10 Million Reasons to Love Netflix

• Report this Comment On February 12, 2009, at 1:29 PM, molotov1221 wrote:

  Despite the strong support Netflix has in this article, being 17 I can speak from expirence and say that Netflix is overvalued. Movie watching among my peers is decreasing especially among the teen demographic. By that I mean that more and more people are downloading movies for free from torrent sites and simply bypassing the middle man. The reason why Netflix has a high stock value is that the aging (read adult) demographic is still in the process of discovering it. I predict Netflix will flatten out soon, and then will fall over a period of several years as the youth demographic comes of age.

  For this reason also, Blockbuster is dead, as are all movie destribution companies

• Report this Comment On February 12, 2009, at 9:42 PM, TMFSelzhanik wrote:

  "more and more people are downloading movies for free from torrent sites and simply bypassing the middle man"

  I'll ignore the fact that doing so is illegal theft, but being 33 and a software engineer nerd, I can speak from experience and say that it's very worth it to me to pay 15 bucks a month to let Netflix take care of this for me and avoid the hassle, even though I'm fully capable of utilizing the torrent sites and then piping the downloaded video to my TV via my home network and XBox 360.

  When I was 17, I would have had the same response. As the "youth demographic comes of age," they will grow up. Hopefully. Otherwise Netflix valuation is the least of our problems.

• Report this Comment On February 12, 2009, at 10:16 PM, pllntooz wrote:

  <i>"more and more people are downloading movies for free from torrent sites and simply bypassing the middle man"

  I'll ignore the fact that doing so is illegal theft, but being 33 and a software engineer nerd, I can speak from experience and say that it's very worth it to me to pay 15 bucks a month to let Netflix take care of this for me and avoid the hassle</i>

  Heh, yeah, the "aging demographic" is that first group of us who grew up with the internet already in place. I'm slightly older than TMFSelzhanik, and have been on the internet since long before the web existed.

  I too, am in high-tech and a total tech-geek. But it is far, far easier for me to pay NetFlix to ship me DVDs than it is for me to deal with torrents.

  Being 17 (and oh, how envious I am of you :) means you basically have little to no responsibilities in lift. There's no mortgage, no car payments, no credit cards to worry overly much about. No kids you need to spend time driving to and from school, a job to be getting to, then rushing home from to take the kids to their after-school activities, etc.

  Searching for and downloading torrents takes time I don't have, and storage space I don't want to maintain. I'd rather spend my time doing something else. If it's going to take me 2 days to download a DVD via bit torrent, why not just have NetFlix send it to me?

  That $15 a month isn't about lack of technology or lack of knowledge of technology. It's all about convenience and time. Something the "younger generation" will become all too familiar with once they are the "aging demographic" :)

  Paul - who wonders if there are any Archie sites with torrent access :)

• Report this Comment On February 12, 2009, at 11:28 PM, ezwind wrote:

  Without commenting on the legality issue, if it takes you 2 days to download a movie torrent, you either have an extremely slow internet connection or you're not as high-tech as you think you are. With a cable connection, it's easily possible to simultaneously download several movies in a few hours or so. And with most reasonably popular movies, searching for the downloads usually doesn't take any longer than it would take to order from Netflix.

• Report this Comment On February 13, 2009, at 9:46 AM, martinfools wrote:

  I second the comments regarding the downloading of torrent movies. Not worth the hassle and time. And good luck downloading something the size of a Blu-Ray. I use Blu-Ray for my hidef watching. I don't see the requisite bandwith coming real soon. I'll be using NF or BB for the foreseeable future.

• Report this Comment On July 23, 2009, at 3:29 PM, raider1234 wrote:

  Obviously considering that the demographic of this site is predominantly middle-aged many would tend to disagree with the first commenter. However, torrents themselves already account for up to 40% of all internet traffic, that is an important factor.

  Many torrent sites already give you information about the torrent you will download, for free and that is also conveniant. Regardless of legality, remember in the 19th century when tv didn't exist. It wasn't until the 20th century that media enterprises acted like middlemen between the consumer and the performance. That middleman is fading away.

  The US is 28th-29th in overall broadband speeds so it will take some time to catch up to other countries, however when you look it some areas of the country with Cablevision or Verizon Fios, etc, it shows you the potential for free broadband tv. Remember how in the 90s we were all still using dial-up?

  When we finally go into a depression eventually, people will have to make difficult choices which will mean cutting away expenses such as NETFLIX, now whether the depression/currency crisis occurs next year, or in 10-20 years is another story. However when it does occur they will be a dramatic shift in consumption habits for sure. Subscription based services pander to the middle aged group, that is why they are only a fad and will soon be no more.

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