apple vs. adobe?

[Winston]

This has been an interesting discussion to follow.

I don't think the Netflix comparison is complete. I think Netflix provides online videos as a free addition to its DVD rental business. (I suppose one could read that the other way around too, but the DVD rental business is older and larger.) So the total package of what one can access with a Netflix account is a lot larger than the number of streaming videos available. According to Wikipedia Netflix has 100,000 titles in its library.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix

It's probably fair to assume that the number of Netflix videos available for streaming will increase. And because Netflix streaming is free if you already have a Netflix account I think it provides very real competition to iTunes purchases.

And then there's the issue of which videos are available. I have no info on this, but if Netflix is covering the most popular selections which are available in iTunes they could be covering a very high percentage of viewer interest even if they don't have as large a selection. The same is true for the book selections in comparing iTunes and Amazon. Isn't this how the Red Box video rental kiosks work?


- Winston