Will Amazon Buy Netflix?

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The Wall Street Journal says that now may be a good time for Amazon to buy Netflix. What do you guys think? Deal or no deal?

Netflix, which has a market value of $3.4 billion, said about 48% of its customers streamed at least 15 minutes of Internet video in the fourth quarter, up from 28% in the prior year. The company said it expects at least 66% of its customers will watch movies over streaming video by the middle of 2011. Meantime, it grew its overall subscriber base by 1 million people in the fourth quarter – a quarterly record — to reach at total of 12 million. Will this change in consumer behavior finally whet Amazon’s appetite?
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I think it depends on what else is out there to compete with it.
 
Good idea, Netflix should sell out to Amazon. Amazon has more money to fight the flaws in net neutrality that would crush any hopes of affordable, quality video streaming in the future.
 
Amazon's a pretty good competition with iTunes regarding music. With movie rentals, Amazon can compete against iTunes' movie collection as well.
 
Netflix is going to make so much fricking money with it's online service that it will never need to sell itself to anyone else.
 
Amazon has always been ok to great on prices. It would probably be good. But then again, they are a company. They do need competition.

But, if it's not a good idea, it's better than what other sorts of things could happen. For example, Microsoft anyone?
 
i don't see how this would make sense as netflix is actually doing alright on its own.
 
Manaknight said:
i don't see how this would make sense as netflix is actually doing alright on its own.
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Which is probably the biggest reason they might be selling. It's worth a lot right now. Then the Netflix founders can retire with a fat pension.
 
I don't understand why so many companies are banking on streamed content. It is only a matter of time before large ISPs like Comcast, Time Warner and AT&T start metered usage policies. When that happens high quality streamed content will no longer be appealing to people. Most people will greatly restrict how they use what bandwidth they have.
 
spartus4 said:
I don't understand why so many companies are banking on streamed content. It is only a matter of time before large ISPs like Comcast, Time Warner and AT&T start metered usage policies. When that happens high quality streamed content will no longer be appealing to people. Most people will greatly restrict how they use what bandwidth they have.
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they already do.. and its why isp's like verizon are to effing stupid to notice this and start taking over their market area.. AT&T is already doing it with uverse but to bad i get more HD channels with comcast then AT&T has otherwise i would of probably switched..

also comcasts bandwidth limit is fake on the west coast(no luck for people on the east coast your all screwed).. i avg between 500-600 gigs of bandwidth a month.. have never received a single letter, phone call or email from them.. its a bogus scare tactic to get people to use less bandwidth..
 
It makes perfect sense from many business strategy standpoints. It's a completely vertical market for the future of their Kindle platform. Consider the sales of TV shows and other shorter items on Itunes, and with Apple getting into the Tablet-like business affecting amazon's book sales they have to adapt. They would have a direct advantage when the next few generations of their tablet-like device takes shape having a content provider in their corner makes for great market / distribution dominance.

When you look at if from a 500 foot view, there are not a lot of reasons for amazon NOT to acquire netflix. I think the WSJ hit one out of the park with that thought.
 
^^^ I think that would work if the Kindle would play streaming netflix videos and kept Netflix off of the iPad and its successors (and had some real video output options...e.g. HDMI).
 
kirbyrj said:
^^^ I think that would work if the Kindle would play streaming netflix videos and kept Netflix off of the iPad and its successors (and had some real video output options...e.g. HDMI).
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exactly. It already does have competition, the iPad
 
Heck yeah... I just jumped on the netflix bandwagon two weeks ago and I'm impressed by the quality of their streaming content. I'm also a fan of Amazon and buy lots of stuff there.

Put those two things together and you can't go wrong.
 
Amazon is a great company, I wouldn't mind if they bought Netflix. Combine their video-on-demand service with Netflix and they'll own the HD streaming market.
 
I refer you to what has happened with Satellite Radio since Serius bought their only competition.

It was not a good thing for customers.

xnorthx said:
I wonder if/how this will affect pricing. :confused:
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TechLarry said:
I refer you to what has happened with Satellite Radio since Serius bought their only competition.

It was not a good thing for customers.
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That's not quite a fair example. There's no other competition once XM was eliminated.

Amazon has quite a few eBook competitions - iTunes, Sony, Kobo, and I'm sure each publishers have their own repository of downloadable eBooks here and there.
 
TechLarry said:
I refer you to what has happened with Satellite Radio since Serius bought their only competition.

It was not a good thing for customers.
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Satellite radio is a lousy analogy. First off, both Sirius and XM were losing money hand over fist prior to merging. It takes a boatload of cash to pay exclusive content like Howard Stern, Oprah and NFL/MLB, etc. Secondly, both companies had no choice but to merge if either was to stay in operation. The price gouge the consumers (and I'm one of em') received post-merger was the necessary first step on the road to profitability. (SiriXM is still in danger IMHO)

Neither Amazon or Netflix are hurting at the moment. Netflix membership is strong with no signs of declining and Amazon is kicking ass in a recession.

I use and like both services. I've got Amazon feeding my TiVo Series 3, BD player and desktops, and I've got Netflix on my TiVo, my gf's Roku and on WMC. I'd like to see the merger happen.
 
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