6 ms·

I know the Netflix story is all about streaming now, but I'm kind of sad that according to the financials, Netflix's DVD section has halved its subscribers over

I know the Netflix story is all about streaming now, but I'm kind of sad that according to the financials, Netflix's DVD section has halved its subscribers over the last two years. That service definitely seems to be degrading, almost everything in my queue has become perpetually stuck on "very long wait," something rare for me of a couple years back. They're clearly winding things down. I don't know what happens in a couple years for anyone who wants to see an old movie. The streaming libraries are still incredibly thin. New releases will be available somewhere, sure. But we're facing the death of access for film history buffs or hardcore genre fans.

waylandsmithers 12y ago
> I don't know what happens in a couple years for anyone who wants to see an old movie Your local library? I've found some have a surprisingly good selection, and library networks probably make most movies available within a few days' wait.
wmf 12y ago
I wonder if things would have been better if the Qwikster spinout had happened. At least the Qwikster execs would be allowed to care about their business.
- arh68 12y ago
  Would this be a good time, then, for a Qwikster clone to pop up? Given the impending market opening? I wonder what they could do better catering to a narrower market. I dropped Netflix DVD service, but I'd consider something better.
  - wmf 12y ago
    That sounds like building an ISP to take customers from Comcast. If you could get all the customers at once it would work, but otherwise the lack of scale would be hard to overcome. Maybe we should convince Icahn to buy some Netflix stock...
thefreeman 12y ago
This is pure fantasy, but I feel like a good solution would be for Netflix to legally be allowed to stream X concurrent sessions of a movie with X being limited at the number of physical copies they own. Perhaps if all concurrent sessions are being used you could schedule your session for a different time window. It obviously wouldn't work for new content but might solve the issue for rare or older movies which you cannot find elsewhere.
- TD-Linux 12y ago
  Yeah, I agree with the pure fantasy part. Content owners would absolutely hate this. They also love DRM, and the content siloing that results.
- wmf 12y ago
  A slightly less unpalatable solution might be a compulsory license where anyone could stream any movie [1] as long as they pay 70% of $5 to the studio. [1] Any movie that has been released more than 90 days ago, etc.
- ASneakyFox 12y ago
  I beleive public libraries that support kindle use a system like this with books.
  - IceyEC 12y ago
    The library near me actually has to pay licenses for digital copies of books that they then get to 'check out' z number of times rather than based on the number of physical copies they have.
jonnathanson 12y ago
An article about that very topic made the rounds on HN about a month ago. It was interesting. Basically, it argued that a lot of classic and niche movies will reach the verge of de facto extinction once the DVD business finally dies. Netflix's streaming selection is indeed quite thin, especially on genre movies and classic titles. Same thing with the selection on most streaming services, and even on a la carte digital download services like iTunes. Netflix's DVD business has basically reached its point of exponential decline, and the only ones holding out seem to be the film buffs and aficionados. Even old folks are switching to streaming now. It's an interesting time to be a film lover, and by "interesting," I mean it in the sense of that curse about living in interesting times. My guess as to what happens next: we'll see the increasing breakout of streaming providers by genre or interest. Some genres will have big enough audiences to bear out the cost and logistics of running a business around them (for example, anime and Crunchyroll). Other genres might not be as lucky. And then there's the black hole: titles only available on DVD, or even VHS, because the companies who made them went under. In a lot of these cases, nobody bothers acquiring the rights and remastering the films, because from a business standpoint, the payoff just isn't there.
- brownbat 12y ago
  > An article about that very topic made the rounds Would love to read it if anyone can recall any search terms from the headline...
  - wmf 12y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8357406 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8357406 (I searched for "long wait" in comments from the last month since I remembered that that symptom was mentioned.)
- wmf 12y ago
  Can you not buy these old movies on DVD? Obviously it's more expensive, but it's not "extinction".
  - jonnathanson 12y ago

waylandsmithers 12y ago

> I don't know what happens in a couple years for anyone who wants to see an old movie Your local library? I've found some have a surprisingly good selection, and library networks probably make most movies available within a few days' wait.

wmf 12y ago

I wonder if things would have been better if the Qwikster spinout had happened. At least the Qwikster execs would be allowed to care about their business.

arh68 12y ago
Would this be a good time, then, for a Qwikster clone to pop up? Given the impending market opening? I wonder what they could do better catering to a narrower market. I dropped Netflix DVD service, but I'd consider something better.
- wmf 12y ago
  That sounds like building an ISP to take customers from Comcast. If you could get all the customers at once it would work, but otherwise the lack of scale would be hard to overcome. Maybe we should convince Icahn to buy some Netflix stock...

thefreeman 12y ago

This is pure fantasy, but I feel like a good solution would be for Netflix to legally be allowed to stream X concurrent sessions of a movie with X being limited at the number of physical copies they own. Perhaps if all concurrent sessions are being used you could schedule your session for a different time window. It obviously wouldn't work for new content but might solve the issue for rare or older movies which you cannot find elsewhere.

TD-Linux 12y ago
Yeah, I agree with the pure fantasy part. Content owners would absolutely hate this. They also love DRM, and the content siloing that results.
wmf 12y ago
A slightly less unpalatable solution might be a compulsory license where anyone could stream any movie [1] as long as they pay 70% of $5 to the studio. [1] Any movie that has been released more than 90 days ago, etc.
ASneakyFox 12y ago
I beleive public libraries that support kindle use a system like this with books.
- IceyEC 12y ago
  The library near me actually has to pay licenses for digital copies of books that they then get to 'check out' z number of times rather than based on the number of physical copies they have.

jonnathanson 12y ago

An article about that very topic made the rounds on HN about a month ago. It was interesting. Basically, it argued that a lot of classic and niche movies will reach the verge of de facto extinction once the DVD business finally dies. Netflix's streaming selection is indeed quite thin, especially on genre movies and classic titles. Same thing with the selection on most streaming services, and even on a la carte digital download services like iTunes. Netflix's DVD business has basically reached its point of exponential decline, and the only ones holding out seem to be the film buffs and aficionados. Even old folks are switching to streaming now. It's an interesting time to be a film lover, and by "interesting," I mean it in the sense of that curse about living in interesting times. My guess as to what happens next: we'll see the increasing breakout of streaming providers by genre or interest. Some genres will have big enough audiences to bear out the cost and logistics of running a business around them (for example, anime and Crunchyroll). Other genres might not be as lucky. And then there's the black hole: titles only available on DVD, or even VHS, because the companies who made them went under. In a lot of these cases, nobody bothers acquiring the rights and remastering the films, because from a business standpoint, the payoff just isn't there.

brownbat 12y ago
> An article about that very topic made the rounds Would love to read it if anyone can recall any search terms from the headline...
- wmf 12y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8357406 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8357406 (I searched for "long wait" in comments from the last month since I remembered that that symptom was mentioned.)
wmf 12y ago
Can you not buy these old movies on DVD? Obviously it's more expensive, but it's not "extinction".
- jonnathanson 12y ago