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> What would change for you, if Netflix will change the terms from renting to buying? I don't subscribe to Netflix, but in my opinion if Netflix allowed downlo
by akjj 13y ago
> What would change for you, if Netflix will change the terms from renting to buying?
I don't subscribe to Netflix, but in my opinion if Netflix allowed downloading, what many people would do is make a list of movies they wanted to see, subscribe to Netflix for a month, download all the movies they could and then cancel. Then spend the next year or so watching the movies at over the course of a year or so. You don't get Netflix's recommendation features and everything's dated, but you could download many more movies in a month than you would want to watch. If people who were currently Netflix subscribers switched to this method, then Netflix would see its subscription rates drop. Since their costs would remain the same, they'd have to raise prices significantly. One of the advantages of Netflix is the low price, so many people would cancel outright, but first they'd want to build up a store of all the movies. Maybe some people would be willing to pay for a continuing subscription based on convenience, but I think that for the most part Netflix's user base would turn into one-month bulk downloaders.
- nitrogen 13y agoInstead you subscribe to Netflix, wait a few months to watch what you wanted to watch, only to find it was taken down. Most subscribers would still subscribe to a DRM-free Netflix, because it's considerably easier than maintaining a failure-prone array of hard drives to store everything you want to watch.
- gcb1 13y agothis is nonsense that is holding the industry. there are already copies with better quality than netflix available to everyone to download. and netflix is still in business. i still have to download those better copies in less than 2 hours when i want to watch something not on netflix or hulu. and i now hate it. i used to love when there were no convenient way to pay for it. so, quit the nonsense as it even goes against factual evidence
- akjj 13y agoThere are two separate issues: what is legal and what is possible. The downloadable copies you're referring to are certainly available, but downloading them is illegal. For many people, that makes a difference. The post I replied to specifically asked what would happen if Netflix changed its terms from renting to buying. I assumed that this meant that Netflix subscribers would be able to legally and conveniently download as many movies as they like during the period of their subscription. I continue to believe that such an option would lead to spiral of bulk downloading and Netflix price increases, but it's not an option that exists anywhere, so it's hard to say. Now, a different and more interesting question is what would happen if Netflix maintained the legal requirement to only view movies through streaming and not to store them, but eliminated the DRM. This would make their model comparable to Amazon's MP3 store, except with for video rentals rather music purchases. Netflix certainly think that such a model wouldn't work for them, and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. You can point to MP3 stores such as Amazon's to say it would work, but it's interesting that even though MP3 purchases are widely DRM-free, music streaming is still DRM-protected (as near as I can tell: correct me if I am wrong).
- gcb1 13y agothe whole point is that netflix and others have zero decision power in this. so i cant create a content distribution company that allows you to download and convert the movie to some format you need tonwatch on some roadtrip because the middle man says i have to sell it to you via streaming.