Ok, I'll admit I don't what it costs for Netflix or Apple to distribute content.
But since Netflix is taking a lot of the traffic and their subscription base is growing, can't Apple just turn the iTunes into a similar service? Would more people sign up for a $10 per month subscription to have unlimited access to the movies and shows on iTunes? And then perhaps Apple could get into content creation as we have been reading rumours about.
Ok, I'll admit I don't what it costs for Netflix or Apple to distribute content.
But since Netflix is taking a lot of the traffic and their subscription base is growing, can't Apple just turn the iTunes into a similar service? Would more people sign up for a $10 per month subscription to have unlimited access to the movies and shows on iTunes? And then perhaps Apple could get into content creation as we have been reading rumours about.
Just curious if this is a possibility.
Anything is a possibility except of course your $10 pricing for iTunes content...lol...
No. Ignore the numbers in this article in terms of what it means to either companies business. The numbers reported are at best, an interesting piece of trivia.
iTunes and Netflix are not in direct competition with each other. There is "some" overlap in what is offered by each service - but the services are mostly used in tandem with each other. iTunes is mostly used for music and for current season TV episodes as well as recent movies and movies not available on Netflix or Hulu+. Netflix has no music and no current season TV or movies.
If you want to watch everything - it's not a choice of one service or the other. You need both. Unless you've already seen everything Netflix has to offer - in which case you can cancel them and save a few dollars per month. People need to understand that all content is not equal - especially when a streaming service wants to acquire the rights to it. Newer content is MUCH more expensive than older stuff and that's why Netflix doesn't offer it, Hulu+ inserts ads and Apple charges per episode. The reason that content comes and goes on Netflix is because licensing agreements expire - and since Netflix can't afford to offer everything, all the time, they rotate content. If Netflix were to attempt to offer all of the same content that is available on iTunes for a subscription price it would be a hell of a lot more expensive than $10/month! Probably more than $100/month.
Your question was why doesn't Apple just offer a monthly fee for access to everything. Well - apart from the fact that it would be more than $100/month for such a package - I'm pretty sure that Apple doesn't own the rights to all of the content it hosts. It is my understanding that most of the video content is hosted under a consignment model where the license holder will take 70-80% of the rental price and Apple will take their traditional cut for marketing and deliberate the content.
There is a spot in my living room for all 3 services - but paying per episode for TV via iTunes starts to add up very quickly so I usually choose to wait for the season to make it to Netflix and I just use iTunes for renting movies.
If Apple failed in their internet TV, maybe the best alternative is to allow cross promotion with Netflix. Say allow ppl watchin the Netflix Movies or TV shows a link to iTunes with a discounted price for them to buy the movies or TV shows on iTunes. It'll be amazing and such a synergy.
You don't think iOS/OSX cost money for Apple to make and maintain? Do you not think that people are paying to use iOS/OSX? You don't think iOS is worth $120 per phone?
If you believe all those things then Apple's services/software revenue is over $60 billion.
I actually don't think that is very compatible with much of Apple's business model. They try to skew customers toward the latest version of iOS to keep support and available features as uncomplicated as possible. This would not happen if they were reliant on a number of other OEMs that all need to write new drivers and test everything again.
I agree that in-app purchasing is super convenient. I'm just not sold on Apple taking 30% of subscription fees. Especially when the subscription price is then raised to cover the 30% like Spotify does. Does it really cost Apple $3 to process a monthly subscription fee for Netflix?
It is completely stupid to believe Apple is getting 30% of Netflix's subscription fees. And how in the world does Apple process subscription fees for Netflix? Netflix bills you directly.
I'm surprised nobody called out that a large portion of the Netflix bandwidth is probably due to their stupid auto-play "feature" which automatically plays the next episode even though you've already been asleep for 90 minutes! I think they've finally provided the ability to toggle the feature on/off in most of their clients now - but the default is "on" and when it was first released, their was no way to turn it off. Damn. What a stupid feature to force on people. Not only does it waste bandwidth - especially for people who have a cap - but it also messes up the tracking of which episode you watched last since it went ahead and played 3 additional episodes after you fell asleep. I actually cancelled my service for a few months when they told me that feature couldn't be turned off!
Comments
But since Netflix is taking a lot of the traffic and their subscription base is growing, can't Apple just turn the iTunes into a similar service? Would more people sign up for a $10 per month subscription to have unlimited access to the movies and shows on iTunes? And then perhaps Apple could get into content creation as we have been reading rumours about.
Just curious if this is a possibility.
No. Ignore the numbers in this article in terms of what it means to either companies business. The numbers reported are at best, an interesting piece of trivia.
iTunes and Netflix are not in direct competition with each other. There is "some" overlap in what is offered by each service - but the services are mostly used in tandem with each other. iTunes is mostly used for music and for current season TV episodes as well as recent movies and movies not available on Netflix or Hulu+. Netflix has no music and no current season TV or movies.
If you want to watch everything - it's not a choice of one service or the other. You need both. Unless you've already seen everything Netflix has to offer - in which case you can cancel them and save a few dollars per month. People need to understand that all content is not equal - especially when a streaming service wants to acquire the rights to it. Newer content is MUCH more expensive than older stuff and that's why Netflix doesn't offer it, Hulu+ inserts ads and Apple charges per episode. The reason that content comes and goes on Netflix is because licensing agreements expire - and since Netflix can't afford to offer everything, all the time, they rotate content. If Netflix were to attempt to offer all of the same content that is available on iTunes for a subscription price it would be a hell of a lot more expensive than $10/month! Probably more than $100/month.
Your question was why doesn't Apple just offer a monthly fee for access to everything. Well - apart from the fact that it would be more than $100/month for such a package - I'm pretty sure that Apple doesn't own the rights to all of the content it hosts. It is my understanding that most of the video content is hosted under a consignment model where the license holder will take 70-80% of the rental price and Apple will take their traditional cut for marketing and deliberate the content.
There is a spot in my living room for all 3 services - but paying per episode for TV via iTunes starts to add up very quickly so I usually choose to wait for the season to make it to Netflix and I just use iTunes for renting movies.