
Netflix catalog size shrinks by 50% since 2012 - hackerkid
http://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-catalog-size-shrinks-2016-9?IR=T
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kardashian007
I cancelled my subscription in 2010: the streaming catalog was pitiful and
mailing DVDs to-and-fro was just too inconvenient.

It's worse than a chicken-egg problem because it's a triple-ended market:
users, content sellers and content owners.

Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Amazon, TPB, TV, theaters ain't the final word in
content monetization (or lack thereof) and distribution (or also lacking). If
say Netflix were to split up their business into b2c subscriptions and b2b2c
fulfillment platform, more studios and others might opt to build their own
marketplaces but use the fulfillment service... which strengthens Netflix's
overall position and de-conflicts their interactions with studios because it
turns them into potential customers instead of just adversarial vendors whom
seem to want to charge too much for their catalogs. Let them find out how much
it costs to build and promote a streaming subscription service, and then they
may be more receptive to negotiating in reality.

~~~
brianwawok
Their self made content is where it's at.

Who cares about 100k old movies. Good stuff like House of Cards and Orange is
the new Black and Stranger Things with no commercials?

~~~
DarthMader
Agreed. On top of that Netflix is by far the best platform for Marvel
superheroes. Daredevil, Jessica Jones and now Luke Cage are quality shows that
would not work as well on TV and IMO have been far more enjoyable than most
Marvel movies. The extra 10 hours for these tv series afford writers an
opportunity to build better villains, examine more themes and more surprises.

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pasbesoin
A couple of years ago, in the U.S., Amazon Prime had some HBO and a few other
headliners, some overlap with Netflix, and otherwise kind of blew.

Since then, and particularly this year, Netflix is to the point where I can
barely find anything to suit me except when one of the Marvel series launches.

Amazon Prime still has the old HBO stuff -- to which they've added a few
seasons. And seem to be picking up a few non-original titles each month that I
actually don't mind watching. Some of the stuff disappearing from Netflix
seems to be showing up on Prime.

At the same time, they've lost a number of titles I enjoyed. But they seem to
be doing better than Netflix.

As far as I'm concerned, all Netflix past rhetoric about streaming being the
future, has proven to be crap.

I now kind of wish I had pirated, before everything started locking down so
much. In lieu, I'm paying attention to my friends who have accumulated an
amazingly substantial collection of discs. Especially if and where I can find
them at bargain prices, it seems a better application of my money. I can
rewatch at leisure, loan them to friends, and eventually rip them for
durability/longevity.

P.S. If I ever move somewhere where the public library isn't so distant, like
some other friends, I'll throw my active support (and not just tax dollars)
behind it.

~~~
dragonwriter
Netflix was the first, had everything [0], and then once they proved the
model, people threw money into competing with them, including buying
exclusives, but even when the fact that Netflix was no longer a monopsony
meant that the price for back catalog titles could only go up.

Netflix, predictably, did exactly what (e.g.) HBO did when the same thing
started happening, and shifted resources to original content, while still
filling the gap with other people's content.

> As far as I'm concerned, all Netflix past rhetoric about streaming being the
> future, has proven to be crap.

Streaming is, I think, still the future, its just that paying a monthly
service fee for the universal catalog of all streaming content (which works if
the vendor is a monopoly on the consumer side and a monopsony in their
relation to content creators, but not otherwise) is not. Instead, there'll be
places you buy long-term streaming rights to particular titles and places
where pay monthly for the privilege of streaming whatever's currently in their
catalog, for which the best quality stuff will usually be either first-party
or exclusively licensed, but there will also likely be some lower quality
(from the perspective of the broad consumer marketplace, not necessarily any
individual consumer) non-exclusive filler content, as well. (And there may be
outlets where you don't pay for streaming, but its advertising backed.)

IOW, just like Broadcast TV/Basic Cable + Premium TV + VHS/DVD/BluRay, but
with streaming.

[0] A dramatic exaggeration, obviously.

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douche
The biggest problem I have lately is that there is content that I would love
to pay to watch, if I could only find it somewhere.

For instance, I was thinking about some of the old History Channel shows that
I used to watch 15-20 years ago, before it went all
Hitler/Jesus/aliens/rednecks! Those have got to be out there somewhere, but
damned if I can find them anywhere. Short of trying to track down DVD sets or
hope that somebody out there is seeding a torrent of them, or maybe a non-
taken-down Youtube upload, I don't know where to look. Certainly not on the
official History Channel site. Same deal if I want to watch a non-classic old
movie from the 30s-60s, or, say Loony Tunes cartoons.

It is a little reminiscent of the problem with availability of books -
anything that was published early enough that it is in the public domain (pre
1920ish) can be found and mirrored easily, and works published in the last
10-20 years is generally available, but there is a vast gulf in between where
only the most notable or film-related works are easy to get ahold of. Of
course it is worse, since there is so little film and television that isn't
suppressed by Mickey Mouse IP law revisions.

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err4nt
Yes, Netflix is slowly turning from a library of old content into a network of
new content. As a subscriber, I'm 100% okay with this and so glad I have the
service. I'm not going anywhere else!

Will we continue talking about (and measuring) their dwindling library size
forever? At what point do we accept that Netflix is offering different content
than in the past?

~~~
herbst
From a swiss perspective, which may has a very different library:

They removed movie classics and replaced them with american stand up comedy
gigs (i dont know a single person watching these). They added a lot of
"international" movies which usually means subtitles. Their own series are
often ok, but not amazing, some simply really bad.

For me who used Netflix for passive watching mostly this is a deal braker, and
i am still left with no non-pirate way to watch movies.

