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But if people ever DID look at Netflix and think that, there are services (Amazon) that let you pay to immediately stream a particular movie/show. Netflix is f

• seanp2k2 10y ago
  Or "I don't want to think about buying individual things, I just want a lot of stuff that I can watch without dealing with billing every time I want to tune into some entertainment". I see it as a UX and a psychology problem, really. If you tell users that each episode costs $1 to watch, they'll watch less than if you charge them $15 a month and make 1 14-episode season available, and they might only watch half of it. It's the idea that you're spending money with a specific action vs spending in general to get access to something where you could theoretically have as much as you want. It's the all-you-can-eat seafood buffet in Vegas. You feel like you're beating the house, but the house always wins. In this case though, consumers also win, because it's ~$15/month with no ads and no BS vs $50-120+ a month with Comcast or DirectTV for ads + waiting to watch what you want + contracts (Comcast does e.g. 1-year contracts in some markets) + lots of BS (Comcast also "rents" movies and does things like pay-per-view). The house can still win while providing an order of magnitude better value, but the old business model exists due to their oligopoly and regulatory capture.