5 thoughts on “Netflix Surpasses HBO in U.S. Subscribers”

  1. But what does it mean? If anything…

    (And I’m obviously testing our new Quote and Link post types – moving some of this stuff back to the blog from Twitter may provide a better forum for discussion.)

  2. I was confused by the link at first. For some reason initially I thought it was a locked post.

    As I have said in the past, Netflix will interest me when they offer more control over the buffer. We have storage on just about every Netflix platform so why not allow users to buffer more providing a more seamless experience. I can’t stand fast forwarding or rewinding on Netflix since you can’t see what is going on.

  3. “moving some of this stuff back to the blog from Twitter may provide a better forum for discussion”

    Hear, hear!

    “But what does it mean?”

    Well, I was chatting with my DVR, and it explained to me that it meant that Netflix now has more subscribers in the United States than HBO.

    Oh. That’s not what you meant?

    Well, it’s impressive, for starters.

    But, we do need two other pieces of info for context:

    1) Average Wholesale Price for each.

    Obviously HBO’s is higher, but I also wonder if the AppleTV deal has meaningfully knocked Netflix’s below the retail price.

    2) Content cost for each.

    This is likely where HBO shines. I assume an HBO sub has a significantly higher margin than a Netflix sub.

    —–

    For my own dollar, I think HBO is generally a better bargain than Netflix. I do think they produce the best content around. My complaints are that I miss the open CCI byte with FIOS, and really do wish they’d upgrade the HBO Go infrastructure to Amazon-like quality in the lean-back. Perhaps they need to start checking IP addresses for lean-back viewing, to keep folks from sharing authentications in the lean-back, while leaving things open for mobile. But even with those caveats, if you’ve got a good DVR, HBO still seems a bargain to me.

    Interestingly, one thing that keeps Netflix from seeming valuable to me is their decision to deliver lousy PQ streaming to customers of those ISP’s that haven’t made sweetheart deals with them, which seems to consist of most ISP’s.

  4. Brennok, yeah I guess the Link presentation isn’t the best. Think I’ll stick with the Quote type (as shown here) even if I want to just put a link in. Although we lost at least one email subscriber yesterday after this minute posting. Hm.

  5. I left hbo years ago because the picture quality that Time Warner delivered was terrible. I preferred to wait for the hbo content on bd. As far as their movies go, they were usually ones that I had already seen. Their content was the only draw.

    Netflix streaming stunk at first, but it is quite good now. I just don’t have time to watch much. My internet service is regular road runner and it streams just fine on a Roku. BD players do not do as good a job at maintaining a consistent picture quality and not stuttering. Rewind/FF does stink.

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