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Posted by Bob on 02/11/06 15:08
On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 05:51:31 -0800, Sam Rouse <nospamfun@anymore.com>
wrote:
>All that this crusade is going to accomplish (if anything) is that Netflix will
>change their advertising, and/or apply a different monthly limit to each of the
>X-out plans. If the latter, those who normally rent within Netflix's profitable
>range will lose out on those rare times when they want (and are able) to turn a
>bunch of flicks around faster than normal. Either way, the crusaders will have
>their parade, and it will make no difference as to whether they find the service
>to be worth the monthly fee.
You are leaving out one important fact of reality, namely that NF does
not own the rental DVD market on a permanent basis. Someone is going
to come along and provide what the market wants for the price the
market is willing to pay.
If NF was profitable before it began throttling, then why does it need
to throttle now?
According to that article referenced earlier at
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060211/ap_on_bi_ge/netflix_throttling_6
NF claims it costs 78 cents in postage alone. Bullshit. That's what an
individual has to pay for First Class postage. NF has some sweetheart
bulk mail deal with the USPS. I am not going to attempt to guess what
the real cost is, but it sure isn't the same as putting 39 cent stamps
on a letter.
NF has gotten greedy, and that ALWAYS comes around.
I want to see movies downloaded. The technology is there to make
downloading affordable. MPEG-4 can compress a 45 minute show to as low
as 233 MB and still play decently on a 19: TV. For those who want
higher resolution, they can pay a bit more.
My Road Runner ISP runs at 4 Mbps (nominally 400 KBps) which means I
can steam a 400 MB file in 1000 seconds or 17 minutes. That's if it is
on the RR server. If I have to go over the Internet the speed slows
down considerably.
Therefore imagine that RR (owned by AOL) decides to get into the
downloading business. It can keep the content on massive servers at
each of the RR ISPs, so the connection speed will be 400 MBps. Charge
me a nominal fee and beat the crap out of DVD renters.
This is going to take one more appliance to work - the networked
player - like GoVideo. I download to my hard drive and then mount it
on the player over Ethernet or WiFi. The player is also a DVDR so I
can do the conventional things I can do now - all it has extra is the
ability to play files on the network.
--
"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession.
I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."
--Ronald Reagan
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