Is Netflix killing DVDs like Apple killed floppies? (Q&A)
Big Champagne CEO Eric Garland has seen Netflix’s price hike in many different forms over many years.
Industry leaders change directions with a product or service and stunned customers revolt. It’s a scenario that played out when Facebook overhauled the social network’s interface and in 1998 when Apple released the iMac G3 without a 3.5-inch floppy-disc drive. People called Steve Jobs crazy. But Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, like Jobs before him, is now trying to move the market into the future, says Garland. Netflix’s library of streaming movies and TV shows are often dated or obscure titles. It’s obvious Netflix is struggling to acquire more sought-after content.
For over a decade, Garland’s Los Angeles-based company has tracked digital-media consumption over the Web and much of the data he collects he sells to the major film studios and record companies. He’s in the catbird seat to watch events unfolding at Netflix and he’s convinced that Hastings designed the price hike to rouse the studios and his audience out of their complacency regarding the DVD. Garland says the format was already dying but the price increase is meant to perform a mercy killing on the highest order; so consumers can begin to acquire movies in the more efficient way that benefits them—and Netflix—the most.
An interesting take on the Netflix price-hike outrage.