7 ms·

Netflix & Spotify are currently worth $275bn & $45bn. I think it's quite unlikely that such results would be achieved with a pay-x-get-y store model. Even Disn

by netcan 5y ago

Netflix & Spotify are currently worth $275bn & $45bn. I think it's quite unlikely that such results would be achieved with a pay-x-get-y store model. Even Disney & Universal, themselves enormously valuable companies, are greedily eying the platform model. It has everything they want. Recurring revenues. Content pushing abilities, which is usually the most strategically important asset. Platform monopoly potential, where most artists/studios take your take-it-or-leave-it terms. They don't hate you. They just do whatever is most valuable to them. They don't care about you. They may or may not value your custom, but that's about it.

ipaddr 5y ago
275 billion? Seems overvalued as we enter a new cycle of more services going online.
- outside1234 5y ago
  You are probably right, but remember that Netflix is essentially a worldwide leader in producing and distributing movies - something we really haven’t seen before.
wbsss4412 5y ago
You’re severely discounting the value Netflix and Spotify provide in discovery and ease of access. I vastly prefer those services because I don’t have much interest in managing my own library.
- dylan604 5y ago
  >You’re severely discounting the value Netflix ... provide in discovery and ease of access. What the what? Discover on Netflix? If you mean accepting what they think you want to watch based on their curated lists of what they want you to watch shoved into your face in their carousels of boredom, then I'm going to have to disagree with you.
  - wbsss4412 5y ago
    You don’t have to like Netflix, but as far as the UI goes, where are you finding better content discovery for shows and movies?
    - dylan604 5y ago
      They all suck. Look at each platform's verion of "Trending Now". It's just a rehash of titles in the other categories prominently displayed in "Just Added" or other some such listing of 10 to at most 20 titles. Of course those are trending because discovery of titles suck and people just give up and choose something that's right in front of them. I want to "discover" by browsing not the most current titles available in this current licensing window. I want to be able to browse from the evergreen catalog. I want to see the things that don't have a high dollar marketing campaign guaranteeing prominent placement. Maybe these platforms don't have a large inventory of evergreen content??? There are times I want to find some title that is older. The content that wasn't along the outer walls of Blockbuster.
      - wbsss4412 5y ago
        I would agree with you that that all suck, and the quality of Netflix has certainly gone downhill. But you pretty much answered your own question. The platforms don’t have giant catalogs of evergreen & niche content, because that is extremely expensive to license. That’s not really a discovery problem, though. The trade off is of course, the old buying/renting model. But that’s oriented much more towards the enthusiast consumer, which I am not and it would seem you are.
        dylan604 5y ago
        The evergreen titles are usually the back catalog of the various studios. However, since all of the various studios seem to be creating their own streaming service, I can see how Netflix might be short on that content. However, finding these titles on the various studio services is also not as easy to discover. Mainly because these nascent services know they have to get their A-list content out first to attract users. The process of bringing the back catalog stuff onto these new services will take time. In the meantime, we're just stuck being force fed what the studios want us to see.
- fxtentacle 5y ago
  To people like me, "discovery" is worthless. Most of the day we do things together in the real world as a family. Like building a Lego marble run for the umpteenth time. Kids have a lot of energy. That means us parents are willing to "waste" maybe 1 hour every evening to watch TV together. My wife's friends watch Emily in Paris. My friends watch Expanse and Silent Sea. So I already know the 3 series that I'm watching in the near future so that we can gossip about them with our friends. And if I want a movie, I can ask that one friend who has been giving me great movie recommendations for the past 10 years... When I think about using Netflix discovery and going down the rabbit hole of watching random stuff recommended by a robot, it kind of makes me feel pity for the lonely people who have nothing better to do than watch TV alone. I really can't imagine how that could be beneficial to the human doing it.
b3morales 5y ago
Netflix and Spotify don't model their service as a purchase, though. Netflix in particular is very clearly still shaped like a rental with their DVD service. I think of them as more convenient radio and TV: I can choose the thing I want, but I don't expect that it's portable. This is sharply contrasted with the so-called "purchase" model of Amazon or iTunes video, and even more with the way physical media works these days (comment above about Blu-ray).
- rhino369 5y ago
  True, but I think the parents point was that "buying" media was essentially dying anyway. Disney will still sell you a BluRay of Frozen if you want it, but they really want to sell you 65 dollars a year Disney+.

by netcan 5y ago

ipaddr 5y ago

275 billion? Seems overvalued as we enter a new cycle of more services going online.

outside1234 5y ago
You are probably right, but remember that Netflix is essentially a worldwide leader in producing and distributing movies - something we really haven’t seen before.

wbsss4412 5y ago

You’re severely discounting the value Netflix and Spotify provide in discovery and ease of access. I vastly prefer those services because I don’t have much interest in managing my own library.

dylan604 5y ago
>You’re severely discounting the value Netflix ... provide in discovery and ease of access. What the what? Discover on Netflix? If you mean accepting what they think you want to watch based on their curated lists of what they want you to watch shoved into your face in their carousels of boredom, then I'm going to have to disagree with you.
- wbsss4412 5y ago
  You don’t have to like Netflix, but as far as the UI goes, where are you finding better content discovery for shows and movies?
  - dylan604 5y ago
    They all suck. Look at each platform's verion of "Trending Now". It's just a rehash of titles in the other categories prominently displayed in "Just Added" or other some such listing of 10 to at most 20 titles. Of course those are trending because discovery of titles suck and people just give up and choose something that's right in front of them. I want to "discover" by browsing not the most current titles available in this current licensing window. I want to be able to browse from the evergreen catalog. I want to see the things that don't have a high dollar marketing campaign guaranteeing prominent placement. Maybe these platforms don't have a large inventory of evergreen content??? There are times I want to find some title that is older. The content that wasn't along the outer walls of Blockbuster.
    - wbsss4412 5y ago
      I would agree with you that that all suck, and the quality of Netflix has certainly gone downhill. But you pretty much answered your own question. The platforms don’t have giant catalogs of evergreen & niche content, because that is extremely expensive to license. That’s not really a discovery problem, though. The trade off is of course, the old buying/renting model. But that’s oriented much more towards the enthusiast consumer, which I am not and it would seem you are.
      - dylan604 5y ago
        The evergreen titles are usually the back catalog of the various studios. However, since all of the various studios seem to be creating their own streaming service, I can see how Netflix might be short on that content. However, finding these titles on the various studio services is also not as easy to discover. Mainly because these nascent services know they have to get their A-list content out first to attract users. The process of bringing the back catalog stuff onto these new services will take time. In the meantime, we're just stuck being force fed what the studios want us to see.
fxtentacle 5y ago
To people like me, "discovery" is worthless. Most of the day we do things together in the real world as a family. Like building a Lego marble run for the umpteenth time. Kids have a lot of energy. That means us parents are willing to "waste" maybe 1 hour every evening to watch TV together. My wife's friends watch Emily in Paris. My friends watch Expanse and Silent Sea. So I already know the 3 series that I'm watching in the near future so that we can gossip about them with our friends. And if I want a movie, I can ask that one friend who has been giving me great movie recommendations for the past 10 years... When I think about using Netflix discovery and going down the rabbit hole of watching random stuff recommended by a robot, it kind of makes me feel pity for the lonely people who have nothing better to do than watch TV alone. I really can't imagine how that could be beneficial to the human doing it.

b3morales 5y ago

Netflix and Spotify don't model their service as a purchase, though. Netflix in particular is very clearly still shaped like a rental with their DVD service. I think of them as more convenient radio and TV: I can choose the thing I want, but I don't expect that it's portable. This is sharply contrasted with the so-called "purchase" model of Amazon or iTunes video, and even more with the way physical media works these days (comment above about Blu-ray).

rhino369 5y ago
True, but I think the parents point was that "buying" media was essentially dying anyway. Disney will still sell you a BluRay of Frozen if you want it, but they really want to sell you 65 dollars a year Disney+.