Interesting theory: Amazon could buy Netflix, but wouldn’t want…

Interesting theory: Amazon could buy Netflix, but wouldn’t want to buy the current business with all its shipping centers in places where Amazon doesn’t have to pay/collect sales tax. If Netflix spins off the discs first, then Amazon gets Netflix’s catalog, technology…and most importantly, the zillions of TV sets and set-top boxes that have the streaming client included.

Netflix split to set up Amazon streaming merger? | ZDNet

Netflix’s move to separate its DVD-by-mail service may pave the way for Amazon to buy the company, argues an analyst.

Comments on Google+:

Brion: Possible… but I’ve always found netflix’s streaming catalog to be insufficient as is… best of a bad lot I guess!

Me: Yeah. That’s the main reason we still have the DVD subscription: 80% of our queue isn’t available streaming. In this theory, the big win for Amazon would be the install base.

Brion: Yep… hell, with any luck Amazon can strong-arm better deals with the studios. 😛 But I’d still love blanket non-exclusive compulsory streaming licenses: if the content’s out there for sale to the public on little plastic disks, anybody should be able to stream the same material for a nice standard fee (like ASCAP etc’s public performance, radio, & streaming systems… but maybe not as annoying. The reason Pandora doesn’t let you choose exactly which songs to play is to comply with the hoops necessary to qualify for the compulsory licensing, since they presumably think they can squeeze more money for on-demand services. A couple years out of date, but good overview of the lay of the land there from JWZ: http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/webcasting.html )

Me: Wow. That is profoundly screwed up.

Updated Netflix thought: Dairy farms get together to raise prices…

9/15: Netflix thought: If dairy farms got together and hiked up the price of milk, would you blame your grocery store for raising their prices?

9/16: It must be the Netflix/studio milk/dairy farm analogy that’s got @Peerindex convinced that I write about breakfast cereal.

9/20: Updated Netflix thought: Dairy farms get together to raise prices, putting the squeeze on your local grocery store. The local store raises their prices to cover their higher costs. People blame the grocery store.

Then the grocery store responds by spinning off a separate store. One store will only sell milk in cardboard cartons and cheese. The other store will only sell milk in plastic bottles or yogurt. This is, of course, to make your life easier.

On Facebook

Of course, there’s always The Oatmeal’s explanation: https://theoatmeal.com/static/netflix.html

Brion adds:

One store pipes fresh delicious milk direct to your faucets, but only carries 1% because the dairy cartel is being paid by another grocery chain for an exclusive right to whole, skim, and 2%.

Final Crisis,for all the flack it gets for being impenetrable, is really self-contained.

Final Crisis,for all the flack it gets for being impenetrable, is really self-contained. Basically, get the trade or hardcover of Final Crisis, and you’re set. Revelations is a related story that takes place during FC, while Legion of Three Worlds and Rogues’ Revenge are mostly-unrelated stories that take place during FC.

I wouldn’t even say that was the point of Flashpoint.

I wouldn’t even say that was the point of Flashpoint. The point seems to have been to tell an alternate universe story centered on the Flash.

It’s pretty clear from interviews that Flashpoint was planned before they decided to do a reboot – it was a big Flash story that became a big DCU event that would have led to the universe returning more-or-less to normal (no doubt with a few changes and some of the new Flashpoint characters retconned into history), but then DC decided to use it as the springboard for the reboot.

As near as I can tell, the only way that Flashpoint #5 transitions into the new 52 is that double-page spread. The final scene would have worked just fine in the old DCU if Kubert had drawn them in the old costumes.

On Reddit

It turns out that Facebook allows you to log in with two variations of your password…

Interesting: It turns out that Facebook allows you to log in with two variations of your password: One with the first letter capitalized (because so many mobile phones automatically capitalize the first letter of a field to “help” you) and one with all the capitals/lowercase flipped (so that you can still log in with CAPS LOCK on).

Facebook passwords are not case sensitive (update) | ZDNet

On Facebook

The longer someone stays on a website, the more likely they are to stick around…

Anyone who’s used some sort of traffic analytics knows how high bounce rates are on the web, but what’s interesting here is that the longer someone stays on a website, the more likely they are to stick around – and that the behavior fits a standard statistical model.

How Long Do Users Stay on Web Pages?

Users often leave Web pages in 10-20 seconds, but pages with a clear value proposition can hold people’s attention for much longer because visit-durations follow a negative Weibull distribution.

Graphic showing consolidation in the US telecommunications industry

Interesting timeline.

Consolidation in the Telecommunications Industry – Graphic

AT&T’s proposed $39 billion purchase of T-Mobile USA would cap two decades of deal making that has left the U.S. telecom industry with just a handful of major players. Today’s AT&T…

The US government broke up the AT&T monopoly in the early 1980s, leaving the original AT&T doing little more than long-distance service. NYNEX, US West, Pac Bell and the rest were all separate companies until they started buying each other up again.

Looking back at it, what I find weird is that while Pacific Telesis ended up as part of AT&T, and MCI ended up as Verizon, their wireless divisions ended up owned by the opposite companies.