8 ms·

Netflix Is Killing BitTorrent in The US

177 points by AndrewWarner 15y ago

emitstop 15y ago
I'm not sure that "killing" is the best word to use here. I would say that it is definitely making a dent. I've been using Netflix (and hulu) more and more, and torrents less and less. Being able to instantly watch is a huge incentive for me. I also like to think that my views help the show stay on the air. Realistically, Hulu and Netflix viewcounts probably don't count much, but better than nothing right?
ChuckMcM 15y ago
I don't find this surprising. "Piracy" is the expression of a market that is unserved, which is to say that a product is offered at price X, the consumers price is Y which is < X and the risk of piracy is Z which is <= (X - Y). The MPAA and RIAA and a bounty of plaintiff lawyers are trying to increase the cost of the risk, and people like Netflix are getting the price paid by the consumer below X. When the inequality ceases to hold, people switch into being paying customers.
- phlux 15y ago
  Actually, I dont buy this due to the fact that piracy is largly around fresh content, where netflix movie library is fairly old. Sure, it is getting better titles all the time - but given the fact that hollywood thinks that paying $30 to see a movie at home after it has been in the theatres for 60 (or was it 90) days is a viable price - You will always see piracy of the latest content. Further - given the quality of many of the movies that get released it is even more reasonable to expect this to continue. What will be interesting is when we see the first ever movie exclusively made for netflix streaming. That will denote a new era.
  - ChuckMcM 15y ago
    "Actually, I dont buy this due to the fact that piracy is largly around fresh content, where netflix movie library is fairly old." Do you have a citation for this? All of the places where people put numbers to piracy that I've seen (like the lawsuits against various anonymous folks) seem to span a whole range of content from older stuff to newer stuff.
    - phlux 15y ago
      My citation is that I am a Netflix subscriber -- and I have seen content available on the Tubes which is still in the theatres. I have a tough time finding new, contemporary content in the streaming lib of netflix.
      - ChuckMcM 15y ago
        Fair enough, so in context your piracy is all about fresh content :-) I try to be strictly legit in my digital content. The areas where I skate the line would be when I use the photocopier at the library to make a copy of a paper from a journal which I'm unwilling to pay $50 for a reprint for but I want a copy in my files. That being said, there is money being left on the table. If the reprints were $1 I would definitely buy them, if they were $5 I would still buy the ones I felt were seminal. Just another example of price elasticity in the digital economy. In my research on this topic most studies posit a more uniform distribution. Some specifically call out first sale doctrine issues like reselling last years version of AutoCAD on ebay. Perhaps our different understandings may be that I'm not thinking specifically of movies.
  - protomyth 15y ago
    I could see Netflix's library of older content taking the place of some fresh content pirating. There was a theory that the iPod dropped sales of new music because people now had an easy way to listen to their entire music library and "rediscovered" old songs. This lead to not purchasing new music for a period. Netflix could inspire much the same phenomena with the added bonus of newer content being added.
    - ChuckMcM 15y ago
      This I could see, there is an interesting phenomena that happens when you have your entire music collection on your portable device where suddenly you have lots of stuff to listen to without going to new sources. I know I'm personally stuck in the 70's :-) but sites like Pandora help expose me to artists I wouldn't listen to on a whim. This seeding effect was once the property of radio stations but more and more often I don't listen to the radio. If a similar effect occurs in video then I would guess there is a market opportunity for a video 'exposure' service ala Pandora for video customers. I wonder if any of the new streaming players are looking at that angle.
  - gojomo 15y ago
    Are you sure the 'fresh content' head dominates the aged long-tail? The fresh content will dominate top-N lists, sure. It will also dominate headlines, because it will more often be the subject of newsworthy early-leaks and enforcement actions. But there is so much more old content, and the collection/completist/sampling motivations so important for unauthorized sharing, that I could easily see the old content swamping the new in terms of total copies or total bandwidth.
    - phlux 15y ago
      This is HN, hopefully someone smarter than I could come up with an algorithm that could model content bandwidth activity. Content creates a spike of activity when it is "born" on the internet. Content maintains activity over the life of its availability. Activity may be a function of the contents [age, quality, rating, medium, popularity, relation to other content, etc] \It is a sequel, part of a set, etc. It would be interesting to be able to utilize the rating from netflix/imdb to predict how much total activity a piece of content might create.
veb 15y ago
Makes sense to me. If you torrent a movie, you have to find it from a decent place (otherwise it could be a completely different movie, shitty release etc) then you may need to find captions for it, if you need them. This kind of thing isn't actually easy for non-technical people. However I think it comes down to the fact: most people want to pay but shit is just so expensive otherwise.
- abecedarius 15y ago
  With netflix streaming you generally can't get captions at all -- unless that's changed recently? (I'm hard of hearing and their streaming is useless to me except for foreign movies, which do get English subtitles.)
- joejohnson 15y ago
  I don't have a hard time with most of these obstacles anymore. It seems that good quality rips of movies are pretty easy to find. However, I think torrent clients are just slightly beyond the scope of most people's technical expertise.
  - gedekran 15y ago
    Indeed. Peer review of files available will notify you of any problems. You only need one person with the technical expertise to set it up. I used to have my mother set up with torrents. All her tv shows were downloaded automatically. Often times she would watch it live and then delete the file, but if she missed watching it live then she had that file waiting for her. Also if she wanted a movie or older tv show, then all she had to do was click on a link on her desktop and search the website for what she wanted. Click on the torrent and it would download to the proper folder. These days it's the same except she clicks on something she wants and it is a nzb file. As well newly aired tv shows download for her automatically. I've noticed she doesn't watch as much live anymore. Though she is using Netflix more often now as well.
pdubroy 15y ago
The article doesn't actually offer any evidence, apart from the fact that Netflix has doubled its subscribers.
- enjo 15y ago
  Exactly. If anything I'd bet the opposite might be the case. After all, Netflix streaming and Hulu have both been an enabler for a lot of folks to drop their cable subscription altogether(my wife and I have, for one). The only problem is that there are still a few shows we really want to see (like Game Of Thrones) that we can't find a way to legally acquire. Without cable there is no HBO. I bet more and more people are going to be turning to piracy to get the content they want when they cut that cable cord.
  - sudonim 15y ago
    HBO on a cable subscription is still 15 - 20 clams. Even if it was available streaming or unbundled, that's still a lot more than the cost of netflix.
    - sukuriant 15y ago
      But I'd be much faster to pay 15-20 than 65+(15 to 20)=80+ and watch 5 channels + HBO.
      - robryan 15y ago
        I think cable misses an opportunity by forcing you to have a heap of channels you don't want just to get the stuff you do. I'd pay somewhere around $20 a month to get the probably 5 or so channels of any interest.
        MatthewPhillips 15y ago
        So.. what opportunity are they missing? The opportunity to get less money from their customers? Doesn't sound like much of an opportunity to me.
lotusleaf1987 15y ago
Easy trumps free.
- derekp7 15y ago
  Flat rate also trumps free. That's why Netflix is better than Comcast on-demand (at $1 to $5 per movie) -- I want the ability to turn off a movie after 20 minutes if it is junk, without feeling like I just wasted a couple Washingtons or a Lincoln.
  - earino 15y ago
    exactly. it lowers the risk associated with watching new things.
  - rhizome 15y ago
    Since the headlines the other day about Netflix overtaking Comcast, I predict that price is going to change very soon (but not so soon that it's seen as a proximate cause).
maratd 15y ago
From personal experience, this is only partially the case. Netflix IS more convenient and the cost is minimal, but their library is limited. I can download any movie/show I can think of via "alternative" means. That's not the case with Netflix, especially when dealing with foreign media that requires subtitles. Netflix still has a long way to go before I no longer have uTorrent running 24/7.
- Florin_Andrei 15y ago
  It will forever be "only partially the case", no matter how successful Netflix becomes. It's only a matter of proportions.
kbatten 15y ago
When I want to watch a movie, the first place I go to is netflix. I won't tell you the second place I go to. I'd pay an extra 5 bucks a month if it could increase the rate at which netflix lets me "play now" movies. Yes, some movies I specifically want to get on bluray, but there are plenty of others that video quality matters very little to me.
- warp 15y ago
  When I want to watch a movie I want to have a copy of it in some fashion. So the first thing I do is type "purchase mp4 <movie name>" into google. So far I have not been able to acquire a movie in that fashion, so the second attempt is usually obtaining an .mp4 through other means (which do not involve paying for it). I want an .mp4 because that works on more-or-less on all of my devices. xbox360 from usb-stick, sync it to the ipod, etc..
- garyrichardson 15y ago
  My DVD player broke right around the time that I got Netflix/AppleTV (I'm in Canada). I was planning on getting a new one, but turns out I can watch all the movies I want between Netflix and iTunes. Now I have a giant box of DVD's I spent $1000s on and aren't worth a fraction of what I paid.
- dhughes 15y ago
  When I want to watch a movie, the first place I go to is Netflix Canada, half of what I want is unavailable and it doesn't update very often (at least not this month) so the second place I go to not too hard to figure out.
  - pyre 15y ago
    But you're supposed to wait patiently while the studios' marketing strategy of segmentation plays out. Just like how people in rural areas of the US aren't allowed to form municipal ISPs to get internet service that the big players won't provide to them.</sarcasm> There are way too many people behind desks in large companies that develop marketing strategies that don't really take their customers into account, and if their customers behave in a way that breaks their model, the general reaction is to get angry at their customers for not playing to the tune of their flute.
jaysonelliot 15y ago
If I could rely on a streaming movie from Netflix to play uninterrupted and without flaws from beginning to end, it would be wonderful. That, and if I could find the movies I want to watch, of course. The reality for me, at least, is that I cannot watch two hours of streaming video from Netflix without the picture freezing or skipping at some point, even if it's just a little bit. I love film, and that's unacceptable. I need to either go to the store and get the DVD, rent a download (not streaming) from iTunes, or hit the high seas. I need to watch movies when I want, and I need them to play perfectly. That rules out Netflix, at least for me, at least for now.
- thecoffman 15y ago
  I wonder if that has something to do with your home network or isp? I stream HD netflix constantly through my bluray player and xbox and never have so much as a hiccup.
- danilocampos 15y ago
  This sounds like a network issue – though that doesn't take away from your point. In my case, I can Watch Instantly for an entire movie, in HD, without any trouble at all, and it does start almost instantly. If you're getting the bone, though, that points to the limitations any bandwidth-intensive business has to contend with as they scale. A decent number of potential customers are stuck with sloppy internet. I wonder at what point Netflix's growth becomes inhibited by the shitty state of US ISPs. More interestingly, I wonder what moves they'll make to get around those limitations. They are a crafty company.
  - jaysonelliot 15y ago
    It could be a network issue - but one that has followed me through two apartments, three routers, and four computers. The only constants in the equation have been Time Warner Cable and me. No matter what the cause, however, the fact is that streaming media is vulnerable to network issues, and downloaded media is not. It may take longer to get, but once you have it, you know you have it. I think your point about sloppy internet is so true. American ISPs are in a sorry state overall.
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- binxbolling 15y ago
  Um... I think they meant torrents in general, not BitTorrent specifically. Interesting rant though, I guess.
- emitstop 15y ago
  BitTorrent the company is hardly relevant anymore. Even if BitTorrent, Inc. went under tomorrow, I highly doubt the BitTorrent protocol would die anytime soon.
dfc 15y ago
The article fails to establish any causal link between Netflix subscriptions and decrease in bittorrent use. It is just as likely that an increase in Netflix subscriptions is evidence of a renewed interest in movies; and this renewed interest will also produce an increased demand for movies not yet available on Netflix.
ballard 15y ago
There's all watching canv.as. If you want an invite, hit me up.
ChrisMac 15y ago
For me it's the comfort factor. I stream Netflix through my Wii, so when I watch movies that way I get to sit on my couch and watch my big screen TV. When I watch stuff on my computer I have to sit in my uncomfortable desk chair and view my small-ish monitor. Getting my whole computer hooked up to my TV seems like a hassle at the moment. On the other hand, Netflix is always ready to go and that usually wins.
- dangrossman 15y ago
  There are many devices cheaper than a Wii that will stream video over a network, allowing you to watch your downloaded movies without connecting the computer directly to a TV.
  - gedekran 15y ago
    Exactly. I have a WDTV Live Plus that allows me to stream netflix and other services. Also watch any HD movie or tv show downloaded from the internet or a local drive/NAS. There are many such affordable devices out there offering that ability.
BadassFractal 15y ago
This is true for me personally. The Zune store, which is an all-you-can-eat music service has completely removed the need to download music from torrents/emule. I can just pay 10 bucks a month and enjoy all the content I want. Netflix follows the same approach and is even more successful at it.
- joejohnson 15y ago
  The Zune store is missing so much music that I want to download, so I wouldn't pay for it at any price. Torrent sites always have the best selection.
joelhaasnoot 15y ago
And yet, there's still nothing in Europe that has "all you can eat" streaming, just $7.50 movie rentals for movies from 2006...
- kleiba 15y ago
  I wish there was more than one upvote button to click.
- speleding 15y ago
  Well, we can access everything through http://www.unblock-us.com/ http://www.unblock-us.com/ for $55 a year and the US has been kind enough to provide an USD:EUR exchange rate of almost 3:2 so for the price of a single movie you can get a month long subscription to Netflix.
ANH 15y ago
To me, Netflix streaming is like some alien technology from the future. I live in a rural area with terrible broadband (miniscule monthly cap). However, I have an unlimited data plan for my phone and with a composite video cable I can plug my phone into the television and stream movies from the Netflix app. We've never had cable TV, and with Netlix and iTunes there's no point. Even over 3G, we get surprisingly good video quality.
- Encosia 15y ago
  If you're interested in how the sausage is made, I believe Netflix uses Microsoft's Smooth Streaming[1] to accomplish that (I know they use it for the in-browser client, but am not 100% positive about the native mobile apps). Smooth streaming is an under-appreciated tool, IMO. Given its power, you might reasonably assume it would be complex and expensive to set up, but it's a free extension to IIS if you have any recent edition of Windows Server and is amazingly simple to get up and running with your own video. [1] http://www.iis.net/media http://www.iis.net/media
  - henriklied 15y ago
    Smooth Streaming is certainly a great piece of technology, and thanks to the guys at Code Shop, it now works on several devices and using nginx, Apache and lighttpd: http://smoothstreaming.code-shop.com/trac http://smoothstreaming.code-shop.com/trac
    - kowsik 15y ago
      Netflix streaming is like the bittorrent protocol (lots of participant hosts and lots of chunked fetches). See this: http://labs.mudynamics.com/2011/04/07/mommy-netflix-is-eating-my-firewall/ http://labs.mudynamics.com/2011/04/07/mommy-netflix-is-eatin...
ZipCordManiac 15y ago
They just need a better distribution model for new movies and they would kill it completely. If I had to pay, say, 10c for a 24 hour new rental on top of the monthly I'd likely be using it all the time.
- dasil003 15y ago
  Yeah, and the studios just gave up 60% of their profit. They'll never sign that deal.
  - tomjen3 15y ago
    20c then. That is still more than they get if we just forage the movie.
    - dasil003 15y ago
      You're forgetting to factor in how much money they lose if the people paying $200 a month for PPV and premium channels just switch to paying $15 a month for Netflix.
kin 15y ago
Netflix is not significantly killing BitTorrent directly. For one, mainstream BT users are afraid of using BT. Non-mainstream BT users are using usenet 'cause it's just so insanely fast. People's favorite trackers are being shut down left and right and then there's the people who're now streaming legally. As much as I love Netflix, I still DL for any content it doesn't have (HBO and such), currently airing seasons, and new releases. I just can't justify $5 a movie rental or $1 an episode rental. On a side note one thing I really need is a way to stream the playoffs. I would pay $$ to stream the playoffs in HD, not just season games.
- baddox 15y ago
  There are plenty of non-mainstream BT users that use private trackers. Private trackers are superior to Usenet.
  - kin 15y ago
    I didn't rule out private trackers, I just failed to mention it. In any case, I personally find Usenet superior to private trackers but I can see it from the other side. They both have pros and cons. My main gripe with private trackers is that it's not as fast and I have to constantly worry about my ratio and seed. Granted, I pay for Usenet so it's a trade-off.
    - baddox 15y ago
      If you pay for a seedbox, you shouldn't have to worry about ratio. Torrent speeds from a decent tracker and seedbox will be insane (as in maxing out the seedbox's 100 or 1000 megabit pipe), and then you just FTP/SSH the files to your home. A decent seedbox costs around the same as Usenet access (cheaper if you split a dedicated seedbox with other people). Seedbox speeds will be comparable to Usenet, pre-times will almost always beat Usenet, and you can easily make requests through the tracker (this might also be possible with Usenet communities too). Also, good trackers have strict uploading and file naming rules, so you don't have to sort through crappy filenames or worry about corrupted files. Granted, there are probably Usenet communities that also address these problems.
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simpsond 15y ago
Us Netflix users should do everything in our power to show that Netflix reduces piracy. Then, the studios, which own all of the IP, will work out a reasonable deal and we will have a larger streaming library. I don't care if it's true or false, i'm just tired of the MPAA not getting with the program!
- sukuriant 15y ago
  "I don't care if it's true or false, i'm just tired of the MPAA not getting with the program!" I would much rather be honest; and I hope there is accurate, honest, unbiased evidence that can reasonably support the claim.
- dasil003 15y ago
  No, reducing piracy actually means nothing to studios. What they care about is making money. If piracy disappeared tomorrow but revenues did not go up, that is a worst-case scenario for the studios. They actually like having an scapegoat for their flagging sales, especially when it's illegal and opens up the opportunity for legal recompense. The truth is that the content companies are willing to play ball with Netflix because they make money, but they are also scared of Netflix's market power and the fact that they make much less per unit than they do from cable or DVD sales. The fact is Netflix is already capable of slashing someone's cable bill by 90%, and the effect on DVD/Bluray sales is potentially even more dramatic for certain consumers.
ivoflipse 15y ago
Perhaps the studios should consider letting it expand to Europe as well...
dmazin 15y ago
People often give reasons such as "Movies are too hard to acquire" to justify pirating movies. And Netflix solves them. Good for Netflix.
nkeating 15y ago
Interesting (& not surprising)that Netflix has proven to be a larger deterrent to piracy than anything the studios or government has come up with
- malnourish 15y ago
  Private industry!
rhdoenges 15y ago
The article isn't saying that netflix is really killing torrents but rather that it has the potential to do so.
- gedekran 15y ago
  It's impacting torrent usage. Likewise after I got netflix, I use usenet much less for movies and tv shows that they have available for instant streaming. Or want to download something much higher quality than what netflix offers currently.
iam 15y ago
Netflix has a long way to go before their quality is even as good as the "HD" channels on a Cable network.
barrydahlberg 15y ago
Grr. Piracy is still dominating down my way in NZ.
HelloBeautiful 15y ago
That is a bad news. If the movie industry succeeds in getting rid of privacy, the prices of Netflix subscriptions, BR disks, movie tickets, etc. will go way way up ... And those money won't go anywhere near the artists and other content producers. Plus ppl will be unable to use free software like Linux and Firefox to watch movies.
BonoboBoner 15y ago
When oh when will I finally be able to become a Netflix customer in Germany without having to deal with proxys, VPNs, etc?
omginternets 15y ago
Correlation != (causation || identity). For all we know, bittorrent rates could be falling for another reason and American consumers could be responding to this by opting for netflix. Come on... everybody should know this...
- DrHankPym 15y ago
  You're right that there could be other reasons for BT rates to be falling, but for me, personally, it's exactly what the article says: I prefer to use Netflix over BT.

177 points by AndrewWarner 15y ago

I'm not sure that "killing" is the best word to use here. I would say that it is definitely making a dent. I've been using Netflix (and hulu) more and more, and torrents less and less. Being able to instantly watch is a huge incentive for me. I also like to think that my views help the show stay on the air. Realistically, Hulu and Netflix viewcounts probably don't count much, but better than nothing right?

ChuckMcM 15y ago

I don't find this surprising. "Piracy" is the expression of a market that is unserved, which is to say that a product is offered at price X, the consumers price is Y which is < X and the risk of piracy is Z which is <= (X - Y). The MPAA and RIAA and a bounty of plaintiff lawyers are trying to increase the cost of the risk, and people like Netflix are getting the price paid by the consumer below X. When the inequality ceases to hold, people switch into being paying customers.

phlux 15y ago
Actually, I dont buy this due to the fact that piracy is largly around fresh content, where netflix movie library is fairly old. Sure, it is getting better titles all the time - but given the fact that hollywood thinks that paying $30 to see a movie at home after it has been in the theatres for 60 (or was it 90) days is a viable price - You will always see piracy of the latest content. Further - given the quality of many of the movies that get released it is even more reasonable to expect this to continue. What will be interesting is when we see the first ever movie exclusively made for netflix streaming. That will denote a new era.
- ChuckMcM 15y ago
  "Actually, I dont buy this due to the fact that piracy is largly around fresh content, where netflix movie library is fairly old." Do you have a citation for this? All of the places where people put numbers to piracy that I've seen (like the lawsuits against various anonymous folks) seem to span a whole range of content from older stuff to newer stuff.
  - phlux 15y ago
    My citation is that I am a Netflix subscriber -- and I have seen content available on the Tubes which is still in the theatres. I have a tough time finding new, contemporary content in the streaming lib of netflix.
    - ChuckMcM 15y ago
      Fair enough, so in context your piracy is all about fresh content :-) I try to be strictly legit in my digital content. The areas where I skate the line would be when I use the photocopier at the library to make a copy of a paper from a journal which I'm unwilling to pay $50 for a reprint for but I want a copy in my files. That being said, there is money being left on the table. If the reprints were $1 I would definitely buy them, if they were $5 I would still buy the ones I felt were seminal. Just another example of price elasticity in the digital economy. In my research on this topic most studies posit a more uniform distribution. Some specifically call out first sale doctrine issues like reselling last years version of AutoCAD on ebay. Perhaps our different understandings may be that I'm not thinking specifically of movies.
- protomyth 15y ago
  I could see Netflix's library of older content taking the place of some fresh content pirating. There was a theory that the iPod dropped sales of new music because people now had an easy way to listen to their entire music library and "rediscovered" old songs. This lead to not purchasing new music for a period. Netflix could inspire much the same phenomena with the added bonus of newer content being added.
  - ChuckMcM 15y ago
    This I could see, there is an interesting phenomena that happens when you have your entire music collection on your portable device where suddenly you have lots of stuff to listen to without going to new sources. I know I'm personally stuck in the 70's :-) but sites like Pandora help expose me to artists I wouldn't listen to on a whim. This seeding effect was once the property of radio stations but more and more often I don't listen to the radio. If a similar effect occurs in video then I would guess there is a market opportunity for a video 'exposure' service ala Pandora for video customers. I wonder if any of the new streaming players are looking at that angle.
- gojomo 15y ago
  Are you sure the 'fresh content' head dominates the aged long-tail? The fresh content will dominate top-N lists, sure. It will also dominate headlines, because it will more often be the subject of newsworthy early-leaks and enforcement actions. But there is so much more old content, and the collection/completist/sampling motivations so important for unauthorized sharing, that I could easily see the old content swamping the new in terms of total copies or total bandwidth.
  - phlux 15y ago
    This is HN, hopefully someone smarter than I could come up with an algorithm that could model content bandwidth activity. Content creates a spike of activity when it is "born" on the internet. Content maintains activity over the life of its availability. Activity may be a function of the contents [age, quality, rating, medium, popularity, relation to other content, etc] \It is a sequel, part of a set, etc. It would be interesting to be able to utilize the rating from netflix/imdb to predict how much total activity a piece of content might create.

veb 15y ago

Makes sense to me. If you torrent a movie, you have to find it from a decent place (otherwise it could be a completely different movie, shitty release etc) then you may need to find captions for it, if you need them. This kind of thing isn't actually easy for non-technical people. However I think it comes down to the fact: most people want to pay but shit is just so expensive otherwise.

abecedarius 15y ago
With netflix streaming you generally can't get captions at all -- unless that's changed recently? (I'm hard of hearing and their streaming is useless to me except for foreign movies, which do get English subtitles.)
joejohnson 15y ago
I don't have a hard time with most of these obstacles anymore. It seems that good quality rips of movies are pretty easy to find. However, I think torrent clients are just slightly beyond the scope of most people's technical expertise.
- gedekran 15y ago
  Indeed. Peer review of files available will notify you of any problems. You only need one person with the technical expertise to set it up. I used to have my mother set up with torrents. All her tv shows were downloaded automatically. Often times she would watch it live and then delete the file, but if she missed watching it live then she had that file waiting for her. Also if she wanted a movie or older tv show, then all she had to do was click on a link on her desktop and search the website for what she wanted. Click on the torrent and it would download to the proper folder. These days it's the same except she clicks on something she wants and it is a nzb file. As well newly aired tv shows download for her automatically. I've noticed she doesn't watch as much live anymore. Though she is using Netflix more often now as well.

pdubroy 15y ago

The article doesn't actually offer any evidence, apart from the fact that Netflix has doubled its subscribers.

enjo 15y ago
Exactly. If anything I'd bet the opposite might be the case. After all, Netflix streaming and Hulu have both been an enabler for a lot of folks to drop their cable subscription altogether(my wife and I have, for one). The only problem is that there are still a few shows we really want to see (like Game Of Thrones) that we can't find a way to legally acquire. Without cable there is no HBO. I bet more and more people are going to be turning to piracy to get the content they want when they cut that cable cord.
- sudonim 15y ago
  HBO on a cable subscription is still 15 - 20 clams. Even if it was available streaming or unbundled, that's still a lot more than the cost of netflix.
  - sukuriant 15y ago
    But I'd be much faster to pay 15-20 than 65+(15 to 20)=80+ and watch 5 channels + HBO.
    - robryan 15y ago
      I think cable misses an opportunity by forcing you to have a heap of channels you don't want just to get the stuff you do. I'd pay somewhere around $20 a month to get the probably 5 or so channels of any interest.
      - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
        So.. what opportunity are they missing? The opportunity to get less money from their customers? Doesn't sound like much of an opportunity to me.

lotusleaf1987 15y ago

Easy trumps free.

derekp7 15y ago
Flat rate also trumps free. That's why Netflix is better than Comcast on-demand (at $1 to $5 per movie) -- I want the ability to turn off a movie after 20 minutes if it is junk, without feeling like I just wasted a couple Washingtons or a Lincoln.
- earino 15y ago
  exactly. it lowers the risk associated with watching new things.
- rhizome 15y ago
  Since the headlines the other day about Netflix overtaking Comcast, I predict that price is going to change very soon (but not so soon that it's seen as a proximate cause).

maratd 15y ago

From personal experience, this is only partially the case. Netflix IS more convenient and the cost is minimal, but their library is limited. I can download any movie/show I can think of via "alternative" means. That's not the case with Netflix, especially when dealing with foreign media that requires subtitles. Netflix still has a long way to go before I no longer have uTorrent running 24/7.

Florin_Andrei 15y ago
It will forever be "only partially the case", no matter how successful Netflix becomes. It's only a matter of proportions.

kbatten 15y ago

When I want to watch a movie, the first place I go to is netflix. I won't tell you the second place I go to. I'd pay an extra 5 bucks a month if it could increase the rate at which netflix lets me "play now" movies. Yes, some movies I specifically want to get on bluray, but there are plenty of others that video quality matters very little to me.

warp 15y ago
When I want to watch a movie I want to have a copy of it in some fashion. So the first thing I do is type "purchase mp4 <movie name>" into google. So far I have not been able to acquire a movie in that fashion, so the second attempt is usually obtaining an .mp4 through other means (which do not involve paying for it). I want an .mp4 because that works on more-or-less on all of my devices. xbox360 from usb-stick, sync it to the ipod, etc..
garyrichardson 15y ago
My DVD player broke right around the time that I got Netflix/AppleTV (I'm in Canada). I was planning on getting a new one, but turns out I can watch all the movies I want between Netflix and iTunes. Now I have a giant box of DVD's I spent $1000s on and aren't worth a fraction of what I paid.
dhughes 15y ago
When I want to watch a movie, the first place I go to is Netflix Canada, half of what I want is unavailable and it doesn't update very often (at least not this month) so the second place I go to not too hard to figure out.
- pyre 15y ago
  But you're supposed to wait patiently while the studios' marketing strategy of segmentation plays out. Just like how people in rural areas of the US aren't allowed to form municipal ISPs to get internet service that the big players won't provide to them.</sarcasm> There are way too many people behind desks in large companies that develop marketing strategies that don't really take their customers into account, and if their customers behave in a way that breaks their model, the general reaction is to get angry at their customers for not playing to the tune of their flute.

jaysonelliot 15y ago

If I could rely on a streaming movie from Netflix to play uninterrupted and without flaws from beginning to end, it would be wonderful. That, and if I could find the movies I want to watch, of course. The reality for me, at least, is that I cannot watch two hours of streaming video from Netflix without the picture freezing or skipping at some point, even if it's just a little bit. I love film, and that's unacceptable. I need to either go to the store and get the DVD, rent a download (not streaming) from iTunes, or hit the high seas. I need to watch movies when I want, and I need them to play perfectly. That rules out Netflix, at least for me, at least for now.

thecoffman 15y ago
I wonder if that has something to do with your home network or isp? I stream HD netflix constantly through my bluray player and xbox and never have so much as a hiccup.
danilocampos 15y ago
This sounds like a network issue – though that doesn't take away from your point. In my case, I can Watch Instantly for an entire movie, in HD, without any trouble at all, and it does start almost instantly. If you're getting the bone, though, that points to the limitations any bandwidth-intensive business has to contend with as they scale. A decent number of potential customers are stuck with sloppy internet. I wonder at what point Netflix's growth becomes inhibited by the shitty state of US ISPs. More interestingly, I wonder what moves they'll make to get around those limitations. They are a crafty company.
- jaysonelliot 15y ago
  It could be a network issue - but one that has followed me through two apartments, three routers, and four computers. The only constants in the equation have been Time Warner Cable and me. No matter what the cause, however, the fact is that streaming media is vulnerable to network issues, and downloaded media is not. It may take longer to get, but once you have it, you know you have it. I think your point about sloppy internet is so true. American ISPs are in a sorry state overall.

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binxbolling 15y ago
Um... I think they meant torrents in general, not BitTorrent specifically. Interesting rant though, I guess.
emitstop 15y ago
BitTorrent the company is hardly relevant anymore. Even if BitTorrent, Inc. went under tomorrow, I highly doubt the BitTorrent protocol would die anytime soon.

dfc 15y ago

The article fails to establish any causal link between Netflix subscriptions and decrease in bittorrent use. It is just as likely that an increase in Netflix subscriptions is evidence of a renewed interest in movies; and this renewed interest will also produce an increased demand for movies not yet available on Netflix.

ballard 15y ago

There's all watching canv.as. If you want an invite, hit me up.

ChrisMac 15y ago

For me it's the comfort factor. I stream Netflix through my Wii, so when I watch movies that way I get to sit on my couch and watch my big screen TV. When I watch stuff on my computer I have to sit in my uncomfortable desk chair and view my small-ish monitor. Getting my whole computer hooked up to my TV seems like a hassle at the moment. On the other hand, Netflix is always ready to go and that usually wins.

dangrossman 15y ago
There are many devices cheaper than a Wii that will stream video over a network, allowing you to watch your downloaded movies without connecting the computer directly to a TV.
- gedekran 15y ago
  Exactly. I have a WDTV Live Plus that allows me to stream netflix and other services. Also watch any HD movie or tv show downloaded from the internet or a local drive/NAS. There are many such affordable devices out there offering that ability.

BadassFractal 15y ago

This is true for me personally. The Zune store, which is an all-you-can-eat music service has completely removed the need to download music from torrents/emule. I can just pay 10 bucks a month and enjoy all the content I want. Netflix follows the same approach and is even more successful at it.

joejohnson 15y ago
The Zune store is missing so much music that I want to download, so I wouldn't pay for it at any price. Torrent sites always have the best selection.

joelhaasnoot 15y ago

And yet, there's still nothing in Europe that has "all you can eat" streaming, just $7.50 movie rentals for movies from 2006...

kleiba 15y ago
I wish there was more than one upvote button to click.
speleding 15y ago
Well, we can access everything through http://www.unblock-us.com/ http://www.unblock-us.com/ for $55 a year and the US has been kind enough to provide an USD:EUR exchange rate of almost 3:2 so for the price of a single movie you can get a month long subscription to Netflix.

ANH 15y ago

To me, Netflix streaming is like some alien technology from the future. I live in a rural area with terrible broadband (miniscule monthly cap). However, I have an unlimited data plan for my phone and with a composite video cable I can plug my phone into the television and stream movies from the Netflix app. We've never had cable TV, and with Netlix and iTunes there's no point. Even over 3G, we get surprisingly good video quality.

Encosia 15y ago
If you're interested in how the sausage is made, I believe Netflix uses Microsoft's Smooth Streaming[1] to accomplish that (I know they use it for the in-browser client, but am not 100% positive about the native mobile apps). Smooth streaming is an under-appreciated tool, IMO. Given its power, you might reasonably assume it would be complex and expensive to set up, but it's a free extension to IIS if you have any recent edition of Windows Server and is amazingly simple to get up and running with your own video. [1] http://www.iis.net/media http://www.iis.net/media
- henriklied 15y ago
  Smooth Streaming is certainly a great piece of technology, and thanks to the guys at Code Shop, it now works on several devices and using nginx, Apache and lighttpd: http://smoothstreaming.code-shop.com/trac http://smoothstreaming.code-shop.com/trac
  - kowsik 15y ago
    Netflix streaming is like the bittorrent protocol (lots of participant hosts and lots of chunked fetches). See this: http://labs.mudynamics.com/2011/04/07/mommy-netflix-is-eating-my-firewall/ http://labs.mudynamics.com/2011/04/07/mommy-netflix-is-eatin...

ZipCordManiac 15y ago

They just need a better distribution model for new movies and they would kill it completely. If I had to pay, say, 10c for a 24 hour new rental on top of the monthly I'd likely be using it all the time.

dasil003 15y ago
Yeah, and the studios just gave up 60% of their profit. They'll never sign that deal.
- tomjen3 15y ago
  20c then. That is still more than they get if we just forage the movie.
  - dasil003 15y ago
    You're forgetting to factor in how much money they lose if the people paying $200 a month for PPV and premium channels just switch to paying $15 a month for Netflix.

kin 15y ago

Netflix is not significantly killing BitTorrent directly. For one, mainstream BT users are afraid of using BT. Non-mainstream BT users are using usenet 'cause it's just so insanely fast. People's favorite trackers are being shut down left and right and then there's the people who're now streaming legally. As much as I love Netflix, I still DL for any content it doesn't have (HBO and such), currently airing seasons, and new releases. I just can't justify $5 a movie rental or $1 an episode rental. On a side note one thing I really need is a way to stream the playoffs. I would pay $$ to stream the playoffs in HD, not just season games.

baddox 15y ago
There are plenty of non-mainstream BT users that use private trackers. Private trackers are superior to Usenet.
- kin 15y ago
  I didn't rule out private trackers, I just failed to mention it. In any case, I personally find Usenet superior to private trackers but I can see it from the other side. They both have pros and cons. My main gripe with private trackers is that it's not as fast and I have to constantly worry about my ratio and seed. Granted, I pay for Usenet so it's a trade-off.
  - baddox 15y ago
    If you pay for a seedbox, you shouldn't have to worry about ratio. Torrent speeds from a decent tracker and seedbox will be insane (as in maxing out the seedbox's 100 or 1000 megabit pipe), and then you just FTP/SSH the files to your home. A decent seedbox costs around the same as Usenet access (cheaper if you split a dedicated seedbox with other people). Seedbox speeds will be comparable to Usenet, pre-times will almost always beat Usenet, and you can easily make requests through the tracker (this might also be possible with Usenet communities too). Also, good trackers have strict uploading and file naming rules, so you don't have to sort through crappy filenames or worry about corrupted files. Granted, there are probably Usenet communities that also address these problems.

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simpsond 15y ago

Us Netflix users should do everything in our power to show that Netflix reduces piracy. Then, the studios, which own all of the IP, will work out a reasonable deal and we will have a larger streaming library. I don't care if it's true or false, i'm just tired of the MPAA not getting with the program!

sukuriant 15y ago
"I don't care if it's true or false, i'm just tired of the MPAA not getting with the program!" I would much rather be honest; and I hope there is accurate, honest, unbiased evidence that can reasonably support the claim.
dasil003 15y ago
No, reducing piracy actually means nothing to studios. What they care about is making money. If piracy disappeared tomorrow but revenues did not go up, that is a worst-case scenario for the studios. They actually like having an scapegoat for their flagging sales, especially when it's illegal and opens up the opportunity for legal recompense. The truth is that the content companies are willing to play ball with Netflix because they make money, but they are also scared of Netflix's market power and the fact that they make much less per unit than they do from cable or DVD sales. The fact is Netflix is already capable of slashing someone's cable bill by 90%, and the effect on DVD/Bluray sales is potentially even more dramatic for certain consumers.

ivoflipse 15y ago

Perhaps the studios should consider letting it expand to Europe as well...

dmazin 15y ago

People often give reasons such as "Movies are too hard to acquire" to justify pirating movies. And Netflix solves them. Good for Netflix.

nkeating 15y ago

Interesting (& not surprising)that Netflix has proven to be a larger deterrent to piracy than anything the studios or government has come up with

malnourish 15y ago
Private industry!

rhdoenges 15y ago

The article isn't saying that netflix is really killing torrents but rather that it has the potential to do so.

gedekran 15y ago
It's impacting torrent usage. Likewise after I got netflix, I use usenet much less for movies and tv shows that they have available for instant streaming. Or want to download something much higher quality than what netflix offers currently.

iam 15y ago

Netflix has a long way to go before their quality is even as good as the "HD" channels on a Cable network.

barrydahlberg 15y ago

Grr. Piracy is still dominating down my way in NZ.

HelloBeautiful 15y ago

That is a bad news. If the movie industry succeeds in getting rid of privacy, the prices of Netflix subscriptions, BR disks, movie tickets, etc. will go way way up ... And those money won't go anywhere near the artists and other content producers. Plus ppl will be unable to use free software like Linux and Firefox to watch movies.

BonoboBoner 15y ago

When oh when will I finally be able to become a Netflix customer in Germany without having to deal with proxys, VPNs, etc?

omginternets 15y ago

Correlation != (causation || identity). For all we know, bittorrent rates could be falling for another reason and American consumers could be responding to this by opting for netflix. Come on... everybody should know this...

DrHankPym 15y ago
You're right that there could be other reasons for BT rates to be falling, but for me, personally, it's exactly what the article says: I prefer to use Netflix over BT.