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> 2) NetFlix, Amazon Prime et al will become really popular as a result of all the customers saying "FU ComcastWarner" I agree with your first point, but your
by chimeracoder 13y ago
> 2) NetFlix, Amazon Prime et al will become really popular as a result of all the customers saying "FU ComcastWarner"
I agree with your first point, but your second point doesn't follow. If anything, Comcast will price gouge Netflix out of business, and we'll be back to being stuck watching their awful "On Demand" instead.
They can do this, because Comcast owns the content (NBC), the delivery mechanism for said content (cable TV), and the only delivery mechanism (broadband Internet) for their competitor (Netflix/Amazon Prime).
On the other hand, the (failed) merger attempt between AT&T and T-Mobile was the best thing to happen to consumers in a long time, due to the breakup fee that AT&T had o pay T-Mobile($1+ billion worth of spectrum).
I'm trying to imagine a similar silver lining that could happen here, though I can't think of any.
- rayiner 13y agoTo play devil's advocate, what it means is that Comcast has the better business model. After all, that's why Apple and Samsung dominate the cellular industry. iApps running on iOS running on an iPhone using an Apple A7 offers the ability to optimize the user experience and integrate the layers that vendors doing things piecemeal can't match. If Netflix et al want to survive, they have to evolve from being mere middlemen, funneling someone else's content through someone else's pipes.
- ClashTheBunny 13y agoApple is an integration house. The screen and the A7 are actually fabricated by Samsung. They would have a tough time going it alone.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- SEJeff 13y agoGoogle has threatened to go nuclear over net neutrality and open up their dark fiber network should things get ugly. Google has more fiber than most any one single company in the us and could be a legitimate threat should comwarner try to call their bluff. I have a feeling google would win that fight
- rayiner 13y agoI would love to see Google enter that fight instead of trying to regulate their competition away. Not because I'm that anti regulation, but because I don't appreciate the irony of Silicon Valley always bitching about regulation, but then demanding that the government create an artificial reality where owning the pipes doesn't give you a natural competitive advantage.
- hobs 13y agoWould you appreciate it if one supermarket bought all the food and then price gouged you 100 dollars for meat? I don't see how a monopoly helps anyone but the corporation, and even then just in dollars today. Strangling the entire market doesn't help anyone in the long run.
- yarou 13y agoActually, they wouldn't arbitrarily price their products that way. Companies engage in a little thing called price discrimination. The only difference in a monopoly is that you are the sole price leader. That doesn't mean you can arbitrarily set the price high. Most cable companies have monopolies thru license in municipalities.
- hueving 13y ago>That doesn't mean you can arbitrarily set the price high. You can if you corner the market and the good is required like food is.
- FLUX-YOU 13y agoYou'll get your stores raided if you control and gouge something like food and water though, possibly ending with a head in a grocery cart. Police might even help. Cable has a bit more leeway with the crowd I'd imagine, though there'd still definitely be consequences. Just not as dramatic consequences. I'd hope people protest gouged cable prices peacefully.
- cycrutchfield 13y agoExcept people often have no choice about which ISP they can use, whereas people have at least some choices in the mobile phone space.
- valas 13y agoComcast is relying on last mile monopoly. Samsung/Apple have alternatives.
- jcampbell1 13y ago> To play devil's advocate, what it means is that Comcast has the better business model. After all, that's why Apple and Samsung dominate the cellular industry. That is devil's idiot. I can choose between 4 different cell carriers and dozens of smartphone makers. Many people only have one option if they want >10Mbps internet. Fortunately I get to choose between Optimum and FiOS. Optimum gives me 60/25 for the basic rate to keep me from switching to FiOS.
- rayiner 13y agoI was addressing chimeracoder's point about vertical integration. There might be tons of Android manufactures peddling phones, but Apple and Samsung are eating up all the profits because they are verticicaly integrated. That's the major play Comcast is making. I wouldn't be surprised to see this coming soon to wireless. Imagine movie caching servers integrated into the backhaul network instead of going over the public internet. The improvement in QoS would make being a Netflix type entity untenable.
- jcampbell1 13y agoHe wasn't making a point about vertical integration, but rather about monopoly power. Perdue and Tyson are vertically integrated. They own feed mills, hatcheries, grow farms, packing plants, and distribution. No one cares because you can always just pick the package of chicken that costs $3.29 instead of $3.59. I also don't see how Samsung is vertically integrated. They don't make the OS, the App store, or have content/DRM. They have in-house manufacturing, but Apple doesn't. The two companies are vertically integrated in totally different ways, thus vertical integration is a weak argument for their success.
- rayiner 13y agoSee his second paragraph about owning NBC.
- jcampbell1 13y ago
- hristov 13y agoSure. Having a government backed monopoly is usually the better business model.
- dba7dba 13y ago>To play devil's advocate, what it means is that Comcast has the better business model. After all, that's why Apple and Samsung dominate the cellular industry. what?? Does Apple or samsung have any control on how much carriers charge? By your logic, ATT wireless, verizon wireless, and other cell carriers have to make their own cell phone and not just be a middlemen that funnel someone else's content on someone else's smartphone.
- Bud 13y agoWhy precisely does Netflix need to "evolve"? I like Netflix just fine as it is, thank you very much. The totality of current online businesses are using "someone else's pipes", so framing that as a criticism strikes me as distinctly hollow.
- gtirloni 13y agoI would say it needs to "adapt" to harsher market conditions created by these mergers, net neutrality gone, etc.
- rayiner 13y agoOnline businesses by and large use other people's pipes and that inherently makes them all vulnerable. Its like apps on iOS. Apple will always capture most of the value created by the ecosystem as a while, because they control the platform. App developers have little leverage. Its not profitable to be a sharecropper, but that's what online businesses largely are. Regulating and commoditizing the communications infrastructure into "dumb pipes" (I.e. net neutrality) is the only around that. Its regulation that picks winners and losers by telling an entire industry that they have to produce a commodity product so that online businesses can be protected from a flaw intrinsic to their business model.
- mattlutze 13y agoThis, I believe, is why Netflix is producing original content. Outside the US they license it to traditional networks as well (I've seen adverts for House of Cards recently through Sky here in Germany).
- brubaker 13y agoComcast should not be allowed to own NBC If this deal goes through, both companies should have to sell off all content companies and become strictly utility access providers.
- midas007 13y agoNetflix partnering with, or potentially acquired by, Amazon to take on other platforms makes sense. There needs to be consolidation and I think Bezos could do a better job bringing in bigger licensing deals.
- serge2k 13y agoSo your solution to defeating a monopoly is to form a monopoly?
- pelario 13y agoThat is called duopoly, and is less bad than a monopoly.
- k-mcgrady 13y agoA duopoly might help in America but for the rest of us (at least where I'm from) competition is working fine. I can choose between around 5 different providers for internet and/or TV with prices starting at as little as $35 per month for unlimited internet at around 20mbps download speed. I can also choose online between Netflix, Amazon/LoveFilm, free demand services such as BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD, and paid on demand services that come with certain TV packages (SKY on demand). In the UK competition in this space has never looked better in my opinion. It always amazes me that America, the champion of the free market, has such a fucked up telecoms (and by extension TV) industry.
- spellboots 13y agoIf you're in the UK, Zen Internet now offer £25/month truly unlimited fibre broadband. ~80mbps down, ~20mbps up, no traffic shaping / AUP or anything. I am so happy with my internet right now.
- k-mcgrady 13y agoThanks for the tip - looks like fibre isn't available in my area yet though.
- chalst 13y agoThey might want Netflix to survive in some form so as to avoid awaking the sleeping antitrust dogs. Same way as Microsoft found the Mac a useful argument against the "desktop monopoly" argument in the 90s.
- chc 13y agoIf they cared about that, I don't think they would be throttling Netflix.
- MagicWishMonkey 13y agoThey would simply enforce draconian bandwidth caps to disincentivize streaming altogether. It's not like many of their users could opt for a different service, anyway.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- talmand 13y agoI seem to remember that pointing at the Mac as a defense against desktop monopoly charges didn't work out too well for them in the end.
- chalst 13y agoWhat happened to MS in the alternate universe where MS openly vowed to crush Netscape and were as good as their word, after Apple went bankrupt in the early 90s?
- talmand 13y agoThey lost their antitrust case, which most of the harshest judgements were reduced or overturned later in appeal. In the end it was determined that they were a monopoly, the results of which include the things you mentioned, and some of their long held business practices had to be changed. After that Netscape eventually came back, and better, as Firefox and Apple doesn't seem to be doing so badly these days. I'm not understanding your point about an alternate universe in your statement. I must be missing something.
- ulfw 13y agoAnd how would this 'FU ComcastWarner' work in America? Anywhere you live you only have the choice of paying your cable provider, your telephone carrier or your wireless carrier for internet. - DSL infrastructure hasn't evolved in a decade or more. You're lucky to get mid-single digit megabits/sec. I had 0.7 mpbs offered to me in Mountain View by at&t. - Cable is the only speedy one, but they can price gouge you, limit the amount of traffic (see Comcast) and decide who to prioritize - Wireless is getting faster, but is severely limited in transfer packages. You'd be paying an arm and leg just to get a few Gigabytes in total per month. So tell me - how does this 'FU ComcastWarner' gonna work? Move to the one or two towns that have alternative internet (e.g. Fibre)?
- 00rion 13y agoWe could all pressure our local governments to provide municipal internet. Many cities have already created services that are much faster too.
- rjbwork 13y agoUnless/until the state or local governments pass laws that make that illegal and grant even stronger de facto monopolies to the cable companies.
- officemonkey 13y agoWe control our government. If they fail to act in our best interest it is our fault.
- kdot 13y agoYou're being very naive, Comcast has more control and access to government then 'we'.
- officemonkey 13y agoCurrently.
- abvdasker 13y ago> They can do this, because Comcast owns the content (NBC) You forgot Universal, which together still amounts to only a fraction of Netflix's content. There's a reason that Netflix doesn't carry many titles in their streaming service: it's already too costly to acquire the rights to stream them all. If Comcast were to raise the price on that content, Comcast could simply stop streaming those movies/shows. Given the size of their library at this point, I doubt any of this would be missed. The "content" you mention is no longer as critical to Netflix's business strategy as it used to be, especially as they move to more original content.
- josefresco 13y agoNetflix's original content only amounts to a fraction of the content available on Netflix. They do and will continue to be dependent on licensing this content.