Netflix

“A shrewder group of executives would have realized that streaming would become the future and never have provided it to DVD renters for free in the first place. If a thing has value, and it costs you money to obtain and deliver, you charge for it. Good CEOs know that. Customers who wanted streaming content would have a choice: pay for streaming or forego it. Instead, Netflix gave away something of value, acclimated the customers to an entitlement, then abruptly shocked them with the real costs”.

I thought the same thing when they added streaming. Now we use the streaming every day and we’re going to ditch the DVD rental part. Everyone, it seems, is going to ditch whatever half they don’t use. Or all of it.

I was one of the first Netflix customers. At the time it was so much better than Blockbuster if you could stand to wait a couple days for your movies. I think it was right about the time I learned that Blockbuster made more than half of their profits from late fees that Netflix came along and I jumped on board. I remember telling people about Netflix and they had no clue what it was. Now it seems everyone knows. But they’ve really been messing up lately, and at a very bad time for them to mess up – streaming services are starting up everywhere.