movable type and the resulting impertinence of Martin Luther’s 99 Theses, government will find itself powerless to stop it.
Today’s governments have far less power and reach than did The Church in 1500. The Pope tried, but could not throttle Martin Luther.
I actually see the opposite happening of what you predict. Citizen journalism will actually roll back the power of government AT EVERY LEVEL all across the globe.
It all relates to networks. Today, anyone can connect with anyone whenever they want and share news, video, audio; and it can all be done WITHOUT it being strained through yesterday’s networks - tv, newspapers, movies, magazines.
Humankind has never seen such power in the hands of the individual and we’re just beginning.
What do you propose as a replacement protection for intellectual property rights?
“It all relates to networks. Today, anyone can connect with anyone whenever they want and share news, video, audio; and it can all be done WITHOUT it being strained through yesterday’s networks - tv, newspapers, movies, magazines.”
I wish it were actually so. Yesterdays TV, Newspapers, movies and magazines were but nodes in yesterdays networks.
Today, the real-time network nodes are choke points that will allow for government to tax, control, and limit to their hearts content.
You only have the capability to communicate with anyone because those nodes have not been regulated. Net Neutrality starts that process - first by claiming anyone should be able to get anything - then by monitoring the nodes, and then by taxing, regulating, and controlling content.
It’s the natural evolution of government that is unchecked by the people.
Seems I read something about this recently. Can you lay you hands on any recent news article about this and post it?
Thanks!
I don't have an answer to your question. I'm merely predicting (and I certainly could be wrong) how I see the concept of copyright being mooted by technology.
And IIRC, copyright is a relatively recent development in the history of human communications.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
The first copyright statute was the British Statute of Anne of 1709, the full title of which was: "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned". Initially copyright only applied to published books, but over time copyright was extended to other uses, such as translations and derivative works.
And therein lies the problem for government. The internet has no limited central choke points through which data flows. They'd have to shut down the whole thing to get control. And since it has become so ubiquitous, that day has come and gone. If it were tried, the world would literally shut down.
It is similar to the Tea Party's lack of centralized control. They can't find a central target to attack.
Now this isn't to say that government won't TRY to control it. Sure they will. But I think they'll fail. Net Neutrality is already dead.
And human kind has never seen such power to track the citizens every move. It is a two way sword and somehow I do not see it as brightly as you do.
How many $ Billion did the USPS lose this year?
Only if we cower and allow it to be so. My suggestion is to USE this tool and use it every day. BECOME a citizen journalist. Go to local government meetings and report. UNCOVER the good-ole-boy deals that always happen in your town, but no one does anything about. WATCH and REPORT on the state legislative committee meetings that are usually streamed online. CALL up your legislator and interview him/her and write about it.
And I don't want to hear about "I just don't have time to do that." How much time do each of us waste watching the drivel from Hollywood and on the Boob Tube?
This 'citizen journalism' thing is happening more and more. And the more it happens, the more powerful it gets. And that power shift is coming at the expense of the Dinosaur Media.
I echo and agree with everything you wrote. But I have a question. If you don’t have cable, how do you watch Hulu?
“The internet has no limited central choke points through which data flows”
Yes it does. It has central nodes, it has regional nodes, and it has local nodes. It is structured in a way that government could gradually regulate it.
It is already being contemplated to “protect” from cyber terrorism, or other “homeland security” purposes
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