

Netflix Quietly Smothers 3rd Party App Ecosystem - johnb
http://goodfil.ms/blog/posts/2012/06/18/netflix-quietly-smothers-3rd-party-app-ecosystem/

======
talmand
I'm constantly amazed at the entitlement attitude so many have when it comes
to APIs and other people's data. Netflix wishes to change the rules on their
API so that it fits in with some broader strategy no one knows about, so what?
They wish to restrict the flow of data that they collect for their own uses,
so what? They no longer wish to allow third-parties to monetize data accessed
from a public API, so what? Regardless of what the article states, it is their
data and they can do with it as they please. A person's viewing history on
Netflix is not that person's data, it is Netflix's data as they are the people
who spent the money to collect it. No amount of whining or complaining will
change that.

I can understand people thinking this might be a bad idea for them and I agree
that it's possibly a PR mistake. But there is a difference between complaining
about access and demanding access to a company's data.

~~~
ctdonath
From article: _It appears Netflix considers what films you’ve watched and what
you thought of them as their data, not yours._

What you've watched & thought of it is, of course, your data.

However, Netflix is in no way obligated to act as your memory in when &
whatever manner you demand.

~~~
nmcfarl
They are not obligated. However, I'm fairly sure banks aren't obligated by law
to send you statements* - they certainly aren't obligated to let you download
them in, say, quicken format (who could be seen as a competitor). It's just
such a big feature that no one would do business with a bank that didn't offer
it.

Similiarly Netflix's APIs add value for customers, and apps and outboard
memory are/have been a big part of Netflix for me. Will loosing that make me
leave? I don't know - but clearly this is a major downgrade in their service.

\--

* It looks like they pretty much are obligated by law - thanks benatkin.

~~~
benatkin
I've been under the impression that it's required by law that banks send
statements, because I've been presented with the option to receive electronic
statements but never with the option to not receive statements at all. I
searched and found a U. S. government site where it says that statements are
required for accounts that have EFTs (which seem to include debit cards). So
my bank is obligated to send me statements.
[http://www.helpwithmybank.gov/get-answers/bank-
accounts/gene...](http://www.helpwithmybank.gov/get-answers/bank-
accounts/general-account-questions/faq-bank-accounts-gen-account-01.html)

I get an email each month, that I don't think I can opt out of, that says "New
(name of bank) eStatements Available" and links me to the bank's website,
where I can view and download it.

You're probably right that they aren't legally obligated to provide
transaction data in a machine-readable format.

~~~
gcb
everything is context.

banks used to that to gain customers. Some time ago, every developer working
at banks knew that customers were measured in cost per customer. You'd had the
cost to please them, and then you'd make money investing their money.

then, fast forward a measly decade, and banks are seen as obligatory. nobody
things about NOT having their money in a bank. So banks drop all of the
benefits, and we start to measure clients as profit per account. banks now are
profiting from investing your money AND holding that money for you just
because you never though about not paying the bank.

So, that's the time when we started to have some regulations and minimal
service the bank's supposed to provide.

~~~
sk5t
It seems unfair to me to paint all banks with this broad brush... credit
unions, and even some traditional banks, are quite worthwhile. There is a lot
of competition in retail banking.

------
biot
These look like great changes. An alternate interpretation:

1\. Third parties can't do nefarious things such as share my data with
Facebook or tell my insurance company should I have watched some "surviving
cancer" documentary in the past. They're enforcing laws which protect the
privacy of my viewing history.

2\. Someone can't gouge consumers by layering on additional fees to access
what you've already paid for. eg: "Want to watch Netflix on your mobile
device? That'll be $5/movie, please, and will show up on your next AT&T
statement."

3\. An application presenting itself as being a Netflix app can't pull the rug
out from under you and make it easy to accidentally click on an iTunes version
of the movie, get charged $4.99, and the third party gets an affiliate
commission.

4\. Third parties can no longer in bad faith scrape the Netflix database and
use it for non-Netflix purposes. Do they really need to enforce common sense
and decency here? There are many other sources for movie data if sites need
that info.

~~~
gcb
i'm pretty sure the previous one already covered all of that.

------
nicholassmith
Given how many companies are now rushing to get API's ready, opening them up
at hackathons and getting developers motivated this seems like a really big
own goal.

Consumers just like nice ways to use the services they're on, developers like
nice ways to integrated services into their projects. Companies like revenues
from people discovering their service outside of their normal channels. So,
without knowing their genuine reasons for changing the API access it seems
like Netflix basically have made a really stupid decision.

~~~
debacle
From the sounds of it, they want to monetize their data.

~~~
nicholassmith
Which is really good, additional revenue streams are an excellent idea. Doing
it like this? Less excellent. There's probably much better ways to monetize
rather than upending the apple cart and having developers go 'huh, this isn't
a great idea'.

------
CGamesPlay
Netflix is in a battle with the VPPA, which covers video rental history
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act>). This smells
like some side-effect of a compromise they've been able to achieve in
congress. Netflix's "broader objectives" are unattainable without changing
some of the laws in the US, so they may be between a rock and a hard place
here.

~~~
waterlesscloud
Probably, but they've just managed to switch me from supporting them in that
fight to hoping they lose it.

Not that it matters one bit what I think, and they clearly know that.

------
mmanfrin
Good lord, what stupidity. The only usable netflix interfaces are the 3d party
ones. The vanilla site is atrocious.

~~~
jarrettcoggin
I mostly used their application on the PS3, but I also used the boxee
implementation for a while. And yes, I do agree with you that the website is
less-than-ideal.

~~~
sujal
Those are official apps, though, right? They shouldn't be affected by this
because they're probably covered by terms negotiated between the platform
provider & Netflix?

~~~
jarrettcoggin
They are official apps (PS3, Wii, XBox), but not Boxee's implementation. That
type of thing is what would be detracted from in this case.

------
binaryorganic
Updated:

Update: We’ve received word that the new API Terms of Use aren’t as sinister
as on first glance. From VentureBeat:

We are not prohibiting sites from showing competing services, however we do
not want anyone to use Netflix content such as titles and descriptions to
advertise a competing service.

We’re not prohibiting developers from monetizing their applications by selling
them directly to consumers. We will not, however, permit resale of our
information in a business-to-business fashion.

------
sp332
From Nils in the comments there:

 _All developers should stop integrating netflix in their services and
concentrate on the competition. They have nothing to lose as they are not
allowed to make money using netflix anyways._

Can anyone see this going any other way? There will be no 3rd party apps
supporting Netflix anymore.

------
edandersen
The bean counters are out in force. Must be a sign that they are threatened.

------
revorad
Don't forget Amazon does the same for physical goods purchases (I don't know
about their streaming service). Your purchase history is not available via
their API. Product reviews are also no longer available via their API.

They don't mind listing their products alongside other retailers. Otherwise
many shopping comparison engines would go bust. They probably allow it, not
from the goodness of their hearts, but only because it drives sales seeing
that they usually come out on top in price comparisons.

Netflix probably doesn't make much money off people coming to them via
comparison apps (because they are already signed up anyway).

Building your entire business on top of one or two powerful companies' data
and APIs will always be extremely risky. So, it's best left for hobby apps.

------
IsleofElba
My take on this is simple: many competitors (Hulu, Amazon, Verizon, Comcast,
etc.) are likely using the API or screen scraping services like Instantwatcher
to gain critical competitive data about Netflix's catalog size and
composition, deal term length, content popularity, etc. With the former
dataset, you could basically build a list of average contract term length,
suppliers, genres, popularity, etc. What leads me to believe this is the case
is they first killed expiration date - obscuring when titles expire makes it
difficult for competitors to pick of your best stuff. The recent changes
probably came after Netflix took a closer look at how the API was being
utilized.

------
nestlequ1k
Another bad decision in a long stream of management incompetence.

~~~
walru
From this vantage point they look like the next Blackberry. A company with so
much going for it you'll look back and wonder how they threw it all away.

~~~
lukeschlather
I don't think it's really fair to Netflix to say they're throwing anything
away. They exist totally at the pleasure of big content, and big content has
decided that they want people to use cable. There's not really anything you
can do when your distributors buy out one of your competitors and start to cut
out the middle man (you.)

~~~
cookiecaper
I hope the [relative] corpse that Netflix will inevitably become is made a
poster boy for copyright reform. Netflix was used as the "streaming delivery"
guinea pig by big content, and now that they've seen it to be profitable, they
don't see why they should give Netflix a slice of the pie (thus comes Hulu). I
completely agree that the media companies are actively trying to harm Netflix.

Netflix, of course, is aware of this and is quietly attempting to procure
rights to in-demand programming. This is the motivation behind picking
Arrested Development back up. It's a good strategy if they believe they can
swing it, but it's very threatening to the media conglomerates (who are
already terrified of the internet); certainly a tough act to balance. Netflix
is between a rock and a hard place.

------
citricsquid
Your blog post is broken, the link to the netflix post is set as the title of
the href.

For anyone that wants to read it:
[http://developer.netflix.com/blog/read/Upcoming_Changes_to_t...](http://developer.netflix.com/blog/read/Upcoming_Changes_to_the_Netflix_API_Program)

~~~
geelen
And fixed. Thanks for the heads-up.

~~~
troels
johnb == geelen ?

~~~
geelen
John and I wrote the post. We're the cofounders of Goodfilms:
<http://goodfil.ms/help>

~~~
pooriaazimi
_My email client keeps crashing this evening for some reason, and what I want
to say doesn't fit into the 'feedback' page you have there, so I say it here:_

 _I'd like to use your site, but I don't have a Facebook account (removed it a
couple years ago), and don't want to be bothered to remember what my twitter
password (which I virtually haven't used once in the past years) was._

 _I understand why you might want to enforce a social network account (1.
engaging people to be more social and bring their friends and 2. simpler
management of accounts), but I personally have literally zero interest in what
my friends like to watch, and have never and would never use Twitter/Facebook.
Why can't I use your site? I know I'm not the norm, but you should allow
everyone to use your service. If you're valuable to them, they'll bring their
friends with them, and if they're not, then having their friends' usernames
won't help you. Registering and keeping track of users is absurdly easy, so I
think you should re-consider your choice of mandating social accounts._

 _(Sorry it's not relevant to this topic, just wanted you to know that there
are people like me who shy away from any and every service that requires
OAuth)_

------
Timothee
Regardless of your opinion on Netflix's decision, announcing any negative news
on a Friday afternoon (though I'm not surprised they did so) is bad form.

~~~
johnb
That's definitely what got us going. We wouldn't have even done the diff on
the legals if the blog post wasn't put up with such vague language so late on
a friday afternoon.

------
loudmax
This worries me as a customer. As a consumer, having access to other
interfaces, even if I'm not using them, seems like better value than however
Netflix thinks they can monetize their customers' viewing data. If they do
find some other income stream, maybe they can use it to keep pricing flat or
buy more content. But after the Qwickster debacle, I'm not too confident in
their ability to do this. Discouraging other enterprises from building
businesses around them isn't a good signal. If Netflix drives itself out of
business, I hope someone else (Amazon perhaps) will pick up the lead. I really
have no interest in getting a cable subscription.

~~~
talmand
I'm curious as to why you think a company discouraging a third-party from
building a business around them isn't a good signal of the survivability of
the company. Are you implying that Netflix needs these third-parties in some
way?

I would imagine that the vast majority of Netflix's customers not only do not
use this third-party app ecosystem, but that they have no idea it exists.

------
drone
I disagree with the author's assertion that the following point means you
can't sell an app that uses the Netflix API:

"charge, directly or indirectly, any fee (including any unique, specific, or
premium charges) for access to the Content or your integration of the APIs in
your Application,"

It seems pretty clear to me that this point says that you can't add additional
fees to include the Netflix API data in your app, or charge an additional fee
to enable such a feature. Nowhere does it say that you can't charge for an app
that includes the API.

However, that no enterprise-app statement is quite odd. I wonder what the
specific driver was for that addition? There was likely some straw that broke
the camel's back there, and it would be entertaining at the least (IMO) to
learn what it was.

~~~
fragmede
"charge... _any_ fee... for access... [to] (your integration of the APIs) in
your Application,"

It certainly reads like that to me. (How else are you supposed to use the APIs
in your application?)

~~~
drone
"(including any unique, specific, or premium charges) for access to the
Content or your integration of the APIs in your Application"

Is the actual text, the part you added was your interpretation of the meaning
- however, there are some indicators (starting with the parenthesized text in
the original) which imply you're reading it overly broad.

"For access to the Content" (the Content being the content served by the API),
and "or your integration of the APIs".

Nowhere does it say, "You may not charge any fee for any application which
accesses these APIs," which if it were the intent of the lawyers to ensure
that only "free" applications used the APIs, they would've stated so.

Instead, they talk about fees for accessing the content and fees for
integration, which seems to be to be clear that they are indicating that they
don't want people selling the content served by the API or charging extra for
using the Netflix API.

~~~
fragmede
The word 'any' precedes the parenthetical statement which I take it to mean,
well, any. You are free to interpret the word 'any' however you'd like. I must
say though, I do like your interpretation more. :)

From <http://developer.netflix.com/page/Api_terms_of_use>, section 1.9:

1.9 Appropriate Conduct and Usage Restrictions. You are responsible for your
own conduct while using the API and for any consequences thereof. You will use
the API only for purposes that are legal, proper and in accordance with these
Terms and any applicable policies or guidelines provided by Netflix from time
to time. In addition to the other restrictions contained in these Terms, you
agree that when using the API, you will not do the following, attempt to do
the following, or permit your end users or other third parties to do the
following:

...charge, directly or indirectly, any fee (including any unique, specific, or
premium charges) for access to the Content or your integration of the APIs in
your Application, or use the APIs to build an enterprise application (e.g.,
that you distribute to other companies);

------
rtkwe
What 3rd party app ecosystem? Honestly I've never used anything outside the
netflix.com client.

~~~
fragmede
I presume <http://abetterqueue.com> and <http://instantwatcher.com/> and the
like use the APIs as well.

One thing I like about instantwatcher is that title _do_ expire from netflix,
and instantwatcher will sort by expiration date:
<http://instantwatcher.com/titles/expiring>

~~~
rtkwe
Ok, so those are actually useful. Though it looks like Abetterqueue and
instantwatcher will still be allowed under the new API rules.

~~~
fragmede
Well, except that instantwatcher operates on the freemium model:
<http://instantwatcher.com/about_premium>

~~~
rtkwe
Ahh didn't look too hard at the app, my mistake.

------
jenius
Unrelated directly to the article's content, but I found your type extremely
difficult to read and reworked it in browser so I could read it more easily.
Here's how it looks and the modifications I made - hope this helps!

Screenshot: <http://cl.ly/HTyu>

p { font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7em; color: #555; } .hentry header {
magin-bottom: 1.5em; }

~~~
geelen
Thanks for the suggestion! I met you half way :)

~~~
Johngibb
I'd also suggest that you add some margin to your bullets - as it stands now
the bullet is further left than the text, and then the text lines up with
adjoining paragraphs. I think it would look better if the _bullets_ lined up
with the other paragraphs instead.

~~~
286c8cb04bda
Those are called "hanging bullets"[1] -- It's a very old typographic
convention that was up-ended by the default behavior of the web.

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanging_punctuation>

------
butterfi
Netflix's problems with user history may be relevant here:

<http://www.reelseo.com/netflix-privacy-problems/>

------
tylerlh
It seems quite clear to me that we are in dire need of a redefinition of 'my
data' and who owns it. IMO, if my brain thought it up and you aren't paying me
-- it's mine.

------
dr42
OT, but I wondered if anyone with the new MacBook Air (either i5 or the i7)
has tried Netflix to see if it still sets the fans spinning loudly, or if the
processor is able to handle it like the MBP can?

