Netflix Says It's More Scared of Fortnite and YouTube Than Disney and Amazon (cnbc.com) 135
An anonymous reader shares a report: It's not Disney's new streaming video service or HBO or Amazon that Netflix is worried about, the company said this week in its letter to shareholders. Netflix estimates it has already earned about 10 percent of all U.S. television screen time. The company also shared viewership statistics for some of its exclusives, boasting that "Bird Box" netted 80 million viewers in its first four weeks on Netflix, while "You" will get about 40 million over the same period.
Instead, it's newer forms of entertainment -- such as Fortnite and Google's YouTube -- that got shout-outs in the company's letter as stronger competitors. "Our focus is not on Disney+, Amazon or others, but on how we can improve our experience for others," Netflix said in its shareholder letter. "We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO. When YouTube went down globally for a few minutes in October, our viewing and signups spiked for that time." Further reading: Netflix's Biggest Competition Isn't Sleep -- It's YouTube.
Instead, it's newer forms of entertainment -- such as Fortnite and Google's YouTube -- that got shout-outs in the company's letter as stronger competitors. "Our focus is not on Disney+, Amazon or others, but on how we can improve our experience for others," Netflix said in its shareholder letter. "We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO. When YouTube went down globally for a few minutes in October, our viewing and signups spiked for that time." Further reading: Netflix's Biggest Competition Isn't Sleep -- It's YouTube.
Wow $2 broke the bank huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Netflix per month is still cheaper than a single movie in most theaters.
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Why does it have to break the bank for it to make sense? An extra $2 is past the threshold where it is worth it to this person. Don't get why you seem personally insulted by an individual rejecting Netflix's price hike.
Because that is a strange line to draw (Score:4, Insightful)
Why does it have to break the bank for it to make sense? An extra $2 is past the threshold where it is worth it to this person.
Yes but on the face of it, that seems like a strange threshold - as I said you can get, if you will, one "unit" of entertainment from a theater for maybe $16-$20.
So for less than that you get as much video as you want to watch for a whole month from Netflix. The slight change in price seems meaningless compared to value, compared to almost any other form of entertainment. It's also way less than the internet bill alone would be for most people.
Thus to me, the line seems kind of strange, especially that small an increase. Doubling the price, there I could see per year maybe that starts to be too much, even though it's still providing a lot of value. But it's nothing like that.
Re:Because that is a strange line to draw (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a bizarre way of looking at things.
"Value for money" is a bizarre concept to you?
***backs away slowly***
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It's your value system that's suspect.
Valuing entertainment is suspect?
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"Value for money" is a bizarre concept to you?
It's strange that you consider value for money to be described in "units of entertainment". Watching a shitty homemade TV series on Netflix on an average living room screen with a only above average sound system doesn't seem like a good value proposition compared to watching some blockbuster in a Dolby Cinema with friends.
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That's a bizarre way of looking at things. Sounds like someone trying to rationalize wasting money
Except it may not be a waste. Netflix spends much of their revenue on original content. So you pay a little more, and you get more quality entertainment.
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Awww, you went through all that trouble to peck that masterpiece out and then you went and copy&pasted it to the wrong article. What a disappointment.
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Except the movie in the theater is the entertainment "unit" you actually wanted to see. On Netflix you always have to settle for your second or third choice movie because their selection is shit. A friend let me use their account and I was underwhelmed. If I really want to watch a movie, which isn't that often, I'll just buy it on iTiunes which has frequent sales as low as $5, plus iTunes cards are frequently on sale for as much as 20% off. That way I actually get to see a movie I want to see, and not whate
I find the opposite to be true (Score:3)
Except the movie in the theater is the entertainment "unit" you actually wanted to see. On Netflix you always have to settle for your second or third choice movie
The thing for me is, these days lots of stuff on Netflix are things I want to see way more than I want to see any movie coming to a theater. I am talking about across the whole of Netflix, not just movies...
I am for example looking forward to the next season of Stranger Things way more than I care about any movie coming out this year. And when it
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> Even Incredibles 2 was not enough to drag me into a theater, I waited to rent it.
I *did* go to the theater for Incredibles 2 -- in hindsight I wish I waited like you. :-/
It's not that the movie was bad per se -- just don't think the bang-per-buck of an expensive movie ticket was worth it. Could have paid for another month of Netflix. LOL.
Two to seven days??? (Score:2)
Now if you say it's a book it's cheaper in general (usually) and would provide more entertainment (between 2 and 7 days).
I'm not going to cast shade on anyone's reading speed but I'm getting at most seven hours out of a book, and that's for a longer book...
That's still pretty good, but even though books can be cheaper than a month of Netflix (new ones are just barely cheaper than that at $10 even for a Kindle version, looking at you Three Body Problem), Netflix is still technically a better "value".
I say t
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Yes but on the face of it, that seems like a strange threshold - as I said you can get, if you will, one "unit" of entertainment from a theater for maybe $16-$20. So for less than that you get as much video as you want to watch for a whole month from Netflix.
Yeah, those who regularly go to the cinema - at least just to watch movies, and not as a social event - probably have an entertainment budget high enough that a $2 bump on Netflix is nothing. I don't even care, my running expenses will probably slow my savings for big-ticket items a bit but I never need to check if there's money on my account. But statistics show that a lot of people live paycheck to paycheck where every new expense has to come from cost-cutting somewhere else. Like you need to find another
Going to the movies is like subscription.... (Score:2)
Going to the movies is like subscription without subscription to 50 movies. You always pay per view for a selection of 50 movies. Regardless of the price, there are pros and cons:
Pros: enthusiastic audience, large immersive screen, excellent surround sound, excellently tasting junk food, absence of distractions dictated by anthropomorphized authority figures from giant screen.
Cons: enthusiastic audience, logistics burden, peer pressure to eat junk food, inability to discreetly check where else you have seen
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Everything that is available in the cinema is available for free a while later on FTA TV or by borrowing the DVD from your friend. So the value proposition is getting to see it sooner, be part of the buzz around it, and maybe make a night out of it.
Netflix is a bit different, because for most of their stuff the only way to legally watch it is to subscribe to Netflix. If anything that pushes the value of Netflix up.
I also prefer the episodic format of Netflix to longer movies in many cases. 3 hours is a big
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Why does it have to break the bank for it to make sense? An extra $2 is past the threshold where it is worth it to this person.
Yes but on the face of it, that seems like a strange threshold - as I said you can get, if you will, one "unit" of entertainment from a theater for maybe $16-$20.
So for less than that you get as much video as you want to watch for a whole month from Netflix. The slight change in price seems meaningless compared to value, compared to almost any other form of entertainment. It's also way less than the internet bill alone would be for most people.
Thus to me, the line seems kind of strange, especially that small an increase. Doubling the price, there I could see per year maybe that starts to be too much, even though it's still providing a lot of value. But it's nothing like that.
Well, that's how economics works. On the margin.
In any large enough market (and it doesn't have to be all that large), even a small price increase causes a decrease in sales.
There will always be some percentage of people teetering on the decision edge. Charge an extra $2/mo, and they say "screw it", as they were close to saying it anyway.
Countless suits have said "nobody will make their decision based on this" to their peril.
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Exactly. Why should I spend my hard earned money paying people in Hollywood to continue producing and pushing SJW propaganda? Sure, some of the stuff they do IS a bit entertaining if you can ignore the propaganda side of it, but there are plenty of other ways to entertain ourselves in today's world.
The reason price increases hurt (Score:2)
On balance reminding still better (Score:2)
I agree that is a reason why it may cause some subscribers to leave, but that is not the reason the original poster was saying they are leaving.
I would hope though that most recurring subscription services would be more keen to remind you that you have the service so you'll make use of it, than fear that reminding you means you will cancel... for any legit service reminders probably drive engagement much more than they drive cancellations.
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Netflix per month is still cheaper than a single movie in most theaters.
Netflix is not competition against going to the theater --- the movies available at theaters are not available on Netflix: only SOME movies from theaters will ever be available to stream Netflix, and for those you will have to wait.
Instead, Netflix is competition against going to Blockbuster and renting a video for $2 a night after its been released to video (and after the additional 28 day delay period Warner Bros. locked Netflix
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NFLX, thanks for encoutaging by constant price hikes.
encoutaging? English, please.
Netflix hasn't been constantly hiking prices.
https://www.recode.net/2019/1/16/18185174/netflix-price-increase-subscription-chart-original-content-streaming
Streaming price started at $8.
In April 2014, prices changed to $7.99 (Basic plan), $8.99 (Standard plan), $11.99 (Premium plan).
In October 2015, prices changed to $7.99 (Basic), $9.99 (Standard plan), $11.99 (Premium plan).
In October 2017, prices changed to $7.99 (Basic), $10.99 (Standard plan), $13.99 (Premium plan).
In Januar
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Streaming price started at $8.
That should be $7.99, not $8
I wonder if a deal could be made... (Score:3)
I know Netflix was talking in the abstract about competition for time, but it led to a thought...
You know what would be a really interesting deal, is for Netflix to be able to be played INSIDE Fortnight. Like you could literally have a wall material or a tag that was a Netflix stream of your favorite show, or moment in show...
Video tagging could be used to taught others just like the dances and tags now do, even better it could be used to distract the unwary.
Or you could simply wait out some dead stretches of time in-game enjoying a bit of some show you wanted to see.
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Good point (Score:2)
FortniteOS could provide an API for application developers to plug in to. Maybe the environment would end up being like Ready Player One.
That seems like a really good point. When you read or watch Ready Player One you automatically end up thinking of someone like Microsoft or Apple or Google, maybe even Sony being the company that creates that world (Sony tried hard with Sony Home).
But really who else has figured out better than the Fortnite people how to craft a world that people enjoy spending a LOT Of
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Second life kind of succeeded for a smallish group...
But all of those things tried to create a virtual world and have people find reasons to exist within it.
Fortnite has a ready made virtual world that people already enjoy being inside, that manages really well to marry combat and creativity - the two things people seek most from entertainment.
Fortnite is already a way more popular variant of Second Life than Second life ever was, as there are a ton more people for who Fortnite is indeed a Second Life - not
What part of that is made up? (Score:3)
Last year Second Life had around 600k users.
But Fortnite has over 78 MILLION [polygon.com] players (that's from late last year, more now).
What I am talking about is just from observation while playing the game, and knowing how much others play the game - and how they play.
If you think some aspect of what I am saying is incorrect, but there are tens of millions of people nodding their heads...
Seriously, spend some time in Fortnite on Squad mode and talk to the people playing there. Or just watch others play after dying i
Fake News (Score:2)
A) Second life never releases player numbers, what is your source?
B) The only verifiable info we have shows less than 600k players per day [secondlife.com] (scroll down about midway to view charts).
C) Even if your made up bullshit number were real, still as I said means that Fortnite is bigger than Second Life ever was.
Fortnite will be a shell of its current self in 1-2 years like WOW or anything else.
Why do you think that? I can't see it going into decline anytime soon. What's going to replace it, something from EA HAH A
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And you think the 78M that fortnite reports is not inflated?
After all, the game is initially free to play, so this 78M also includes me and others signing up just to check it out, never to return again. I totally agree on the conclusion that it will follow WoW once the hype is over. It looks like a nice game though if it's your thing to do.
Apart that, you are comparing apples to oranges. SL targets an entire different audience, that mostly if not solely come there for the social aspect. Bluntly put: fortnit
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And you think the 78M that fortnite reports is not inflated?
So by your silence you admit you are wrong about SL numbers. Good to hear.
Even though Fortnight numbers are inflated, even if it's half - still way more than SL.
The evidence is all around, when Fortnite dances are making national news and all...
Stop digging dude.
Apart that, you are comparing apples to oranges. SL targets an entire different audience,
Wrong. What I am saying is that SL contains a SUBSET of the total Fortnite audience, that Fortnite
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NETFLIX'S BIGGEST COMPETITOR IS MINECRAFT
Oops, wrong year. Now I look like a fucking idiot, mentioning the wrong fad.
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Actually would that not be a sweet Fortnite event? (Score:2)
Bird Box battle royale.
Fortnite likes to do events, would it not be awesome if they *did* in fact do a Bird Box session?
The idea would be you would have the ability to wear or remove a blindfold. You could at any time take the blindfold off but doing so for even a moment would yield a very high chance some kind of alien thing would spawn that only you could see and would be virtually impossible to kill...
For those running blind, you would be able to of course hear everything going on around you, and it wou
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Change playback settings to Medium from Auto (default) or High during last week of month/period?
How much entertainment can people consume? (Score:4, Insightful)
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I suspect that it's happening because it's becoming harder and harder for people to communicate with each other IRL. We are gradually becoming scared of experiencing reality without a digital filter.
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If you saw the loving and caring side of some other people, maybe you wouldn't.
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Casual, incidental nastiness is more common than casual, incidental love and care, unfortunately.
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The household activities have been pushed out because people just don't have time (between work and binge watching tv shows). People get a cleaning lady to come.
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Entertainment used to be something people did when they had a few minutes between working and regular household activities. For many people, consuming entertainment seems to be their primary activity, and everything else they do, revolves around that.
You're probably about 70-years late on that hot take. Television has been common for a long ass time.
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If work was fun, the wouldn't force you to do it.
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I max out my 401k every year (limit is up to $19k this year btw) and put money in an IRA (limit is $6k this year) and invest directly on top of that.
You should see if whoever runs your 401K supports the Roth mega backdoor.
The idea is that you can contribute after-tax money to your 401K, which goes into a normal after-tax investment account. But... then you can "recharacterize" that as a Roth contribution. You can do this with up to $37K annually. I'm sure you're aware, but for those who aren't: Roth IRA contributions are taxed now, but tax-free when you withdraw them after retirement. Not just your original contributions but any capital gains are ta
Conflating two different metrics (Score:2)
If you want to compare all of them, you need a new metric: Hours per person per year. Take the total number of hours by all persons spent watching movies or TV shows or playing Fortnite or spent on YouTube in a year, divide it by the population. That gives you the average number of hours
Streaming services (Score:2)
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Fortnight is big, but I think that on that note, the simultaneous impact of Splatoon 2 and Smash Bros. Ultimate are probably being underestimated.
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You sound jealous. It's noticeable. Get therapy.
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They're not scared of Disney/Amazon because they are all all-you-can-watch buffets. Doesn't matter whether you watch 33%-33%-33% or 25%-25%-50%. You can have all three without much trouble (and not even that much money.) And you can certainly pay for all three if each have some serieses you like. But Fortnight will take all your money if you're not careful, and YouTube will condition you not to pay for videos (with cash, just with ads.)
What's so hard about playing Fortnite? (Score:2)
Telling your parents you're gay.
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My anecdote (Score:1)
Interesting point about YouTube (Score:2)
I find myself watch things on YouTube more and more these days. There are tons of videos on all kinds of topics, including some of my hobbies. Much of it in easily consumable 10-15 minute clips. And it's free.
Hollywood productions and increasingly Netflix ones, are just full of political slant and anti-Trump stuff. Frankly, I'm getting a bit sick of it. I just want to be entertained, not lectured.
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I don't think the vast majority of their long term customers have any idea how to roll their own ROMS. I used to. If I cared about watching Netflix on a mobile device, I'd be careful which devices I put custom ROMs on. I'm quite happy to save Netflix for watching at home on my Nvidia Shield and 65" TV. I can't stand squinting at mobile screens. Plus my phone company likes to throttle stuff now that A Shit Pie has nixed Net Neutrality. They'd rather I subscribe to their digital video package.
Netflix is run by idiots (Score:2)
The company has run on a lucky fluke, being top of streaming when no one else was around, but now competent competition is emerging and they are worrying about markets they aren't even in or have plans to enter. It was nice knowing you Netflix.
In the End.... (Score:2)
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