Is Netflix going to die in the next year?

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Nice.

It doubled in a month's time... so what happened to USC's prediction of $40?

It's hard for me to bet against a company that has pioneered streaming media... do I think it will stay at $190... I have no idea... but it's hard for me to fathom that they will be out of business without either being acquired or re-inventing itself.
 
NFLX is at $217... 29 million subscribers which is more than HBO.

Does USC still think it's going to hit $40? I should have bought at $65.
 
Yes, I was the one who bought in the 90s, sold it at 62 for stop loss only to watch this thing take off months later.  At least I have some Google though from 2 years back.  I think NFLX will die. It will be the best short ever. Quite possibly equaling the profits people made on Bear Stearns but maybe not as quick.
 
JasonTheArtist said:
Why not cut out the middle man (netflix & redbox) and have the networks sell off subscriptions of their own content?
Because you need the middle man to collect it all in one place.

Imagine if you had to go to a different movie theater based on studio that puts the movie out.
 
irvinehomeowner said:
JasonTheArtist said:
Why not cut out the middle man (netflix & redbox) and have the networks sell off subscriptions of their own content?
Because you need the middle man to collect it all in one place.

Imagine if you had to go to a different movie theater based on studio that puts the movie out.

yeah but all the networks can just create one user interface (website) that links up to their networks for live streaming. each network just uploads their catalog to the website and you can see what is available by title/movie type/studio, etc.  you dont really need a true middleman that makes profit.  kind of like Hulu.
 
irvinehomeowner said:
JasonTheArtist said:
Why not cut out the middle man (netflix & redbox) and have the networks sell off subscriptions of their own content?
Because you need the middle man to collect it all in one place.

Imagine if you had to go to a different movie theater based on studio that puts the movie out.
But what if you had one device (apple tv, roku, xbox, etc.) that collected all the networks to one place?
 
Who's going to fund the cost of the infrastructure? Servers, UI development, bandwidth, DRM protection etc etc.

And you just can't load a file on a network drive and be done. This also doesn't deal with other issues like platform distribution, piracy and load balancing.

Additionally, not all devices support technology for true DRM protection or the ability to stream video through a browser (to answer Jason's question).

If it was so easy, more studios would be doing it (although some are like Sony's Crackle).
 
irvinehomeowner said:
Who's going to fund the cost of the infrastructure? Servers, UI development, bandwidth, DRM protection etc etc.

And you just can't load a file on a network drive and be done. This also doesn't deal with other issues like platform distribution, piracy and load balancing.

Additionally, not all devices support technology for true DRM protection or the ability to stream video through a browser (to answer Jason's question).

If it was so easy, more studios would be doing it (although some are like Sony's Crackle).

i dont think i was clear. each studio hosts their movies on their own networks and handles on that tech stuff you mention on their own networks internally.  all they upload to the website they all agree to use is the title catalog. then when you click on a movie title it takes you to the networks site for the streaming.
 
qwerty said:
its somewhat easy, they are just greedy.
It's not that easy and more to your point, it's expensive. Just supporting their own servers, bandwidth, user account management... that's all very costly. What does your company pay for your internet bandwidth? So imagine that cost times 100 or 1000.

And this central website, which studio foots the bill to keep it up and running? Who pays for the team to maintain that? And what about apps for devices that can't do browser-based video? Who pays for that development?

How much money do you think it would cost to set up your own streaming service that can support 29 millions subscribers?
 
My next question is what does Apple have up their sleeves and how will it be different than what we have available now? Can they change the tv industry the way they changed the music industry?
 
irvinehomeowner said:
qwerty said:
its somewhat easy, they are just greedy.
It's not that easy and more to your point, it's expensive. Just supporting their own servers, bandwidth, user account management... that's all very costly. What does your company pay for your internet bandwidth? So imagine that cost times 100 or 1000.

And this central website, which studio foots the bill to keep it up and running? Who pays for the team to maintain that? And what about apps for devices that can't do browser-based video? Who pays for that development?

How much money do you think it would cost to set up your own streaming service that can support 29 millions subscribers?

i got no idea how much that costs. my point is you dont need a middle man, understanding that the studios now bare the costs of the infrastructure, but without the middleman the services to the end consumer should (or could) be cheaper. the development/maintenance costs of the central website could be allocated amongst the studios on some sort of reasonable basis.

similar things have been done before in other industries, Orbitz was a joint venture by various airlines so you can shop for airline tickets at one place, hulu was a joint venture at one point by the studios that centralized the tv show content in one place.  i dont see why the studios couldnt do the same thing for films that they did with tv shows (hulu).
 
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