Is Netflix The Model For The Music Industry?

from the gotta-try-something dept

We’ve been talking a lot lately about how the music industry really needs to experiment with more business models for online music. Salon has an article suggesting that the industry take a lesson from the success of Netflix. Netflix built a subscription service based around the idea of actually letting their customers do what they want – and making the process as easy as possible. The music industry, in the meantime, has focused on making their services as convoluted and difficult to use as possible.


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Comments on “Is Netflix The Model For The Music Industry?”

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3 Comments
Joe Schmoe says:

Closing in...

It’s great to see corelations (SP?) being made and ideas being offered, but there is a major difference between the two items here [mp3’s/DVD’s].

Netflix is dealing with a physical product, a DVD, and hence has a model to operate from. Return the “product” to get your next…

mp3’s are now an untethered product. The closest you could get is offering a low sample rate copies of music freely downloadable with a modest subscription for sampling coupled with the ability to purchase the CD or high quality mp3’s when you find something you like.

Ooops – I just gave away a business model. No matter… No one has the balls to use it…

Mike (profile) says:

Re: Closing in...

I completely agree with the differences you point out. However, while I don’t think the music industry could do an exact replica, there are certainly some lessons they could learn.

Netflix has built a subscription model that is all about ease of use and giving the customer what they want – and not annoying them with the things that typically piss them off. In other words, they’re making life easier for their customers.

That simple lesson (if the music industry could get it through their thick skulls) would be helpful.

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