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Anyone find it really weird that netflix doesn't run it's own datacenters? If the netflix business fails, they would have giant valuable datacenters leftover.
by soup10 14y ago
Anyone find it really weird that netflix doesn't run it's own datacenters?
If the netflix business fails, they would have giant valuable datacenters leftover. Instead by relying on the cloud, they are "all-in" on serving movies. The movie and tv studios have giant leverage here, they can easily make or back a competing service and users will go where the content is. Is their strategy for being on the cloud really, "it's easier than doing it ourselves?".
- edouard1234567 14y agoNetlfix always seems to be ahead of its time and I respect them for that! ;)
- whichdan 14y agoMaybe not necessarily easier, but it isn't part of their focus. Besides having collateral (the datacenters) what else do they gain? It's not like Amazon where they're providing infrastructure to other companies. I remember someone else on HN pointing out that there aren't many non-adult video providers the size of Netflix/YouTube/etc that aren't already rolling their own solutions or served by companies like Brightcove.
- ams6110 14y agoBy not having datacenters they don't have capital tied up in buildings, real-estate, staff/benefits at those data centers, they can be much smaller personnel wise and having much more of the staff focused on stuff that matters to customers. Customers don't care where the data center is or who is running it, as long as their movies come on when they want to watch.
- mikeash 14y agoIt sounds like you're recommending that Netflix should be in the data center business, with movies almost a side consequence of it. That certainly might be viable, but it's not the business they're actually in, and apparently not the business they want to be in. Additionally, data centers are a dime a dozen, while good streaming movie providers are much less common.