Netflix found that while it was a nice advertising tool to boast about the broadness of its catalogue, most customers rarely ordered the more niche stuff so it wasn't particularly profitable.

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devilbunny 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

> most customers rarely ordered the more niche stuff

I'm sure that's true, but the flip side is that the niche stuff is what pulls in the hardcore film buffs. And guess who those of us who aren't big film buffs turn to when picking films and services? The hardcore film buffs we know.

They may not generate a ton of revenue if you look only at "how many people request obscure movie X", but having those movies pulls in the people who will, in turn, influence others.

	▲	ajmurmann 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		Want the DVD-by-mail business still available until 2-3 years ago? It seems that faded silently away and there wasn't even a whimper when it died.

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0cf8612b2e1e 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That’s what happens when you have a big library. The usage is going to be some 80:20 rule. A small slice drives the numbers. Yet it is nice to be able to consume some long tail content. Without the DVD catalog, access to the long tail has disappeared from mainstream providers.

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layer8 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We don’t have that problem with books for the most part, why do we have it with TV shows and movies?

	▲	rgblambda 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I suspect if book sellers were as data driven as Netflix, then we would have that problem. I suspect they're (like Netflix used to) creating an illusion of choice of a wide range of options as you walk to the big shelf in the middle of the shop that has 100 copies of the book that's currently selling well. Also the fact that physical book shops are still somehow a thing helps. I guess people like the experience.

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JKCalhoun 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

That may be true. But for those in "the long tail" Netflix could have been the only game in town.

Amazon was that way for me. I went to record (music) stores to buy my music in the 1990's. I started buying music from Amazon in 1996 because they had the stuff I couldn't find in the record stores.