Reed Hastings Makes List of "People Who Don't Matter"

Business 2.0 published a list of "10 People Who Don't Matter," and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings was in the company of Steve Ballmer, Rob Malda, Linus Torvalds, and Ethan Mark Zuckerman.

Three years ago, he likely would have been near the top of our "50 Who Matter" list. And even now, we still feel a little twinkle of joy each time a Netflix DVD arrives in our mailboxes. Yet despite our deep affection for the company, its raison d'etre itself - the DVD - seems destined for the endangered species list. It's simply not clear that anything Hastings has built will give him much of a leg up as the industry shifts toward video-on-demand and other forms of digital distribution. Hastings has created an amazing system for shuffling around 120mm plastic discs, but online rivals such as iTunes and MovieLink seem to have the momentum as we head into the future.

via The Bivings Report.

Comments

[Scott]

Movielink? iTunes? Yes, the world is just waiting with bated breath for more low-quality, DRM-infested video files that they can't burn to disc.

[NetflixShill]

DRM is for saps. I once tried Atom Films - a few years ago. Even though it's free, I would never use them again, because their films are infected with DRM. You can't do anything with them and they are time limited. They've begun selling custom DVDs with the movies burned on them. I picked up one a while back, because I actually wanted one of the film (White Bits). The DVD has far more flexibility and value to consumers than some crummy paranoid DRM file. DRM is dead or it needs to be killed. Period.

[bobemmerich]

Oh sure, DVD media will go away someday, but I doubt anytime soon. Too many baby-boomers with DVD players hooked up to their plasma TVs and soon Blu-Ray / HD-DVD players for everybody to just go "digital" anytime soon. And no, it is NOT the same as music. CDs with 3 second song downloads you listen to over and over again on several different types of devices - car, hoome, portable - will fade away long before watch once on your big tv films. MP3 players like the Shuffle can be miniscule, but nobody really wants to watch LOTR or SW only on their PSP screen.

[Bulldozza]

"It's simply not clear that anything Hastings has built will give him much of a leg up as the industry shifts toward video-on-demand and other forms of digital distribution."

There is no value in 5+ million, web-savvy, monthly paying subs?? If Netflix merely matches whatever digital downloading system emerges then they will be a player by default since the movie houses have said repeatedly they want plenty of competition at the distribution level. Unless a competitor releases something greatly superior I don't see people leaving Flix en masse.

Plus, at the projected $10 to $20 cost per download and all the DRM, its hard to believe that downloading will cripple the DVD overnight. The DVD isn't going away, heck, we are just now seeing HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs which fit easily in the Netflix model. Netflix is safe another 3-5 years easy.

[Ethan Zuckerman]

I believe it's Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, not me who doesn't matter. I matter so little that I generally don't make it on lists like this one... :-)

[noe638]

I agree bulldozza. It is not like in 1 year people are going to turn off their netflix dvd by mail. The list of 10 People who don't matter should be littered with people who bet against Netflix and their distribution model.

Netflix appears to be in a waiting game to see what will emerge as the clear winner, and although I thought he was crazy two years ago for sticking with dvd by mail, he appears to be smarter than most. And when vod is realized, they will have plenty of time to capitalize on their current customer base, signing licensing and distribution deals with the major companies that will distribute video on demand.

The VOD talk and set-top boxes and the movie digital revolution sounds good, but you have an industry that likes things just the way they are...movies in the theaters, then purchased dvds and dvd rentals then cable programming.

[C Nyze]

C'mon, I know people that just switched to CDs from tapes ... DVDs still have a while before they will be out the window with Betamax. There will always be people who will want to get the full life out of their DVD players or people that just don't want to change. Not to mention the VALUE that Netflix brings to the table! If VOD remains at $4 plus a rental, DVDs have a long time before they're obsolete.

[Aron]

Ethan makes a good point. One has to matter to be on a list of people that don't matter.

Apple has a lot of momentum right now, but some things that start strong finish weak. UMD movies on the PSP reached many milestones in sales FASTER than DVD, but has sputtered to nothing. iPods owners themselves are prone to a thing called 'iPod fatigue' in which, after 3 months, the amount of usage declines significantly.

To improve the video iPod experience you have to increase the screen size. When people are in situations where carrying around bulky items is not a problem, than it seems to me that carrying around a (DVD-enabled) notebook computer is likely.

And as for other competitors, has Vongo, or Moviebeam, or Akimbo, or Movielink, or CinemaNow made ANY real progress?

I'd put cable companies as the most serious threat personally. They have bandwidth coming out their ears, existing set-top boxes, and a video relationship with their customers already.

[vio]

Typical internet journalist hyping up vaporware, always trying to convince us DVD will literally disappear overnight. Clunky old VHS survived the DVD onslaught for years. Up until 2005, 9 out of 10 of the major theatrical movies were still being released on VHS. It's pretty much solidified that DVD will remain the dominant means of watching movies at home until 2010 and will probably survive at least 4-5 years after that.

And going by this guys logic, shouldn't CDs already be gone? Yet all recordings are still released on CD and are availale to purchase. Go into your local Best Buy and you'll still see plenty of people browsing the CD shelves.

HD-DVD/Blu-Ray are more likely to kill DVD at this point and even that is questionable. I'm still convinced both formats could fail or end up becoming simply a niche format like Laser Disc. The format war alone is going to slow the penetration rate down to a crawl.

[corey3rd]

the one factor not addressed - people need a reason to go to their mailbox. Who just wants a mailbox full of bills? Days that I don't expect a netflix, I don't unlock the mailbox.

[Aron]

"I'm still convinced both formats could fail or end up becoming simply a niche format like Laser Disc"

10 Reasons Why High Definition DVD Formats Have Already Failed:

http://www.audioholics.com/news/editorials/10reasonsHDDVDsfailed.php

I suspect I will end up owning one of these players, and getting at least 5 solid years of use from it. My threshold is 300$ and full studio support. But I definately believe that the adoption curve will be both much slower and ultimately smaller than DVD.

[NetflixShill]

"I suspect I will end up owning one of these players, and getting at least 5 solid years of use from it. My threshold is 300$ and full studio support."

Your standards are low. I won't buy HD until the prices go below $100 with 10,000 titles, no down-sampling for non-HDCP equipment, no DRM, and no lame copy protection. In short, never. The studios are cheap, short-sighted, and selfish. They fail to see what drives a typical user - value, choice, convenience.

Quality doesn't matter much to most people. The quality of DVD hasn't been fully tapped by the studios. Very few DVDs are reference quality. Many have errors and defects, like missing scenes or dialogue. Every studio is guilty of this, and most don't even bother to replace the defective DVDs already sold. That makes consumers wary of buying things, since they might get stuck with a defective or incomplete copy of a favorite movie.

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showpost.php?p=2016632&postcount=14

The studios need more quality control on the DVDs and they need to improve their encoding standards. Nobody needs HD, the studios need to start using DVD to its fullest potential. Don't squeeze movie and extras onto a single disc, for example. Use a FULL dual-layer DVD for the movie, and one more for extras. Use higher-quality scanners, like Grass Valley's Spirit 4k Datacine.

Most people can't tell Dolby from DTS audio. Most TVs, even LCD and plasma, look the same whether you view 16x9 movies or letterboxed movies zoomed-in. The devices aren't capable of showing gains in audio or video quality. People who upgrade to HD are mostly kidding themselves. No speakers can sound even half as good as 5-30,000 Hz reference headphones. So, what's the point of having more fidelity when it will just get washed away by playing it back on speakers???