Hey George. Netflix is profitable and has been for literally YEARS at this point. 2018 wants it's outdated takes back.
And for the vast majority even WITH the increased prices of streaming services it's still DRAMATICALLY CHEAPER than physically purchasing every single title that they want to watch! New Blu-Ray titles are $20-$40! That's 2-3x months of a given streaming service for JUST ONE NEW MOVIE!
Buying physical media can still make sense for some people, but for most it's still a significantly worse option than even streaming in its current state. 🤷
Bestbuy in my area removed all physical media from their stores YEARS ago (long before 'Streaming' was even a 'thing').
Sure, with 'streaming' a reliable internet connection is REQUIRED along with a subscription to the streaming service.
While Netflix made billions serving up countless media that creators figured was worthless (hence the initial pricing to Netflix) they all soon realized there was a obvious market for the otherwise OBS content and many/all pulled their content back to their own unique newly minted streaming services.
With streaming the costs are simple: pay for content and bandwidth. If you already own the content then your only paying for bandwidth.
So how is it exactly ALL the streaming companies are now operating at a LOSS and are now adding commercial advertisements to their streams?
Looking back at the old Netflix model offers some clues. Back in its 'heyday' a good %90-95 of the content Netflix was serving up was inexpensive (to THEM) otherwise OBS content that had already been 'bought and paid for' at least 1x if not 2x (primary and 'rerun' syndication runs) on/in conventional media.
I'd wager that the Netflix CREATED content (%5-10 of their offerings at the start) was the REAL cost cow and when the nearly free well of OBS content dried up they and everyone else found themselves 'holding the bag' of a bunch of costly content (to produce) that they nether had a subscriber base or advertisements to support.
Which all of this has come full circle as why on earth would I PAY your streaming service to see content with commercials when I can watch content for FREE (with commercials!) on other services OR simply OTA?
Streaming is not only becoming more expensive but the ones with ties to Physical media are also making ot hard to buy discs. Just look at Disney for example.
For movies I know I will watch again I prefer buying movies on disc and ripping them to my plex server. The convenience of streaming without the internet dependency. Its getting harder to do that.
Streaming providers are becoming more and more expensive in the US. In this phase of all times, Best Buy is suspending the sale of physical video media. Video games on the other hand will still continue to be on offer.
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