12 ms·

7% of Americans Subscribe to Netflix, Now Larger than any Cable Company

299 points by mmcconnell1618 16y ago

chopsueyar 16y ago
Die Comcast, die!
- kenjackson 16y ago
  Why? I know hating Comcast is popular, but I've actually found them to be quite good, although expensive. With Comcsst I get a lot of HD channels. I get a dual tuner DVR w/ no upfront fees or commitment, just a rental fee. They have a pretty good sized on demand package, with the ability to continue watching content from any TV in the house. They've recently added the ability to control my DVR over the web. Comcast at the half the price is a pretty good service, IMO. I certainly wouldn't want them to die, as I currently have no other service giving me 4 HD ESPNs, Big 10 sports, HD Nick, HD Nick Jr, HD Sprout, and HD on demand for many network shows I watch.
  - rawsyntax 16y ago
    comcast internet is slow in my experience. Much slower than advertised. Comcast has also done a lot of bittorrent throttling, given there are legitimate uses for bittorrent. Also in my local market there is comcast or att dsl. ATT dsl is slower than comcast, so I'm forced to pick the lesser of two evils.
    - dangrossman 16y ago
      If your Comcast internet is much slower than advertised, there's a problem, and it's likely fixable. It can be bad cables or splitters in the house, poor signal from being too many splitters from the source, a bad modem, wrong service settings for your account on Comcast's end, many things. If you call Comcast and are willing to do some serious troubleshooting with a technician at your house, you should be able to get the advertised speeds. I've done so at 7 different homes in the past 6 years, but only after doing some work at each one.
      - chopsueyar 16y ago
        I just need you to be available between noon and 5pm.
      - chopsueyar 16y ago
        This is fine for personal use (if you have the time to spare), but for a client's business this is impractical. How many hours of serious troubleshooting would you bill a client for? The last business I worked with had to have the tap at the pole replaced, plus new connectors and removal of many splitters.
      - rawsyntax 16y ago
        I hear what you're saying here. But I get to pay $40 a month... to have to troubleshoot and fix my own connection? I think comcast should stay on top of their shit, isn't that what we pay for?
  - brandall10 16y ago
    It's much more the packaged content model that big cable props up. It's good it you watch tons of TV. But what if for instance you hardly watch TV, but only have a set of favorite shows? For instance, I really want to see BoardWalk Empire. But I can't without paying some $60+ month, because I have to buy the HBO package on top of a cable package. My only recourse is 1) see it at a friend's place, 2) wait at least 6 mos for it become available on Netflix/iTunes, or 3) illegally stream it. AMC does not have this problem, and I gladly buy HD seasons of Mad Men and Breaking Bad on iTunes the moment they're available (I actually prefer to pay for them, as I want to support this great content). But not with most other premium content, esp. HBO and Showtime where contracts with big cable preclude this activity.
  - chopsueyar 16y ago
    What is your monthly Comcast bill AND what is your upload/download bandwidth?
  - roc 16y ago
    > "Why?" A few reasons I'm not their biggest fan: * I have no choice in my area. * Comcast costs more, for less, than it does in neighboring towns where they compete. The brashness and sheer monetary disconnect between what they charge when they compete and what they charge when they don't casts a certain light on the rest of their shenanigans. (approximately 50%) * I can't get a residential cable internet package without paying more than if I got cable internet and television service. * They moved essentially all the popular cable channels out of the 'basic' television package during the DTV switch, under the auspices of people needing their digital set-top box anyway. Except that's a lie and they know it. It was just a convenient excuse for them to push popular channels into a higher-priced package. Channels that, conspicuously, are still basic in neighboring towns where they compete. * CableCARD nonsense. I never got a working card from them. The cards they're legally required to provide upon request. So a newer TIVO wasn't an option. And every conversation regarding the CableCARD involved a sales pitch to just get their (ad-bearing, convoluted monstrosity of a) DVR. * Their backwards router policies from yesteryear: when they would lie to, threaten and refuse service to their customers, because they didn't feel like providing the service they were advertising (an internet connection), but rather the service they felt like providing (an internet connection to a single Windows PC.) * The bandwidth caps and (more troubling) their inconsistent enforcement. * Their traffic 'shaping'. AKA screwing up my ISO downloads because they're on an anal quest to outmaneuver people they refuse to simply cut off or charge more. They just up and decided that they could 'shape' my traffic to not only prevent it from harming their network, but that they could 'shape' my traffic to prevent someone else from harming their network. (If I'm not in their 'extreme downloaders' demographic, why is my traffic getting molested?) * They decided to change their shaping policy without telling anyone. And to add insult to injury, they then denied doing what they were quite clearly doing for months. * And what were they doing? Effectively impersonating my devices. If they want to delay or throttle a stream, that's fine. But inserting data into the stream as if that data came from my devices? That is not OK. That is a violation of the trust principles the damn network is built on. * The DNS ads. I mean, really? Intercepting and perverting standard protocols to show ads? Incredible weak-sauce. It essentially removes "DNS lookup" as a service their subscription price pays for. And that list is by no means exhaustive.
    - kenjackson 16y ago
  - chopsueyar 16y ago
    I have Comcast for both business (at 2 locations) and for personal home use. To clarify, I only use Comcast for data, and I am reticent to call it an Internet Service Provider. Their business class service becomes saturated at the same time each day. They cannot guarantee any upload capacity. Clients are very hesistant to pay your hourly rate onsite while you wait for the Comcast guy to show up, so you can tell him to check the signal at the tap and run a new drop and new ground block and check every coax connection and splice (which should have been done during the original install). I do not watch ESPN or Nickelodeon, but you could probably spend less using medication to zombify yourself. Also, I was at a friend's house this Easter and was watching some Comcast using their DVR channel guide, and guess what? The channel guide now has banner ads on each page of the channel listings. You pay to rent a DVR that has banner ads? WTF? Is this what Stockholm Syndrome looks like? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      I do not watch ESPN or Nickelodeon, but you could probably spend less using medication to zombify yourself. Thanks, I come here to have snide remarks directed at me.
    - chopsueyar 16y ago
      [UPDATE] I forgot to mention, one of my clients had 'inadvertently' agreed to a 4-year Comcast business agreement with a $4,000 termination fee...and the guy next door has FioS (they won't write any contract for longer than 2 years), so yeah, fuck Comcast.
    - fragmede 16y ago
      Not to mention the set-top-boxes also show all the premium channels, and not just channels you pay for. They're shooting for the up-sell (or their backend is just that antiquated), but it's clear there exists a conflict of interest that won't result in better boxes from your cable-tv provider.
  - chopsueyar 16y ago
    Sorry I keep replying (am I really?)...I was looking at dish network, and they offer pretty much everything you listed with a better DVR that can stream to Android or iPhone devices... http://www.dishnetwork.com/tveverywhere/vip922/default.aspx http://www.dishnetwork.com/tveverywhere/vip922/default.aspx http://www.dishnetwork.com/tveverywhere/remoteaccess/ http://www.dishnetwork.com/tveverywhere/remoteaccess/ Here is a list of HD packages, and if you scroll to the bottom, you can add all those othr HD channels for another $10... http://www.dishnetwork.com/hdtv/default.aspx http://www.dishnetwork.com/hdtv/default.aspx
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      Dish requires an upfront payment of $199/$299 for the DVR. And you still pay for a monthly DVR service, per DVR. The monthly bill is comparable to Comcast except you have a big upfront payment that isn't refundable if you decide that you don't like Dish. Also Dish regularly battles the major networks, presumably on affilicate pricing, so its not uncommon that you'll lose ABC or CBS for a few days to weeks. I've never seen this happen with Comcast. And their On Demand content is puny, last I checked, compared to Comcast -- and it requires an internet connection.
ronnier 16y ago
Even a strong reason for cable companies such as Comcast to enforce their 250 Gb monthly transfer limit.
- ams6110 16y ago
  If "traditional" cable TV is to survive they are going to have to offer a-la carte channel choice. I'd pay $5-10/month per channel for the handful of channels that carry interesting content. I refuse to pay $100/month for the 90% of channels that are pure crap.
  - riobard 16y ago
    I'm not trying to defend the cable company (hate them anyway), but I just want to point out one potential problem with the thinking: it's very likely that the 10% of channels that you are interested is in the 90% of those that others think are pure crap. The original idea to charge a lump-sum subscription fee instead of a-la carte is precisely to combat this trap. Otherwise, many niche programs will not be available in the beginning.
    - chopsueyar 16y ago
      That makes no sense. A television network's survival depends on the ability of non-competing tv networks to subsidize its existence? Also, the major channels are probably available for free over the air in HD!
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
    - CamperBob 16y ago
      This was just an artifact of 'circuit-switched' CATV networks. With an IP-based network you can have 100,000 channels that cost nothing as long as they're not being watched. Literally anyone can start their own cable channel. (Starting to sound familiar yet?) In such an environment, a la carte programming is the only thing that can possibly make sense. The tiered plans are gone for good, and cable companies will just have to deal with it and get over it.
karolisd 16y ago
Is there a Netflix competitor? Is there room for another Netflix?
- jpwagner 16y ago
  what did you have in mind?
- AdamTReineke 16y ago
  Digital delivery: Amazon Video-On-Demand, Hulu, iTunes, etc. Physical rental: Redbox, Blockbuster, etc. Netflix does their job very, VERY well, making it hard for any new players to enter the market.
  - smackfu 16y ago
    But stuff like Hulu and Crackle shows how easy it is for the the content providers to start their own service and block Netflix from the content entirely.
    - roc 16y ago
      Hulu also shows how hard it is for content creators to capture customers with a new business designed primarily to protect their existing business.
- Dobbs 16y ago
  Amazon Prime offers free streaming videos. There selection anywhere as good as Netflix's yet but it seems to be improving.
- huangm 16y ago
  In the UK, there is http://lovefilm.com http://lovefilm.com Also interesting: http://zediva.com http://zediva.com
  - 18pfsmt 16y ago
    Actually, Amazon acquired Lovefilm in Jan. [1], and Zediva is being sued by the MPAA[2]. [1]http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/01/20/amazon-acquires-lovefilm-the-netflix-of-europe/ http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/01/20/amazon-acquires-lovefilm... [2]http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/04/mpaa-sues-zediva/ http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/04/mpaa-sues-zediva/
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
clistctrl 16y ago
I'm actually surprised... I thought the number would be far larger than 7%
- bpodgursky 16y ago
  Lots of families and couples have netflix collectively. I'd bet there are on average at least 2 or 3 people using each paid account.
  - w1ntermute 16y ago
    How does that work for streaming? Is it limited to one stream at a time?
    - bpodgursky 16y ago
      You're limited to 5 devices total... I'm not sure if you can stream on two at once.
      - thematt 16y ago
        You can. I share an account with other family members, we all stream and we all live at different addresses.
    - larsberg 16y ago
      My wife and I have been able to stream to a laptop and the Wii at the same time. But, I don't know if there are no restrictions, or if there are "only 1 device type at a time."
    - brown9-2 16y ago
      From https://www.netflix.com/Help?faqtrkid=4&p_search_text=simultaneous&srch=Search https://www.netflix.com/Help?faqtrkid=4&p_search_text=si...: Q. Can I watch movies instantly on more than one PC or Netflix-ready device? A. ... If you are on the Watch Instantly Unlimited plan or the 1-disc-out-at-a-time plan, you may watch only one device at a time. If you are on the 2-discs-out-at-a-time plan, you may watch on up to two devices at a time. Members on the 3-disc plan can watch on up to three devices. The maximum is four devices -- available for members on the 4-or-greater-discs-out-at-a-time plan. Your account can have up to six unique authorized devices activated (and associated with it) at any given time, including personal computers and Netflix-ready devices. For example, if you're on the 1-disc plan, you can have up to six devices associated with your account, but you can only watch one of them at a time. If you're on the 2-disc plan, you can have up to six devices activated but can only watch two of them at the same time.
pstack 16y ago
Great, then with that minimum $2.1b, they can start licensing some actual content. I love my streaming Netflix account, but most of the 20,000 items they have are B and C movies that don't even run on the cheapest cable channels anymore and an assload of terrible children's programming aimed at the toddler age group.
rickdale 16y ago
Netflix is terrible. You spend more time looking for stuff to watch than actually watching stuff. I know a movie is bad if it's available for streaming on netflix.
- thematt 16y ago
  I disagree, they have some great stuff and it's getting better all the time as they sign new contracts. In terms of discovering content, this is a great site for anyone who uses Netflix streaming regularly: http://instantwatcher.com/ http://instantwatcher.com/
- dminor 16y ago
  The most interesting thing about your comment is you consider Netflix a streaming-only service. Kudos to Netflix for being ahead of the curve here, despite the fact that streaming is much harder to implement and probably less profitable than their core DVD rental business.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    Actually their core DVD is less profitable. It costs them something like $1 to send you a DVD, and a nickel to stream you a movie. Notice that the Netflix site actually hides their premium packages (3+ disks at a time). People who aggressively watch and return DVDs to Netflix probably cost the company money.
    - chopsueyar 16y ago
      Are they getting special EC2 negotiated rates? A two hour movie streamed to me costs 5 cents in computing power and bandwidth AND Amazon is still making a profit? [UPDATE] http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/#pricing http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/#pricing This says 8 cents per GB data transfer out.
      - brown9-2 16y ago
        Streaming is not hosted on Amazon, it's CDN based. http://qcontokyo.com/pdf/adriancockroft.pdf http://qcontokyo.com/pdf/adriancockroft.pdf Slide 20ish
ShabbyDoo 16y ago
The cable companies' competitive response to Netflix has been laughable although no worse than any other established industry's response to disruption. The service Netflix provided from the beginning is a wide selection of content with little applied time on the customer's part. Going to the video store, picking out titles, and remembering to return them was a huge timesink. Netflix fixed that albeit at the expense of elapsed time. Then, Netflix drastically cut the elapsed time with streaming content. That the cable companies did next to nothing to combat this disruption is astounding given that they already owned and controlled a pipe into the customer's house! Imagine if, in 2002, the cable companies had come offered a little, Roku-esque box which could hold two almost DVD-quality movies. A consumer would have attached a Y-splitter in front of his existing cable box and then added this new box in parallel. The box then would have connected to the TV's analog inputs. One would have loaded up his box by going to the cable company's website and picking movies from a large catalog -- one movie for slot "A" and another for slot "B". Each slot would have taken 8 hours to download over the cable line and then could have been watched using a minimalist remote to pause, rewind, etc. -- just like a VCR. Consumers could have gone to their local cable company office and picked up this box along with unlimited movie service for, say, $20/month. I've purposefully suggested the crappiest, most minimalist implementation I could imagine as a thought experiment. Would this have been sufficient to combat Netflix? Presuming identical catalogs, why would I fiddle with snail mail, scratched-up DVDs, etc.? Such an offering certainly would have created an uphill battle for Netflix. It is not as if video-on-demand services had not been discussed since at least the early 90s. What I have proposed is worse than what was suggested even back then, right? So, why didn't the cable operators do anything? I'm bet it had to do with fear of cannibalizing existing revenue streams. Why pay for HBO (sans original content of course) if you could pick ANY movie? How many industries have hurt themselves by not cannibalizing their existing revenue streams with sufficient aggressiveness?
- there 16y ago
  Then, Netflix drastically cut the elapsed time with streaming content. That the cable companies did next to nothing to combat this disruption is astounding given that they already owned and controlled a pipe into the customer's house! huh? cable companies have had on-demand digital streaming for ages, and done through a cable box already installed in the customer's house. comcast has a lot of programming available for free that is included with monthly service, and their pay-per-view rates are pretty cheap.
portman 16y ago
Correction: now larger than any cable company was last year. The latest subscriber numbers from Comcast [1] are from September 2010, for Q3 2010, when they reported 22.937M cable video subscribers. It's conceivable that Comcast has been growing as well and has as many subs as Netflix. But the media loves a horse race! [1] http://www.cmcsk.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=523403 http://www.cmcsk.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=523403
- InclinedPlane 16y ago
  Comcast's subscriber base has been relatively stagnant, they've had circa 23 million subscribers since for the last half-decade. Netflix has been growing at 10-15% per year for the last several years. Netflix is still vastly under appreciated as a major player in media distribution, and has only started to gain more attention lately. The fact that they will likely continue to grow larger than any single cable company is significant.
  - portman 16y ago
    You're right. Their Internet subs are seeing 10% Y/Y growth, but their video subs are flat. Looking at the last 3 years, it's unlikely that Comcast will report any major uptick in video subscribers during their next earnings.
bambax 16y ago
> 7% of Americans Subscribe to Netflix... I subscribe to Netflix (streaming only, obviously), am not American and not located in America; they do check the IP but not as aggressively as Hulu, so if you use a proxy they don't seem to mind. I wonder how many of us there are?
- heyitsnick 16y ago
  What do you mean by 'aggressively'? I've connected to hulu through a big-brand VPN provider and had no issues yet; are they actively trying to block this?
  - bambax 16y ago
    Which brand? Hulu blocks Witopia for example, and all of EC2.
ck2 16y ago
I am sure the cable companies will be lobbying congress soon to get laws against netflix or allow them to throttle/charge them. It's far too good to last. I really hope I am completely wrong.
deleted 16y ago
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codex 16y ago
How does the number of subscribers to Netflix compare to the number of subscribers to all cable companies? In most areas, cable companies have a local monopoly, and so they tend to not go national for antitrust reasons.
rickdale 16y ago
I dream of a day when I can turn on my television or whatever, select a season, select an episode and boom I am watching the show. For me, OnDemand is miniature to what it could be. I have more shows on my HD than any cable company would offer onDemand. I will say Netflix has a lot of content, but in terms of actually enjoying a movie you find on netflix, imho the movie will be B grade at best.

299 points by mmcconnell1618 16y ago

chopsueyar 16y ago

Die Comcast, die!

kenjackson 16y ago
Why? I know hating Comcast is popular, but I've actually found them to be quite good, although expensive. With Comcsst I get a lot of HD channels. I get a dual tuner DVR w/ no upfront fees or commitment, just a rental fee. They have a pretty good sized on demand package, with the ability to continue watching content from any TV in the house. They've recently added the ability to control my DVR over the web. Comcast at the half the price is a pretty good service, IMO. I certainly wouldn't want them to die, as I currently have no other service giving me 4 HD ESPNs, Big 10 sports, HD Nick, HD Nick Jr, HD Sprout, and HD on demand for many network shows I watch.
- rawsyntax 16y ago
  comcast internet is slow in my experience. Much slower than advertised. Comcast has also done a lot of bittorrent throttling, given there are legitimate uses for bittorrent. Also in my local market there is comcast or att dsl. ATT dsl is slower than comcast, so I'm forced to pick the lesser of two evils.
  - dangrossman 16y ago
    If your Comcast internet is much slower than advertised, there's a problem, and it's likely fixable. It can be bad cables or splitters in the house, poor signal from being too many splitters from the source, a bad modem, wrong service settings for your account on Comcast's end, many things. If you call Comcast and are willing to do some serious troubleshooting with a technician at your house, you should be able to get the advertised speeds. I've done so at 7 different homes in the past 6 years, but only after doing some work at each one.
    - chopsueyar 16y ago
      I just need you to be available between noon and 5pm.
    - chopsueyar 16y ago
      This is fine for personal use (if you have the time to spare), but for a client's business this is impractical. How many hours of serious troubleshooting would you bill a client for? The last business I worked with had to have the tap at the pole replaced, plus new connectors and removal of many splitters.
    - rawsyntax 16y ago
      I hear what you're saying here. But I get to pay $40 a month... to have to troubleshoot and fix my own connection? I think comcast should stay on top of their shit, isn't that what we pay for?
- brandall10 16y ago
  It's much more the packaged content model that big cable props up. It's good it you watch tons of TV. But what if for instance you hardly watch TV, but only have a set of favorite shows? For instance, I really want to see BoardWalk Empire. But I can't without paying some $60+ month, because I have to buy the HBO package on top of a cable package. My only recourse is 1) see it at a friend's place, 2) wait at least 6 mos for it become available on Netflix/iTunes, or 3) illegally stream it. AMC does not have this problem, and I gladly buy HD seasons of Mad Men and Breaking Bad on iTunes the moment they're available (I actually prefer to pay for them, as I want to support this great content). But not with most other premium content, esp. HBO and Showtime where contracts with big cable preclude this activity.
- chopsueyar 16y ago
  What is your monthly Comcast bill AND what is your upload/download bandwidth?
- roc 16y ago
  > "Why?" A few reasons I'm not their biggest fan: * I have no choice in my area. * Comcast costs more, for less, than it does in neighboring towns where they compete. The brashness and sheer monetary disconnect between what they charge when they compete and what they charge when they don't casts a certain light on the rest of their shenanigans. (approximately 50%) * I can't get a residential cable internet package without paying more than if I got cable internet and television service. * They moved essentially all the popular cable channels out of the 'basic' television package during the DTV switch, under the auspices of people needing their digital set-top box anyway. Except that's a lie and they know it. It was just a convenient excuse for them to push popular channels into a higher-priced package. Channels that, conspicuously, are still basic in neighboring towns where they compete. * CableCARD nonsense. I never got a working card from them. The cards they're legally required to provide upon request. So a newer TIVO wasn't an option. And every conversation regarding the CableCARD involved a sales pitch to just get their (ad-bearing, convoluted monstrosity of a) DVR. * Their backwards router policies from yesteryear: when they would lie to, threaten and refuse service to their customers, because they didn't feel like providing the service they were advertising (an internet connection), but rather the service they felt like providing (an internet connection to a single Windows PC.) * The bandwidth caps and (more troubling) their inconsistent enforcement. * Their traffic 'shaping'. AKA screwing up my ISO downloads because they're on an anal quest to outmaneuver people they refuse to simply cut off or charge more. They just up and decided that they could 'shape' my traffic to not only prevent it from harming their network, but that they could 'shape' my traffic to prevent someone else from harming their network. (If I'm not in their 'extreme downloaders' demographic, why is my traffic getting molested?) * They decided to change their shaping policy without telling anyone. And to add insult to injury, they then denied doing what they were quite clearly doing for months. * And what were they doing? Effectively impersonating my devices. If they want to delay or throttle a stream, that's fine. But inserting data into the stream as if that data came from my devices? That is not OK. That is a violation of the trust principles the damn network is built on. * The DNS ads. I mean, really? Intercepting and perverting standard protocols to show ads? Incredible weak-sauce. It essentially removes "DNS lookup" as a service their subscription price pays for. And that list is by no means exhaustive.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
- chopsueyar 16y ago
  I have Comcast for both business (at 2 locations) and for personal home use. To clarify, I only use Comcast for data, and I am reticent to call it an Internet Service Provider. Their business class service becomes saturated at the same time each day. They cannot guarantee any upload capacity. Clients are very hesistant to pay your hourly rate onsite while you wait for the Comcast guy to show up, so you can tell him to check the signal at the tap and run a new drop and new ground block and check every coax connection and splice (which should have been done during the original install). I do not watch ESPN or Nickelodeon, but you could probably spend less using medication to zombify yourself. Also, I was at a friend's house this Easter and was watching some Comcast using their DVR channel guide, and guess what? The channel guide now has banner ads on each page of the channel listings. You pay to rent a DVR that has banner ads? WTF? Is this what Stockholm Syndrome looks like? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    I do not watch ESPN or Nickelodeon, but you could probably spend less using medication to zombify yourself. Thanks, I come here to have snide remarks directed at me.
  - chopsueyar 16y ago
    [UPDATE] I forgot to mention, one of my clients had 'inadvertently' agreed to a 4-year Comcast business agreement with a $4,000 termination fee...and the guy next door has FioS (they won't write any contract for longer than 2 years), so yeah, fuck Comcast.
  - fragmede 16y ago
    Not to mention the set-top-boxes also show all the premium channels, and not just channels you pay for. They're shooting for the up-sell (or their backend is just that antiquated), but it's clear there exists a conflict of interest that won't result in better boxes from your cable-tv provider.
- chopsueyar 16y ago
  Sorry I keep replying (am I really?)...I was looking at dish network, and they offer pretty much everything you listed with a better DVR that can stream to Android or iPhone devices... http://www.dishnetwork.com/tveverywhere/vip922/default.aspx http://www.dishnetwork.com/tveverywhere/vip922/default.aspx http://www.dishnetwork.com/tveverywhere/remoteaccess/ http://www.dishnetwork.com/tveverywhere/remoteaccess/ Here is a list of HD packages, and if you scroll to the bottom, you can add all those othr HD channels for another $10... http://www.dishnetwork.com/hdtv/default.aspx http://www.dishnetwork.com/hdtv/default.aspx
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    Dish requires an upfront payment of $199/$299 for the DVR. And you still pay for a monthly DVR service, per DVR. The monthly bill is comparable to Comcast except you have a big upfront payment that isn't refundable if you decide that you don't like Dish. Also Dish regularly battles the major networks, presumably on affilicate pricing, so its not uncommon that you'll lose ABC or CBS for a few days to weeks. I've never seen this happen with Comcast. And their On Demand content is puny, last I checked, compared to Comcast -- and it requires an internet connection.

ronnier 16y ago

Even a strong reason for cable companies such as Comcast to enforce their 250 Gb monthly transfer limit.

ams6110 16y ago
If "traditional" cable TV is to survive they are going to have to offer a-la carte channel choice. I'd pay $5-10/month per channel for the handful of channels that carry interesting content. I refuse to pay $100/month for the 90% of channels that are pure crap.
- riobard 16y ago
  I'm not trying to defend the cable company (hate them anyway), but I just want to point out one potential problem with the thinking: it's very likely that the 10% of channels that you are interested is in the 90% of those that others think are pure crap. The original idea to charge a lump-sum subscription fee instead of a-la carte is precisely to combat this trap. Otherwise, many niche programs will not be available in the beginning.
  - chopsueyar 16y ago
    That makes no sense. A television network's survival depends on the ability of non-competing tv networks to subsidize its existence? Also, the major channels are probably available for free over the air in HD!
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
  - CamperBob 16y ago
    This was just an artifact of 'circuit-switched' CATV networks. With an IP-based network you can have 100,000 channels that cost nothing as long as they're not being watched. Literally anyone can start their own cable channel. (Starting to sound familiar yet?) In such an environment, a la carte programming is the only thing that can possibly make sense. The tiered plans are gone for good, and cable companies will just have to deal with it and get over it.

karolisd 16y ago

Is there a Netflix competitor? Is there room for another Netflix?

jpwagner 16y ago
what did you have in mind?
AdamTReineke 16y ago
Digital delivery: Amazon Video-On-Demand, Hulu, iTunes, etc. Physical rental: Redbox, Blockbuster, etc. Netflix does their job very, VERY well, making it hard for any new players to enter the market.
- smackfu 16y ago
  But stuff like Hulu and Crackle shows how easy it is for the the content providers to start their own service and block Netflix from the content entirely.
  - roc 16y ago
    Hulu also shows how hard it is for content creators to capture customers with a new business designed primarily to protect their existing business.
Dobbs 16y ago
Amazon Prime offers free streaming videos. There selection anywhere as good as Netflix's yet but it seems to be improving.
huangm 16y ago
In the UK, there is http://lovefilm.com http://lovefilm.com Also interesting: http://zediva.com http://zediva.com
- 18pfsmt 16y ago
  Actually, Amazon acquired Lovefilm in Jan. [1], and Zediva is being sued by the MPAA[2]. [1]http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/01/20/amazon-acquires-lovefilm-the-netflix-of-europe/ http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/01/20/amazon-acquires-lovefilm... [2]http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/04/mpaa-sues-zediva/ http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/04/mpaa-sues-zediva/

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clistctrl 16y ago

I'm actually surprised... I thought the number would be far larger than 7%

bpodgursky 16y ago
Lots of families and couples have netflix collectively. I'd bet there are on average at least 2 or 3 people using each paid account.
- w1ntermute 16y ago
  How does that work for streaming? Is it limited to one stream at a time?
  - bpodgursky 16y ago
    You're limited to 5 devices total... I'm not sure if you can stream on two at once.
    - thematt 16y ago
      You can. I share an account with other family members, we all stream and we all live at different addresses.
  - larsberg 16y ago
    My wife and I have been able to stream to a laptop and the Wii at the same time. But, I don't know if there are no restrictions, or if there are "only 1 device type at a time."
  - brown9-2 16y ago
    From https://www.netflix.com/Help?faqtrkid=4&p_search_text=simultaneous&srch=Search https://www.netflix.com/Help?faqtrkid=4&p_search_text=si...: Q. Can I watch movies instantly on more than one PC or Netflix-ready device? A. ... If you are on the Watch Instantly Unlimited plan or the 1-disc-out-at-a-time plan, you may watch only one device at a time. If you are on the 2-discs-out-at-a-time plan, you may watch on up to two devices at a time. Members on the 3-disc plan can watch on up to three devices. The maximum is four devices -- available for members on the 4-or-greater-discs-out-at-a-time plan. Your account can have up to six unique authorized devices activated (and associated with it) at any given time, including personal computers and Netflix-ready devices. For example, if you're on the 1-disc plan, you can have up to six devices associated with your account, but you can only watch one of them at a time. If you're on the 2-disc plan, you can have up to six devices activated but can only watch two of them at the same time.

pstack 16y ago

Great, then with that minimum $2.1b, they can start licensing some actual content. I love my streaming Netflix account, but most of the 20,000 items they have are B and C movies that don't even run on the cheapest cable channels anymore and an assload of terrible children's programming aimed at the toddler age group.

rickdale 16y ago

Netflix is terrible. You spend more time looking for stuff to watch than actually watching stuff. I know a movie is bad if it's available for streaming on netflix.

thematt 16y ago
I disagree, they have some great stuff and it's getting better all the time as they sign new contracts. In terms of discovering content, this is a great site for anyone who uses Netflix streaming regularly: http://instantwatcher.com/ http://instantwatcher.com/
dminor 16y ago
The most interesting thing about your comment is you consider Netflix a streaming-only service. Kudos to Netflix for being ahead of the curve here, despite the fact that streaming is much harder to implement and probably less profitable than their core DVD rental business.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  Actually their core DVD is less profitable. It costs them something like $1 to send you a DVD, and a nickel to stream you a movie. Notice that the Netflix site actually hides their premium packages (3+ disks at a time). People who aggressively watch and return DVDs to Netflix probably cost the company money.
  - chopsueyar 16y ago
    Are they getting special EC2 negotiated rates? A two hour movie streamed to me costs 5 cents in computing power and bandwidth AND Amazon is still making a profit? [UPDATE] http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/#pricing http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/#pricing This says 8 cents per GB data transfer out.
    - brown9-2 16y ago
      Streaming is not hosted on Amazon, it's CDN based. http://qcontokyo.com/pdf/adriancockroft.pdf http://qcontokyo.com/pdf/adriancockroft.pdf Slide 20ish

ShabbyDoo 16y ago

The cable companies' competitive response to Netflix has been laughable although no worse than any other established industry's response to disruption. The service Netflix provided from the beginning is a wide selection of content with little applied time on the customer's part. Going to the video store, picking out titles, and remembering to return them was a huge timesink. Netflix fixed that albeit at the expense of elapsed time. Then, Netflix drastically cut the elapsed time with streaming content. That the cable companies did next to nothing to combat this disruption is astounding given that they already owned and controlled a pipe into the customer's house! Imagine if, in 2002, the cable companies had come offered a little, Roku-esque box which could hold two almost DVD-quality movies. A consumer would have attached a Y-splitter in front of his existing cable box and then added this new box in parallel. The box then would have connected to the TV's analog inputs. One would have loaded up his box by going to the cable company's website and picking movies from a large catalog -- one movie for slot "A" and another for slot "B". Each slot would have taken 8 hours to download over the cable line and then could have been watched using a minimalist remote to pause, rewind, etc. -- just like a VCR. Consumers could have gone to their local cable company office and picked up this box along with unlimited movie service for, say, $20/month. I've purposefully suggested the crappiest, most minimalist implementation I could imagine as a thought experiment. Would this have been sufficient to combat Netflix? Presuming identical catalogs, why would I fiddle with snail mail, scratched-up DVDs, etc.? Such an offering certainly would have created an uphill battle for Netflix. It is not as if video-on-demand services had not been discussed since at least the early 90s. What I have proposed is worse than what was suggested even back then, right? So, why didn't the cable operators do anything? I'm bet it had to do with fear of cannibalizing existing revenue streams. Why pay for HBO (sans original content of course) if you could pick ANY movie? How many industries have hurt themselves by not cannibalizing their existing revenue streams with sufficient aggressiveness?

there 16y ago
Then, Netflix drastically cut the elapsed time with streaming content. That the cable companies did next to nothing to combat this disruption is astounding given that they already owned and controlled a pipe into the customer's house! huh? cable companies have had on-demand digital streaming for ages, and done through a cable box already installed in the customer's house. comcast has a lot of programming available for free that is included with monthly service, and their pay-per-view rates are pretty cheap.

portman 16y ago

Correction: now larger than any cable company was last year. The latest subscriber numbers from Comcast [1] are from September 2010, for Q3 2010, when they reported 22.937M cable video subscribers. It's conceivable that Comcast has been growing as well and has as many subs as Netflix. But the media loves a horse race! [1] http://www.cmcsk.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=523403 http://www.cmcsk.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=523403

InclinedPlane 16y ago
Comcast's subscriber base has been relatively stagnant, they've had circa 23 million subscribers since for the last half-decade. Netflix has been growing at 10-15% per year for the last several years. Netflix is still vastly under appreciated as a major player in media distribution, and has only started to gain more attention lately. The fact that they will likely continue to grow larger than any single cable company is significant.
- portman 16y ago
  You're right. Their Internet subs are seeing 10% Y/Y growth, but their video subs are flat. Looking at the last 3 years, it's unlikely that Comcast will report any major uptick in video subscribers during their next earnings.

bambax 16y ago

> 7% of Americans Subscribe to Netflix... I subscribe to Netflix (streaming only, obviously), am not American and not located in America; they do check the IP but not as aggressively as Hulu, so if you use a proxy they don't seem to mind. I wonder how many of us there are?

heyitsnick 16y ago
What do you mean by 'aggressively'? I've connected to hulu through a big-brand VPN provider and had no issues yet; are they actively trying to block this?
- bambax 16y ago
  Which brand? Hulu blocks Witopia for example, and all of EC2.

ck2 16y ago

I am sure the cable companies will be lobbying congress soon to get laws against netflix or allow them to throttle/charge them. It's far too good to last. I really hope I am completely wrong.

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codex 16y ago

How does the number of subscribers to Netflix compare to the number of subscribers to all cable companies? In most areas, cable companies have a local monopoly, and so they tend to not go national for antitrust reasons.

rickdale 16y ago

I dream of a day when I can turn on my television or whatever, select a season, select an episode and boom I am watching the show. For me, OnDemand is miniature to what it could be. I have more shows on my HD than any cable company would offer onDemand. I will say Netflix has a lot of content, but in terms of actually enjoying a movie you find on netflix, imho the movie will be B grade at best.