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The decision to separate out the hardware from the streaming was prescient -- no need to cannibalize deals with other hardware vendors, and get support for Netf

The decision to separate out the hardware from the streaming was prescient -- no need to cannibalize deals with other hardware vendors, and get support for Netflix to be universal. I only wish that Netflix had been as prescient about its original content division. If they had spun that out as another company, then it would have been possible for Netflix to continue to score content deals, instead of steadily losing content.

aidenn0 7y ago
Spinning out the content might have staved off losing content for a year or so, but pretty much every single one of their 3rd party content providers has their own streaming service now, so the writing was on the wall for content deals even before their original content division started.
- andrewla 7y ago
  We don't have access to the alternate universe where this didn't happen. But Netflix was king of streaming -- other services had to bring themselves up in order to avoid being killed off by Netflix promoting their own content above those of other providers. If Netflix had made it clear that they were not going to compete in content, then maybe those services would not have to exist. Then again, maybe the move in this direction was inevitable; if the FTC had put its foot in to get something like the consent decree [1] with movie theaters and studios, then we would probably be in a world where streaming services had to differentiate on the quality of their streaming, platform support, application, funding model, etc. instead of just basically competing on the content, while steadily getting worse at everything else. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pic....
scarface74 7y ago
It wouldn’t have mattered. Eventually all of the streaming providers would have still wanted to get rid of the middle man.

aidenn0 7y ago

Spinning out the content might have staved off losing content for a year or so, but pretty much every single one of their 3rd party content providers has their own streaming service now, so the writing was on the wall for content deals even before their original content division started.

andrewla 7y ago
We don't have access to the alternate universe where this didn't happen. But Netflix was king of streaming -- other services had to bring themselves up in order to avoid being killed off by Netflix promoting their own content above those of other providers. If Netflix had made it clear that they were not going to compete in content, then maybe those services would not have to exist. Then again, maybe the move in this direction was inevitable; if the FTC had put its foot in to get something like the consent decree [1] with movie theaters and studios, then we would probably be in a world where streaming services had to differentiate on the quality of their streaming, platform support, application, funding model, etc. instead of just basically competing on the content, while steadily getting worse at everything else. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pic....

scarface74 7y ago

It wouldn’t have mattered. Eventually all of the streaming providers would have still wanted to get rid of the middle man.