patrick.net

This is a really annoying change, but how much time is left for dvd technology anyhow? Streaming is the future.

Quickster is so expensive, it's more like golden streaming is the future.

- I'll be here all week! Try the veal!

elliemae says

Quickster is so expensive, it's more like golden streaming is the future.

- I'll be here all week! Try the veal!

Haw... If ONLY it was spelled Quickster instead of Qwikster. I think that the deliberately quirky, phonetic spelling pisses people off a LOT more than the marketing folks realize.

Yeah, what a pain in the ass. After researching price options, I had decided to stay with Netflix after the price hike. Now I am going to have to wait and see how much of a pain it is to have two accounts with them.

terriDeaner says

elliemae says

Quickster is so expensive, it's more like golden streaming is the future.

- I'll be here all week! Try the veal!

Haw... If ONLY it was spelled Quickster instead of Qwikster. I think that the deliberately quirky, phonetic spelling pisses people off a LOT more than the marketing folks realize.

How about "shyster?"

I can understand why it's happening, but it's still annoying.

For those who have recently had both services from netflix know that MOST movies, especially most newer movies have not been available to stream. They probably intend to make more movies available by stream (maybe all movies when they become available on DVD, will be available to stream - which is way different than now).

If they make everything or nearly everything available to stream they will have to charge more for it (they will pay more for it). And at that point they still offer their dvd mailing under a slightly higher price, they would not even be covering their cost on the dvd part of it.

I agree that it's annoying though.

Also I wonder, if I'm right that most movies will eventually be available to stream by netflix, then it might get to where the only reason for qwikster would be either that you just don't want to hook your TV up to your network, or that the streaming service doesn't stream movies in hd quality that you get with blu ray.

OH well. It was nice while it lasted.

I already quit the greedy bastards, they should call them selves
"Netballs"

Then the Asshole had the audacity to send me an I'm sorry letter.

Their streaming content sucks ass, they've lost all of their premium content worth seeing, due to same hubris he laid on his loyal customers.

"YOU GET NOTHING! Now good day SIR!"

Not Netflix' fault.

The reason behind the price increase?

The same reason popcorn is $7.00 and a movie ticket is $10.

The damn studios are jacking them.

God bless HBO, their series are better than any "remakes" or "Superhero of the year" crap coming out of Hollywood anyway.

I quit them last month. I loved the service in previous years but low streaming content combined with the delay in rentals is not worth it anymore. I can just rent the movies I want form redbox. NETFLIX is dying unless they can improve the streaming content.

I received the apology letter also.

I'm guessing that MPAA has more to do with price increases than NetFlix.

I don't buy that "It's not Netflix fault" crap.

They gave the Studios the finger and told them to Shag off, then raised the prices for absolutly useless streaming content anyway.

I mean the Comcast free VOD content library is better than that. I never watch that useless crap either.

Had they struck deals with the studios, and made streaming a current affair, then people would have been able to justify paying as much as $30 a month for just Streaming alone.

I would gladly pay $30 a month for NF streaming only, if they at least had the movies HBO, and the other premium movie channels get at the time they get them. Which is months after DVD sells and rentals subside anyway.

I would have dropped cable and just used Netflix and been happy to save $90 doing so.

No they just got greedy.

Like when I created a Website with a niche market for small business, it would have been a no brainer for Small Businesses to pay some piddly small monthly fee, less than $20 ideally less than $10. When I talked to business angel investors they saw dollar signs and wanted to monetize it out the ass, I also didn't want internet advertisers as my web site idea was for small business Brick and mortar. The investors were such greedy bastards, I finally said the hell with it and put the idea back on the shelf.

I was trying something different, those fuck sticks wanted to do the same thing that kills most websites greed. Of course I wouldn't have gotten paid unless the thing took off, I didn't see that happening with a "fuck them pay me mine" business model. Also the same old affiliate intrusive advertisements would have hindered the site from ever getting critical mass it needed to work effectively.

At least Netflix started out cheap and understood what I was tying to tell those jackoffs, "Charge more latter"(after I get paid and gone). Nope they wanted to come out of the gate swinging.

I ought to call them up and say "See! I told you so, this is what happens when you're greedy Ass. You get nothing!"

I wonder if they are trying to use Netflix and piggyback Qwikster all the way up. And once it's "profitable," someone comes along and buys their DVD business; conveniently around the same time Netflix acquires massive streaming contracts and killing Qwikster.

If they believe streaming is the future, they probably would like to drop the not-so-profitable DVD service. But they've spent way too much efforts making their DVD service successful to just rid of it like that.

You guys are complaining about $8 a month more?

Its worth it. I am paying for both services and barely use them and its STILL worth it. That shit is cheap.

At blockbuster try keeping the 3 DVD's for 90 days and see how much that will cost you. $1 a day per DVD.

PockyClipsNow says

You guys are complaining about $8 a month more?
...That shit is cheap.

That's not the point, and it's not worth it. For starters early adapters were promised the fee for life. Then the sheer hubris he used when he decided to change the pricing scheme. It was mis managed to say the least.

People are screwed in bigger ways every day, and they take that shit laying down and never utter a bad word about it. But those companies screwing people over, aren't wagging their thumbs in their ear, sticking their tongue out, and shifting their hips back and forth while they sing... "you'll take it and you'll like it, you'll take it and you'll like it..."

I think your average person with half a brain realizes the cat is out of the bag now, and Netflix will not be the final word in this media format or business model. I predict before March of next year, there will be a service that Makes Netflix (even two months ago before he screwed with it), look like AOL dial up, compared to a T1 internet connection.

If we let that shit streak set the standard for it now, then that's what it will always be. Remember Napster was free, they got their Asses sued off them. Greedy studios tried to create their version of Napster, where they charged a premium for the service. It failed miserably, then Apple Store did it for 99 cents each. If it weren't for iPhone apps the Apple store would be defunct by now.

Point is this is technology, and people expect it to be cheap, or they'll go entertain them selves in the real world for free. Or rather be forced to, people can't afford a lot of money for media services, and they wont even if they could. These services are a volume business.

If we caved now to Netflix, then the service would 29.99 and the streaming content, would have commercial breaks with in two years.

QOTD: "Maybe it will be like Friendster and I'll get weird movie requests from strange Filipino women"

Tenouncetrout says

I predict before March of next year, there will be a service that Makes Netflix (even two months ago before he screwed with it), look like AOL dial up, compared to a T1 internet connection.

Well maybe not even that long.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/21/technology/blockbuster_streaming/index.htm?iid=HP_River

"Blockbuster currently offers pay-per-view on-demand titles. With Dish Network's backing, it could make a powerful player in the flat-fee "all you can watch" streaming market that Netflix pioneered. "

Blockbusters catalog against Netflix, it would be like a 2 year old boxing Mike Tyson in his prime with out head gear.
Netwho?

This is why:

Edwad Epstein has a post over at TheWrap.com pointing out the massive differences in costs facing Netflix between buying DVDs that it can rent by mail and licensing movies for streaming. The key issue: the first sale doctrine. If Netflix wants, it can buy DVDs from any particular source and then use them in its business. It need not get any licenses with the movie industry. Yet, for streaming, there is no first sale situation, so it needs to license. And the differences in costs to Netflix are substantial. Epstein notes that it costs Netflix about $15 to buy each DVD, but to license a single movie title the industry wants $16 million for a two year license.

Where Netflix can buy 10,000 copies of a major title for $150,000 to mail out, it will need to spend about $16 million to license it for streaming. Such a hundredfold increase in price can obviously be deleterious to profits especially since Netflix still has to maintain its mailing centers, and buy DVDs, for the subscribers who elect to continuing using the mail-in service either because they prefer DVDs’ higher quality and features or they don’t have the apparatus to receive digital streaming.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101206/10223012145/netflixs-move-dvds-to-streaming-shows-massive-value-first-sale-doctrine.shtml

thunderlips11 says

God bless HBO, their series are better than any "remakes" or "Superhero of the year" crap coming out of Hollywood anyway.

And God Bless HBO series on Netflix, LOL.

Need more ROME, LOL.

Bellingham Bob says

Need more ROME, LOL.

What a great show, at least now there is Game of Thrones.

Yeah, I made the mistake of watching that, one episode and I watched all 10 in three days.

Rome and GoT, kick ass.

thunderlips11 says

Yeah, I made the mistake of watching that, one episode and I watched all 10 in three days.

Mistake? That had to be one of the best 3 days of your life!

Reed Hastings says

Most companies that are great at something — like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores — do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us) because they are afraid to hurt their initial business. Eventually these companies realize their error of not focusing enough on the new thing, and then the company fights desperately and hopelessly to recover. Companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slowly

It is ironic that the big reason behind this is Netflix doesn't want to go the way of AOL or Borders. He claimed that those companies are good at what they do, AOL for dialup and Borders for bookstores. They were unable to adapt to changing markets and were bogged down by the industries they specialized in. He sees an end to mailing DVDs and that streaming will be the big market of the future.

The thing is, Qwikster (sounds like Amway's Quixtar) will have to compete against other streaming sites such as Hulu, Blockbuster, etc. But Hasting's main point is that the two businesses should not affect each other, since it is likely that at least one of them will go down.

See:
http://blog.netflix.com/2011/09/explanation-and-some-reflections.html

I avoided Netflix for over ten years, I'm not a fan of disk media.
It's a PIA to go out and rent and return before the due date, and even though their mail service is relatively quick. My daughter was getting two disks a week. I never watch them, because as pointed out before having to sit though twenty minutes of crap warnings, and a menu that has to take you through this big elaborate rendering process before you can watch the movie.

Streaming didn't have all of that.

It's Quickster(what a rip) that needs to revamp their library, if they want their membership numbers to improve.
Also they need to reinstate simultaneous multiple viewing for each account. I'm not going to buy an account for me and my kids or every person in the house that wants to watch their own thing.

They added Disney Dreamworks or at least Netflix did. I don't know if that equates to the streaming service as well or just for DVD mail order.

Woopty big do, if it's netflix, so I'll have to wait a month before it's on HBO, that's no reason to come home Netflix.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/27/tech/web/netflix-internet-bandwith-mashable/index.html

Netflix takes up 32.7% of Internet bandwidth

Despite recent troubles, Netflix is a major force on the Internet, accounting for 32.7% of peak U.S. downstream traffic, according to a new report.

Sandvine Intelligent Broadband Networks' report analyzed 200 Internet service providers in 80 countries and found that real-time entertainment apps take up 60% of peak downstream traffic, up from 50% last year. Netflix has more than half of that share. Sandvine considers the hours between 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. to be peak times.

Like others, Sandvine has also noticed a shift away from PCs to access such content. The company found 55% of traffic volume in North America is consumed on game consoles, set-top boxes, smart TVs and mobile devices. Only 45% is being accessed by laptops or PCs. Video makes up 32.6% of peak downstream mobile traffic, of which YouTube is the largest contributor.

So What?

I'm breathing .00000000019999% of the air.
That is pointless in this day and age. If we were all on dial up and bandwith was stressed and limited, I could see the problem. But stories like this, just allows the consumer to justify Internet price increases. With out ever asking, well what does that even mean at the end of the day?
Will I not get my email, because the Continent of California is streaming "The Kardashians"? Or we wont be able to log onto Patnet?

NO! People will keep using Netfilx until the service gets so slow and crappy they'll stop. And that will be the end of that, or they will expand the bandwidth.

These things have a way of sorting them selves out. I remember all of the bell warnings over dial up 56K.
In those days, a post this long would have been considered rude because of the bandwidth it took for the readers to download.