Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts

Netflix Will Open Up the Australian Market

Netflix is coming to Australia in March next year. It will ruin everything - yeah sure. At the moment Murdoch's Foxtel has a monopoly on programming and price. Customers have had to take it or leave it. Many have left, though they miss out on a lot.

Now there will at least be choice. However, we are comparing apples and oranges here. Netflix will require decent broadband speed and limits. At present Australian broadband services are very poor. The National Broadband Network has just about fell over. Only prime metropolitan areas have got it. Some people have actually moved home into these areas.

At first, Netflix offerings will not be great. However, you can bet your bottom dollar that soon movies will be up to date with the US. A court battle is looming between Foxtel and Netflix as the newcomer takes rights away from the big fella, and Netflix will get access to these movies! If the new Australian service is not up to par, you can still use a VPN and get it from the US. When Netflix blocks it just get a US address.

Forget about reviewers who poo, poo Netflix in Australia. It will establish itself and it will level out the market. Foxtel has already cut its rates for individual offerings. The Telstra combined Foxtel/Broadband package has not been cut. Foxtel is just giving a free movie each month. This will not be enough to keep subscribers.

Other offerings by free to air networks are small fry to Netflix. It has the clout to ruin them. The range of movies by free to air will remain limited because they do not have the power to get access. As time goes by contracts will be renewed and Netflix will win.
Internet by Ty Buchanan
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Australian Laws Lag Behind Technological Change

Culture changes steadily with technological development. Some values have their own inertia which means that they stay around for much longer. Legal adaptation to a new environment is very slow. We are living with laws suited to a pre-internet era.

The Uber app took the world by storm. It spread through many countries and clashed with legal restrictions which were made for the benefit of taxi drivers and the public. Unfortunately, people do not like rapid change to the legal system. It upsets the way they live.

Like the Chinese, Australians embrace new technology, much to the frustration of government. Whether it is legal or not we adopt new things. They "get in" because their is some legal framework that benefits some participants in the market place. New systems get under the barrier, so to speak.

Australians seems to lead the world on illegal movie downloads. This is because the market is distorted. We pay over the odds for the latest films due to overpricing by American companies: they obviously do not understand that they lose money in the long run.

Some market distortions are being dismantled by Companies who have had the market to themselves for years. The pay TV business Foxtel has halved its small packages largely due to the appearance of Netflix Australia. Unfortunately, Teltra partly owns Foxtel and sells the premium Foxtel service with their broadband bundles. The Foxtel subscription remains the same but with two free movies a month given now. Some companies will never learn! This is why consumers move to new products, legal or not.
Science by Ty Buchanan
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