Recent Comments:
Netflix "Watch Now" feature offers movie download alternative {Engadget}
Jan 16th 2007 3:12PM BJ,
It's called capitalism. Market forces cause the changes you are describing. If Blockbuster would make you happier for your money, feel free to switch. The price for plain-old-boring-DVD-Netflix is not relative to Netflix-DVD+WatchNow, it is relative to the competition. Also WatchNow costs almost nothing to provide, relative to the physical DVD business... physical media, inventory management, and human labor ain't cheap compared to a few servers and some bandwidth.
That said, I'm sure the realistic course of things will be that after WatchNow gets traction, becomes more useful (MCE, etc), in general matures, it will become a paid feature and standalone DVD rental will be priced separately (e.g. they will be unbundled). But again that is partly dictated by the competition.
Oh and one other thing that is not really relevant to my point: if you take into account the phone line cost, dialup does actually cost the same as, or more than, base level DSL/cable in many markets. :) (Due in part to captive markets, and also similar costs for providing either service. Actually, again, DSL is probably cheaper to provide than dialup, all told.)
Eh, in summary, wait and see, and if think another service would make you happier, go for it, and don't forget to tell Netflix why you are leaving so that they can take it into account if enough people say the same thing. Yay for voting with the consumer dollar!
Apple confirms Paramount and iTunes deal {Engadget}
Jan 9th 2007 4:14PM When will Apple get on the subscription bandwagon? I suppose the answer is "at the last possible moment" since their profits are massively higher as long as they are screwing us... Won't someone please think of the user?? :) Of course as a for-profit corporation they keep the user in mind only when that means more money for them... so I guess I sort of forgive them. But it means I have to support their competition.
I don't really care about the specifics of the model I just wish that I, as someone who only ever watches movies once, could pay less for a movie than someone who watches it 50 times. It doesn't have to be linear, but isn't that person getting more value out of it than me, even if its not 50x more value? Ah, how I long for a fluid entertainment market....
Giant Swiss Army Knife offers 85 tools {Engadget}
Aug 24th 2006 7:20AM Saw a comment here before that has now vanished about this not being from Victorinox so its not real. I sort of felt the same way but I just did some googling and it turns out that Victorinox bought Wenger in April 2005. You could still consider Wenger a lower end brand or something but its one company anyway.
