HBO go is struggling and heavily dependent on dwindling cable subscribers to keep HBO viable.
Amazon video is similarly subsidized by Amazon. Treated more as a loss leader than a profit center with ~1/3 million of Netflix's subscribers even though it's included with an Amazon prime subscription.
Netflix does not have total dominance, but with a solid track record of original content and a massive subscriber base they are becoming harder to beat over time.
HBO seems to be doing fairly well. They have ~5 million online subscribers, up from 2 million in Feb. 2017. That's small potatoes vs. Netflix's 117+ million subscribers, but it's a nice growth rate for a premium product. We don't have cable and are happy subscribers to both HBO and Netflix.
It's funny you don't even mention Apple. We used to buy seasons of TV shows off of Apple when they weren't available elsewhere, but don't anymore because we can't watch them on our Roku (at least I don't think we can).
HBO's has higher profit margins, but lower revenue. Further, being tied to Time Warner complicates the issue, without cable HBO would fail. So it's in a race to add subscribers fast enough to keep up with cord cutters.
It's really a content issue for me as last few times I checked they had nothing worth watching that I have not already seen.
A small number of shows are not included in our No Commercials Add-on. You can still watch these shows, however, they will play with a short commercial before and after each episode.
While the list of shows may change, they are currently: Grey’s Anatomy, Once Upon a Time, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Scandal, Grimm, New Girl, and How To Get Away With Murder.
And then on top of that it's a wasteland content-wise as you stated.
It's not eye bleed territory, but it would piss me off if I had any interest in watching those shows and paying for a 'commercial free' experience.
They aren't _just_ a platform for content producers. They are producers of content. Competitors need to outprice them, our perform them, and outproduce them.
Having said that, 200+ p/e is still insane.
They are producing more and more shows I am less and less interested in.
Meanwhile they still have a rolling library of titles instead of an ever expanding one.
I'll bite - I'm totally ignorant of their success. What metrics are you using to define that success, and where are you getting the data?
The businesses are very different, but P/E as such is just one measure of market sentiment on a stock.
What would make Netflix truly amazing, but apparently is not possible, would be if their DVD catalog was available to stream.
Hulu. Netflix. Amazon. CBS. Disney. FX. YouTube Red. Crunchyroll. And on and on.
It’s only vaguely workable when compared to the totslly unworkable price of American cable tv.
For some reason people think of them as the new hot thing, but the reality is they have been around for longer than Google. With competition in the streaming video market only getting hotter, I can't see them going anywhere but down. Any one of Amazon Video, Hulu, Disney, or HBO could unseat them.
The growth expectations implicit in their 200+ P/E ratio seem way out of sync with their actual potential. If I owned Netflix stock I'd be selling it all now.