I understand that and I use that but I’m not talking about the instant library of mostly old movies and tv shows which is impressive and I like very much. They however need to add the ability to purchase content that will never go away like VUDU. Also they need to do something to get more instant next day content like comcast and other cable companies have. If comcast can get it they should be able to work something out.
Netflix is great for kids but what amazes me is the amount of older content they don’t have. They have very little Christmas stuff but they have tons of gay lesbo stuff. What leads to that kind of strategy? I also wish they’d let me control exactly what is available in my library. Just let me add shows to a block list or even better limit certain devices so that only kids shows can be available? Instead its an all or nothing thing for all my devices.
There are lot of things Netflix could do but as cable companies enhance their offerrings they are going to find themselves in the same kind of place Blockbuster was in if they don’t become more agile. I’m a big supporter of Netflix but they could’ve done all this in a much better way.
Well your vudu stuff might never go away. Remember what’s gone on with the kindle when Amazon lost their e-license to some books, and those were on people’s kindles, vudu’s stuff is entirely on their servers. If they lose their license to a movie you bought for stream it’ll be gone POOF.
A lot of the older content they don’t have is a matter of license. NBC has a lot of their old shows on the stream on their website, so they aren’t putting them on the stream on Netflix. I just did a search for Christmas and it came up 110 pages, lots of it with the blue stream button. Don’t know about gay lesbo content, never shows up in my suggestions.
I don’t think they could have done things much differently. The streaming requires a separate license. Every time the go to the content owners for that license it’s the balancing act, they need to find a way for the owners to make more money letting Netflix stream than doing their own stream. As you point out more and more networks are doing their own stream, and they’re going exclusive. Netflix can’t stop them from doing that. The one thing they’ve got these guys beat on is the devices, pretty much every internet enabled entertainment device out there has a Netflix client, and unless they have some kind of wide open net browser they probably can’t get to NBC/classic TV, or HBOGo. This limits their competition, but it doesn’t stop the competition from trying. As long as these companies don’t want to let Netflix stream their stuff Netflix has no choice, except possibly offering to pay a lot, which quadrupled their license fees, and forced a rate hike.
In the end though they’re still in the strong position because of the devices. And I think they’ll win the battle. I’m not going to stream anything off NBC because my bluray doesn’t do NBC and connecting the computer to the TV is more annoyance than I’m willing to do. So whatever revenue NBC thinks they’ll get from doing their own stream they won’t be getting from me. What they probably need to negotiate is portal style, let NBC keep their stuff, but portal it through Netflix, thus NBC gets access to my bluray and still gets the revenue they wanted by keeping it in house, and Netflix gets the added bonus of not having to store all those shows on their servers.