NetFLix has announced that they are finally coming to Canada. W00t!
Interestingly, Canada won’t be getting the DVD service – just downloads. NetFlix will be an electronic only biz in my home country. Why? Consider these links:
61% of Netflix Subscribers Choose to Stream Video
And this was with 27% revenue growth and more subscribers too.
When Netflix Knocks Out Blockbuster, Blame Canada
Netflix Q3 Revenue Misses, Stock Tanks (NFLX)
Netflix Online Traffic is Surging [STATS]
Netflix Edges Past Hulu In Total U.S. Traffic (comScore)
I think they’ve made the corporate decision to sunset DVD when it reaches the tipping point of unprofitablility. This will likely be done with pricing differentials and hastened when a few movies fail to release in DVD or BlueRay (like happened with movies and music with vinyl and tape).
Now, in Canada, we’ll have to see what happens with the geo-coding on movies. When I search for movies from Canada I am usually blocked from some due to rights and permssions restrictions. So Hulu, Pandora, Comedy network, etc. can be dead ends for me when I am not on the road. Booooo! (That’s what I get for being ethical and not breaking locks or bittorrenting.
Anyway, this is foreshadowing a library future. The canary in the mine is now singing opera. Despite the great library success story in lending DVD’s and other hard copy media, libraries need to clearly develop plans to make another transition to lending streaming media and it’s probably going to have to be done quickly. There are loads of issues here but none are insurmountable without a little collaboration and cooperation. We should just be glad we’re not Blockbuster.
Looking forward to more movies!
Stephen
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The first month we joined Netflix, we lost a DVD, or they said we did. The second month, another such incident happened. From then on, we only use the instant play feature. This does seem to be the direction things are moving.
My guess is that it has more to do with Post Canada being sloooooooooooooooooooow. In the states, it takes about 3 days from when you mail a return dvd to when your next one arrives. Last time I tried to send a letter in Canada, it took a week to make it to my neighbor across the street.
I use the streaming option all the time. Even some current season episodes are available next day for some shows. I seldom use the DVD option, if I could pay for just streaming I probably would.