SEC Investigates Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Over Facebook Posting 190
alexander_686 writes "The SEC is investigating Netflix CEO Reed Hastings over one of his Facebook postings. The agency is questioning his July 1 Facebook posting, seen by 200,000 followers, in which he said customers watched 'over 1 billion hours' of videos on Netflix in June. He had previously posted on his company blog that members were viewing 'nearly a billion hours per month.' From the article: '“We think the fact of 1 billion hours of viewing in June was not ‘material’ to investors, and we had blogged a few weeks before that we were serving nearly 1 billion hours per month,” Hastings said in the filing today. “We remain optimistic this can be cleared up quickly through the SEC’s review process.”'"
Wow, such a minor quibble too. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm surprised something this innocuous can anger the SEC. Wow, they're a lot stricter than I thought!
Does everything a company or company offer say have to be heavily vetted by a legal team before it can go out?
Re:Wow, such a minor quibble too. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes.
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Which is kind of a shame considering how tired we all are of your standard corporate BS.
It's refreshing to see a company actually say something straight and to the point without any wishy washy qualifiers.
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The qualifiers are what makes the post newsworthy, and not just yet another piece of corporate dick-swinging. 1 billion hours? Of what? The menu? How many of those hours are re-serves from previously dropped connections? How many users contributed to the 1 billion hour number?
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Just because they never did anything about the whole 2008 mess, don't think they aren't watching you.
Re:Wow, such a minor quibble too. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Is the facebook profile set to "friends only" (doubt it with 200K views of the post) therefore wouldnt making the post BE making it public?
all im saying is how is releasing something on facebook any different than releasing it in any other medium in this day and age?
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no, i was genuinely serious. I dont know how the rules work, but if you can only make public by specific channels, I find issue with that.
Not "specific channels" just public ones.
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Is the facebook profile set to "friends only" (doubt it with 200K views of the post) therefore wouldnt making the post BE making it public?
No
Consider that you have to be a member of Facebook, AND you pretty much have to check the page, or subscribe to it. Posts aren't easy to find, once they scroll to far.
If I hang up something on the billboard at the local coffeeshop, is it a public post? What if I hang it up somewhere where only members are only allowed to enter?
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"In 3 hours we will be making a press release regarding our service achievements in the month of June. Watch this space!"
3 hours later
"As promised, we would like to announce to everyone that we surpassed 1 billion viewed hours for the month of June"
Skipping the first step would allow people who follow your facebook profile closer than others (friends) a jump on the general public of a number of hours. If you used that to your advantage, you could make a bit of money. Whenever you issue a press statement, yo
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That's misunderstanding how Facebook works.
Any one can wilfully choose to subscribe to his updates, so it's the same as them being public.
That might be an oversimplification of the law on disclosing information that may materially effect investors though. But yes, the obvious assumption here is that SEC rules have not kept pace with technology.
Re:Wow, such a minor quibble too. (Score:4, Insightful)
OK, where's the URL to the post? And remember, "public" doesn't mean signing up for an account on Facebook. I want to go to that URL and see all updates. WITHOUT creating an account, and last I checked, you can't "friend" without an account.
If I have to register, well, it's not public anymore. Because what any company can do is then create a company blog, post to it and require registration to proceed. It's the same thing - create a "public" website where all the information is hidden behind a registration wall. And hell, why can't the company ask for demographic information during registration? Even very personal details that would make most investors shy away from registering.
There are reasons why there are companies who specialize in doing nothing but spreading press releases - because they get it out there everywhere - in print, on investor sites, and in general news. These guys get the word out. Heck, a public blog site works just as well.
Of course, in this case, it's probably a misunderstanding - the poster didn't think such information could possibly be interesting to investors, just a meaningless statistic. But the SEC doesn't proactively go after companies - they work on complaints, and what happened here was some investors probably found out after the fact and it offended them because such statistics are important to see if Netflix is grown, dying, or stagnant. Hell, people were leaving Netflix in droves a few months ago due to all the changes.
Re:Wow, such a minor quibble too. (Score:4, Interesting)
OK, where's the URL to the post?
AFAICT the post in question has been taken down, but Reed Hasting's fb feed is at https://www.facebook.com/reed1960 [facebook.com] and it is public, so you don't need to log in to read it.
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I wouldn't be suprised if there are newswires out there that require registration to see anything. If you want immediate access to press releases about a certain company, you subscribe to them for free and check the boxes for the PR you want delivered. If you are less concerned,
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Can someone explain why the SEC would even care about something as simple as bragging??
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He donated to the wrong party.
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It's horrible what netflix has done. They are in bed with Microsoft. The CEO worked for Microsoft, they have avoided GNU/Linux, they support DRM, and much more.
Alternatives:
Google: just go to google and type name of whatever site:eu
There are a dozen entertainment sites with all the movies and tv shows you could possibly want. Significantly more than Netflix.
You can also support DRM-free content @ eztakes.com
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Let's keep our eyes on the ball, people. I've been a big fan of their streaming video sinc
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Netflix has a reasonable business model and content creators do need to get paid. Of course it has DRM:
I rent DVDs and they don't have DRM. I could copy them all and build a huge library, but I don't because I'm not paying to build a collection, I'm paying for access to an incredibly large and constantly growing collection.
We're essentially renting
No we're not. Renting implies lending a scarce resource. We are paying for access to a library. The value is not in the individual films and TV shows, it's in a hassle-free way of getting them on demand. Reduce the number of devices or require an extra step in accessing them, and you
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DVDs do have DRM, they are encrusted with it, then to top that off, they can and are region locked in addition to being encrypted
I should have said effective DRM. They don't have DRM that prevents large numbers of off-the-shelf tools from copying them.
You could copy them and build a huge library but you would be in violation of copyright and possibly the penal code.
Which is exactly my point. The legal protection does not require the technical hurdles, all they do is make interoperability harder.
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This is worth a few mod points.
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That said, I think SOME companies (in spite of the copy nazi groups like MAFIAA) recognize this and ac
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Second, why the hell do you give a shit about DRM in streaming content in a subscription service any way? It's not your content, it's never your content, you're paying for a service, you can watch it on demand, your access to the content ceases with y
Re:Wow, such a minor quibble too. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm surprised that Slashdot is bothering with this.
I'm not. It hits on a couple of important areas for slashdot readers. The reach of the SEC into social networking, most especially if they consider this to have been 'material information' given away privately that could lead to insider trading, and because it effects someone at a well known tech company saying something a lot of us could know or talk about. If you were a network admin at netflix and posted on your facebook page that you just served your first billion views month bragging about the professional accomplishment would you be in SEC trouble (and would your employer?).
As TFA points out, disclosing to 200k people should maybe count as a press release (especially if anyone can see the page), but uh... it might not. The law and common sense don't always align and it would be problematic to find out the hard way that this was in someway unlawful. I don't work for any traded companies, but I could envision a situation where someone could disclose to their friends work related successes that count as material investor information, and that could cause trouble. A lot of it.
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As TFA points out, disclosing to 200k people should maybe count as a press release (especially if anyone can see the page), but uh... it might not.
Methinks that the SEC has a genuine case here. You can't reasonably count on investors to follow the CEOs and CFOs of companies they invest in on corporate blogs and news feeds, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linked In, and wherever else. Information with material value to investors needs to be made available to all investors at the same time through the usual channels: SEC filings, letters to the investors, and press releases.
I could envision a situation where someone could disclose to their friends work related successes that count as material investor information, and that could cause trouble. A lot of it.
Not just could. Does. People get fines and occasionally go to jail over this, for in
Re:Wow, such a minor quibble too. (Score:4, Interesting)
Me thinks that the SEC is biased toward the institutional investors.
Except in this case your investor is an institutional investor (eg. Hedge funds, money markets, etc.) who already possess a huge advantage over the individual investor. In this one case, the individual investor may have had an advantage against an institutional investor since the CEO used a nontraditional forum to disclose his excitement about reaching a corporate landmark. Information that has little to do with the actual financial well being of the company, and the disclosure amounts to the difference between "near 1 billion hours" that was disclosed earlier to "over 1 billion hours" that was disclosed on Facebook.
I think this is an over enforcement by the SEC. The cynic in me believes that SEC is acting on behalf of some entities that make up the traditional disclosure media that fear the shift to more direct communications with individual investors.
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Clarification:
I meant grass roots social media communications, not private one-to-one communications (which is bad). The important thing being that the information is disclosed publicly where it has a chance to be seen by the greatest number of individuals. The difference in this story being that information is being disclosed where ordinary investors are more likely to see it versus being disclosed where mostly institutional investors will see it.
Ironicall
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Or your competitor has a friend at the SEC
What? (Score:2)
Can someone explain why saying something like this can get you in trouble with the SEC?
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me too.
is there doubt over the figure ?
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
Because analysts see stuff like this and make assumptions about the number of customers, costs in terms of bandwidth and licensing, etc. that feed into the stock price. If a CEO makes a claim like this, it has all sorts of repercussions on how wall street views the stock and what it's worth.
Think of it this way, if I say AMD processors are awesome it's not a big deal. If the CEO of Dell says it, it might indicate a shift to more AMD units which in turn could affect the ability of Dell to sell X computers as some customers don't like AMD, costs they may face, redesigns of products (new motherboards or whatever), customer perception, etc. Investors read into all sorts of things.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
The SEC isn't trying to protect the analysts who have access to the Facebook page. They're trying to protect the rest of the investors who DON'T have an equal opportunity to look at those bits of data. The SEC doesn't care what conclusions people draw from the information--it's just that everyone gets a chance to make their own decisions about such things. If the analysts draw bad conclusions, they will be punished when their share prices drop.
The real weaknesses in this case would be that the bit of data is not very interesting because a nearly identical bit of data had already been given to the public a few weeks earlier, and that 200,000 people had access to this Facebook page, so it feels more "public" than "private." I would guess that this investigation won't last very long before it's dropped.
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They're trying to protect the rest of the investors who DON'T have an equal opportunity to look at those bits of data.
Yep. All the investors who don't have an internet connection, or don't know how to access Facebook, or WHO DON'T FOLLOW NETFLIX CLOSELY ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT THE CEO HAS A FACEBOOK PAGE. Yeah, because those investors need to be protected from, uhm, you know, something or other.
...that 200,000 people had access to this Facebook page, so it feels more "public" than "private."
Yes, I see that we actually agree on this. I just wanted to pile on the mockery of the SEC's asinine position. Meanwhile, the hedge firms and their blogger sock puppets manipulate the shit out of volatile stocks, and firms use HFT to t
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So how many Facebook pages do you think investors would have to subscribe to in order to follow every senior executive of every company in their portfolio?
Having said that, the regulation is vague as to whether a Facebook page would fit the bill. Any material information has to be disseminated through a Form 8-K filing or "through another method (or combination of methods) of disclosure that is reasonably designed to provide broad, non-exclusionary distribution of the information to the public."
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
So how many Facebook pages do you think investors would have to subscribe to in order to follow every senior executive of every company in their portfolio?
How many press release services would they have to follow? How many financial news shows would they have to watch? How many financial news web sites would they have to follow, and how closely? How many blogs would they have to read?
The company's obligation is to make sure that the information is available to the public, not that it is noticed by every single member of the public.
Having said that, the regulation is vague as to whether a Facebook page would fit the bill. Any material information has to be disseminated through a Form 8-K filing or "through another method (or combination of methods) of disclosure that is reasonably designed to provide broad, non-exclusionary distribution of the information to the public."
Yes, and somebody at the SEC is being a shithead about this.
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Press releases can be subscribed to through central services. You just list the companies you are interested in. No such option for Facebook. You'd have to track down every page of every senior executive manually. It's really not the same thing.
But I'm sure it's much more comforting to just believe that a beaurocrat is a shithead.
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You'd have to have some newsie cover the press release from the central service or be a subscriber to see the press release.
Sorry, like someone else on the linked article...your line doesn't work very well.
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It's kind of rude, really, how Slashdotters assume horrible motivations, corruption, and incompetence on the part of every government lawyer.
This is not about every government lawyer ;-)
It's kind of interesting how you assume that not a single person at the SEC is a shithead. Really? The agency where some days it feels like they do less enforcing than they do watching of porn. Or, have you forgotten that little fiasco?
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The company's obligation is to make sure that the information is available to the public, not that it is noticed by every single member of the public.
But posting it to Facebook is not making it available to the public. It is making it available to the members of Facebook.
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Is it? Making it available to a PR service doesn't assure that it is making it available to the public either. If a news source doesn't pick it up from there or you're not subscribed to the service (hint...hint...) you're never going to see a press release.
Connect the dots here, folks...this isn't hard.
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But posting it to Facebook is not making it available to the public. It is making it available to the members of Facebook.
Bullshit. By your logic: publishing something in a newspaper is not making it available to the public, it is only making it available to subscribers; sending out a press release is not making it available to the public, it is only making it available to subscribers of the press release service; putting something in an 8-K filing is not making it available to the public, it is only making it available to people who sign up for that service; announcing something in a conference call is not making it available
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The other side of it is that there's a lot of reporters and similar in that 200K people.
it's probably safe to say that there was no intent to limit access to the information though that may not be relevent to the regs.
If he'd given a press conference then it would likely have to bounce through the same reporters.
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Yeah, because those investors need to be protected from, uhm, you know, something or other.
The entire point of the SEC is to ensure a level playing field for investors. Facebook may seem "public", but it isn't because it doesn't provide equal access to everyone. If you can view the information without having to login or provide any identifying information, then it's public. All he had to do was cross-post the same information elsewhere and it would have been fine. The SEC doesn't care what information is given away (well, sorta, but let's not get bogged down on details) as long as it's available
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Actually, the SEC isn't trying to punish Reed Hastings as much as they are trying to protect the traditional media used to make these disclosures regardless how trivial the information.
Who'd thought that McDonalds may have been breaking SEC rules with those signs stating "Over a billion hamburgers served".
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Maybe that's more a problem with analysts extrapolating incredible conclusions from small isolated bits of data... also known as anecdotes. Anyone basing buying decisions on facebook posts deserves to get burned.... SEC doesn't need to get involved here.
Exactly backwards, it's not about those basing buying decisions on these bits, it's about those that didn't have access to them and are operating as a market disadvantage. The publication requirement is basically say that you can't give anyone a leg up on every one else by giving information to a selective audience, you have to give it to everyone.
A company the size of Netflix can certainly afford to set up a system where the CEO can automatically crosspost to his FB page along with a public blog. That's al
Re:analysts extrapolating (Score:2)
Another point to consider is that a lot of business data is "Encoded". You hear a lot of stuff like "X company is 'concerned' about some such development". They can't outright say "Jim over at Seagate told me that his last batch of inventory was defective and so he won't meet his numbers this quarter" because that is too obvious. So they say things like "concerned" about "the current trends in the hard drive business being sustainable".
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Whatever happened to Caveat Emptor?
As long as the statement isn't something seriously harmful, like "asbesto-brite! The SAFEST, all natural toothpaste on the market, now with even MORE of the microfiber asbestos you know and trust!"
Misleading and dangerous advertising should be a crime, but giving a rounded (within the actual rules of rounding numbers) tally of your userbase or consumption is just plain silly.
It shouldn't be government's job to make sre the day traders don't make stupid trades, and research
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Whatever happened to Caveat Emptor?
TFA doesn't seem to say the accuracy of the numbers is in question, but rather that the SEC is looking into how he shared what might be considered important information to the investors.
But as to the "buyer beware" aspect of investing . . .
Yes, investing is inherently risky. Even buying mutual funds is risky. Even participating in your 401k plan that buys mutual funds is risky. Shooting craps is risky.
It's not the SEC's job to remove the risk. After all, the flip side of risk is reward. It is, however, th
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But they had already stated they were near one billion for several months.... Announcing that this day we went over that number in that week isn't really "material evidence" unless somebody is trying to speculate on the hype. Typically, when a CEO does something like this, they push out a "press release" a few minutes later... But frankly that just feeds the trolls.
This is probably why Apple always starts their press conferences with the "brag reel". Its also why the events are not live streamed... Then th
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Their problem, he made no claim about the number of customers. First of all, it was already public info that they were almost at 1e9 hours, so saying they hit that level is hardly "material." Secondly, it can easily be explained by existing users simply watching more in June than in May, due to school aged children being home during the day.
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
Regulation Fair Disclosure requires that when a company discloses information to investors, that its able reach all investors at the same time. If an investor was not a fan of Netflix, they would not have the opportunity to receive the information.
This is one of the reasons why companies hold conference calls, issue press releases, etc regarding information pertinent to an investor, so that it's disclosed fairly to everyone.
The question here is his posting on facebook disclosing a fact that would be material to investors? And does him previously posting about it on a public blog count as previous disclosure. IMHO, much ado about nothing.
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Regulation Fair Disclosure requires that when a company discloses information to investors, that its able reach all investors at the same time. If an investor was not a fan of Netflix, they would not have the opportunity to receive the information.
If an investor didn't read the Netflix blog, they might not have the opportunity to received the information, either. Likewise, if something is published in the Wall Street Journal, if you don't subscribe, you might not get the information.
This is one of the reasons why companies hold conference calls, issue press releases, etc regarding information pertinent to an investor, so that it's disclosed fairly to everyone.
Someone who doesn't listen directly to a conference call, but instead reads a transcript released by the company after the event doesn't have the information as soon as other people, but the SEC doesn't consider that "unfair", even though there are often limitations on w
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There is no barrier that limits someone from "liking" a company on Facebook
Sure there is - you have to have a Facebook account. Facebook can terminate your account for various reasons (or no reason at all), which could render you unable to receive such information in a timely fashion.
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Many may hate Facebook, but if you're talking about public fair disclosure, it's definitely a lot more public and fair than conference calls and press releases. Depending on how public the page/posting is, you might see it without even logging in to Facebook or having an account.
If I happen to be online I can p
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I always see conference calls as something private, like a closed meeting.
I suppose there are certain guidelines on specific channels that can be used to make information public - and whether Facebook is an appropriate channel is part of the issue here. The other part is whether or not the actual information is "material" for investors.
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I think they meant to swing it as being news from people will use to base their investment decisions on.
Seems you are not allowed to make straight BS free statements about the factual use of your services by your customers. You have to make sure and layer it in corp BS to the point that only professional analysts can figure out what you're saying.
Why? (Score:2)
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There is a difference between posting somthing bad/negative/criminal, like underage drinking; and a company wanting to promote some random interesting fact about itself.
200k People! (Score:2)
Sure sounds public to me.
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Sure sounds public to me.
Me too. However maybe the SEC is trying to make a point? Is it a slippery slope - can we easily and objectively determine when a post to facebook friends not public? 200k people? 20k people? 2k? 200?
While this instance is fairly far out towards "public" on the public-private spectrum, this may be an attempt by the SEC to establish boundaries about what sort of behaviour it considers appropriate for the CEOs of large and publicly traded corporations.
Back of envelope calculations (Score:3)
Netflix had 29.4 million online streaming accounts as of September 2012, and with 720 hours in a month, 1E9 hours works out to each subscriber viewing an average 34 hours of online streaming per month. While possible, I think this statement should have led to some raised eyebrows.
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Unless the numbers aren't based on actual hours worth of video streamed, but something more crude, such as "use started to stream video that is 2 hours long, that counts as 2 hours." In which case, it's extremely easy to imagine the average user opening the stream for 34 hours worth of video a month. I probably do twice that, myself.
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"user started", that is.
Preview? Pfffft.
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That depends. Does the average Netflix user watch more than 1 hour of video per day? I suppose it is possible, but I sure don't.
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Approximate length of a movie: 90-120 minutes (1.5-2 hours)
Length of a Series Episode: 40-45 minutes (0.67-0.75 hours)
Two movies and three to four episodes a week is sufficient as an average to hit that number.
Re:Back of envelope calculations (Score:5, Insightful)
At that point, eyebrow raising possibilities seem to be unsurprising and mundane.
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That's only an hour per day per account. Consider that accounts can be tied to multiple devices, and streamed from those devices simultaneously. That means accounts can be shared between more than one user quite effectively. Every household I know of that uses Netflix has a single account tied to multiple devices, with different people watching shows independently.
Additionally, the average American watches 2.8 hours of TV a day [bls.gov]. That means that even if each a
Re:Back of envelope calculations (Score:4, Insightful)
Netflix had 29.4 million online streaming accounts as of September 2012, and with 720 hours in a month, 1E9 hours works out to each subscriber viewing an average 34 hours of online streaming per month.
You seem to be forgeting that each individual account can have multiple devices streaming simultaniously. Only PC-based playback is restricted to single-instance. I don't know if Netflix users watch the same amount of online material as their TV-based counterparts, but we can infer a few things by assuming they do. The average person watches about 51.1 hours [nytimes.com] of TV a month. There are an average of about 2.55 people per household. That comes out to about 130.3 hours watched per household. Assuming 1 Netflix subscription per household, you get 3.8 billion hours of viewing per month.
I don't think 1 billion hours from that number of users is all that difficult to believe. Netflix users aren't substituting time in front of the TV straight across; That it's a supplimental activity is not an unreasonable conclusion. The CEO's numbers are well-within believability.
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Personally? I use Netflix Streaming instead of a traditional cable subscription, and easily watch an hour a day of content. Sometimes I just put a series I know on and stream things in the background while I'm painting or doing layout work, and on long days like that I could easily rack up 9-10 hours of video content.
Heck, 1.15 hours a day? That's an episode of Walking dead and an episode of IT Crowd, or a single short movie. After work me and my partner typically eat dinner, then put on something interesti
They're busy with this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They're busy with this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Netflix couldn't afford the gold plated hooker and blow trips for the politicians.
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No doubt about it. They just signed an exclusive contract with Disney for their film catalog streaming rights.
That must have drained every drop of cash, even the hooker and blow fund for lobbyists.
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...and the banks are walking? Seriously. Priorities people!
I take the reason for this outrage is that you've never mastered starting breakfast and then getting dressed and brushing your teeth while it cooked. The SEC, being an organization of thousands, is capable of multitasking. Investigations take months, and involve a lot of delays while paperwork is gathered, experts are called to review and document their findings, etc. All of that careful auditing and documentation takes time... and if you rush it, you risk making a mistake that the lawyers can use to get t
There appears to be an agenda here...let me guess: (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder if the CEO donated to the 'wrong' party this past election. This sounds an awful lot like revenge.
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You don't have to speculate. Political contributions -- at least to groups affiliated with candidates and parties -- are a matter of public record.
As it happens, Reed Hastings donated a lot of money, all of it to Democrats. So, either the Republicans are behind this despite not having control of the White House, or your theory should have been researched a little more carefully.
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Well, my point is that no, what the Netflix CEO did was wrong.
Well, if it was wrong, and unlike you, I'm not saying it is (mostly because this sounds like a valid job activity for the CEO), then Netflix can discipline this guy for that. Not the SEC. Instead, this seems a good argument to limit more of what the SEC does.
Personally, I think making most of these regulations voluntary is a good idea. It separates the men from the boys. If your company can't be bothered to do simple or equitable information control just because it's no longer illegal, that's great for i
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That's a philosophical argument. Your opinions notwithstanding, the CEO made some confidential information available, the equivalent of a public announcement, to a selective audience. Now whether or not he was right in doing so, he broke the law (or at least some regulations).
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That's a philosophical argument.
Given that law is applied philosophy, this sort of thing is to be expected.
Your opinions notwithstanding, the CEO made some confidential information available, the equivalent of a public announcement, to a selective audience. Now whether or not he was right in doing so, he broke the law (or at least some regulations).
But that's not the end of it. Now that we see that this particular law/regulation leads to results that don't always make sense (assuming your interpretation is correct), we can choose to keep it despite those results or change the law appropriately.
There's also the possibility that he hasn't actually broken the law and the SEC has overreached itself. I think that the likely outcome in this case since the confidential information
This they're investigating? (Score:3, Insightful)
They haven't done anything about a few financial institutions purposefully destroying the world's economy, but a CEO saying his company is doing really well on facebook is a problem.
This isn't the nineteenth century, when it took a month to get the information out. Just because the stock holders are too stupid to follow him a facebook.
Also, we need to make a distinction between investment and simple stock ownership. The only time it's investment is during an IPO. After that, it's pretty much commodity trading hoping to make money off of market instability.
More questionable management team judgement (Score:2)
"no comment/contact legal/pr/investor relations" (Score:3)
I work for [redacted] which is why I won't say anything about [redacted] or especially anything about the [redacted] incident that [redacted] 17,000 people and caused the entire town of [redacted] to go bald and [redacted] at 3 in the morning.
Which is why anyone with an ounce of sense doesn't talk about their company (especially the higher up you go in the management chain). And especially never put it in writing. Duh.
"...seen by 200,000 followers" (Score:2)
How much did Hastings have to pay for all 200,000 followers to see the post? Don't only like 10% of your followers see the post unless you pay?
Re:who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
Holy shit man, 4 pizzas? No wonder we are obese as a nation.
Re: (Score:2)
Except that's not accurate...
In this case it'd be like him being the CEO of Domino's and saying he ate four of their own pizzas, or that their customers ate 4 billion in June.
Don't just make up some random hypothetical bad situation.
Get a PC (Score:2)
and they told me to watch videos on Internet Explorer instead. Well the TV for my parents was not hooked up to the PC.
You could always buy a PC and plug it in. It'd be cheaper than starting your cable sub again, unless of course your cable company offers free TV with Internet purchase.