RSS
Twitter
Facebook
Is Netflix like the Lindsay Lohan of streaming video?
For the past week or two, everywhere you turn, there’s a Netflix story. Netflix is pissing everyone off by jacking rates by 60%. Netflix stock is plummeting. Hey look everyone, Netflix split its company into two while getting out of a limo, drunk!
One of Netflix’s core features for the streaming as well as the DVD arms of the company is the all-you-can-rent business model. As a Netflix customer, for your $8 a month, you can constantly stream old seasons of Arrested Development to your heart’s content. This is a pretty good aspect, as it encourages constant use- but if you have a month or so where you’re not using the service, you could consider quitting- putting $0 in Netflix’s coffers.
At this week’s Goldman Sachs media conference, Netflix CFO David Wells said that the company is no longer closed off to the video on demand model, selling one-off access to its content over the pay-one-price model. Tech blog SplatF quotes Wells on the possibility:
Netflix has resisted this model in the past, Wells said, because it’s a low-margin business and complicates Netflix’s simple subscription offering. But now, “…in today’s sort of evolving and changing world, we’d look at a number of different options,” he said. “In terms of making it convenient for folks to find that content rather than going to a competitor, to another site, we certainly would look at it.”
While the possibility is in no way a definite, it would certainly be an interesting way for Netflix to broaded its user base as well as its bottom line.
