Amazon-Netflix? Let’s Make It Happen, Please.
By Harry McCracken | Monday, July 13, 2009 at 12:31 pm
At this point, it’s just a rumor that’s giving Netflix’s stock a nice goose: Speculation has it that Amazon.com might move to buy Netflix, a merger that makes immense sense to me. Between its Amazon MP3 service and Video on Demand and the Kindle and Audible, Amazon.com is working overtime to reinvent itself for the era–coming sooner than we think–that virtually all content is digital. Netflix, meanwhile, has an enjoyable and well-done Watch Instantly service, but its selection is sparse and less-than-current; if Watch Instantly is as good as it’s going to get, it’s hard to imagine Netflix stating Netflix once it no longer makes sense to mail shiny discs.
An Amazon that owned Netflix would get the opportunity to market digital downloads to all those happy Netflix customers; a Netflix that was part of Amazon would have access to Amazon’s ambitious video-on-demand platform and content deals. It would probably leave both companies and their customers better off—and hey, it give Apple an iTunes Store competitor that was that much larger and stronger.
I’m just a customer of Amazon and Netflix, not a shareholder. But if mergers were voted on by shoppers, I’d give this one my stamp of approval. Even if it’s not really under discussion at the moment, it feels sort of inevitable…
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July 13th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Sounds like a great idea for Amazon to take. I was beginning to think Amazon’s dev team was loosing steam but acquiring Netflix will give them a good hold on publishing all kinds of digital content. Creating an App Store might have also made sense, but if Google is planning on bringing on the cloud apps with their new OS, I doubt they would want to share.
July 13th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
I disagree, mainly because I just got a ROKU box to watch Netflix and I’m worried that Amazon might try to move content from free to pay per view.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
From a customer standpoint I believe this would be awful. Netflix has simple, straightforward customer support: call them. And they’re actually informed and helpful.
Amazon has nothing of the sort. Want customer service? They left that behind years ago.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Indeed, but Netflix-Amazon would be just the beginning of subscription media consolidation: http://clipperhouse.com/-Q