[HN Gopher] Netflix is not a tech company (2019)
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Netflix is not a tech company (2019)
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 230 points
Date : 2021-09-07 15:36 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ben-evans.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ben-evans.com)
| crazygringo wrote:
| This is utterly ridiculous.
|
| I think it's generally understood that, in the 21st century, a
| "tech company" is a company that uses tech as the _principal
| competitive advantage_ to replace traditional "non-21st-century-
| tech" incumbents.
|
| Obviously, Netflix used streaming, collaborative filtering
| recommendations, and a massive CDN to replace cable TV
| subscriptions.
|
| If that's not a perfect example of a tech company, I don't know
| what is.
|
| Yes Netflix needed a good content library too, but that's never
| been its _primary_ differentiator. NBC and HBO have been
| producing good content for many decades now. That 's table
| stakes.
|
| There's _another_ "level" of tech companies, you could argue --
| companies that _supply_ tech rather than just _use_ it as a
| competitive advantage -- e.g. Microsoft, Apple, MongoDB, Dropbox.
|
| But today we tend to label those "software" or "hardware"
| companies specifically (or a combination). Perhaps in the 1980's
| those were the only "tech" companies. But at least ever since the
| dot-com era, "tech company" has meant companies that _use_ tech
| as the _principal competitive advantage_ (as opposed to merely
| increasing internal efficiency).
| echelon wrote:
| > Obviously, Netflix used streaming, collaborative filtering
| recommendations, and a massive CDN to replace cable TV
| subscriptions.
|
| Then Disney, HBO, and CBS are now tech companies.
|
| To stretch your analogy, you might even argue that Target and
| Walmart are tech companies too. Or UPS, DHL, and FedEx. They do
| massive scale logistics using computers.
|
| I would go by a different definition for tech. Are engineers
| the principal innovators and expense driving the company
| forward? Are automation, growth, measurement, iteration, and
| hard problems a chief mindset? That's what tech is to me. You
| could even meet those definitions without being an internet
| company. SpaceX, Tesla...
| cblconfederate wrote:
| > streaming, collaborative filtering recommendations, and a
| massive CDN
|
| Did they develop any of these technologies?
| ronald_raygun wrote:
| Did Apple invent much of its early tech, or did it just lift
| it from Xerox Park?
| cblconfederate wrote:
| apple may not be a pure tech company, they re a gadget
| company, but they have developed a lot of technologies that
| they can patent, a lot of UX things, and it seems they have
| evolved many of the preexisting ones. I don't really know
| what netflix does, do they develop things like video
| codecs, load balancing tech or recommendation algorithms?
| nkohari wrote:
| ...yes?
| duped wrote:
| > Yes Netflix needed a good content library too, but that's
| never been its primary differentiator. NBC and HBO have been
| producing good content for many decades now. That's table
| stakes.
|
| It's pretty much the only differentiator, and what people mean
| when they say "content is king." Very few companies can compete
| with Netflix on fidelity and technical performance. Yet Netflix
| is second fiddle to industry giants that contracted out their
| streaming platform development, because ultimately consumers
| care more about what they're watching than how they watch it.
| wrs wrote:
| So you and the author have exactly opposite perceptions of what
| is "table stakes" (tech or content) and where the strategic
| advantage in the streaming business lies...
|
| Perhaps one missing piece is that there is a first-mover
| advantage to being the tech disruptor, but in many cases the
| tech quickly becomes "table stakes" and the strategy goes back
| to where it was.
| i2shar wrote:
| Exactly right. And I, as a consumer, would consider content
| as the primary driver. An efficient delivery mechanism is
| already (or soon will be) commoditized. Bad content delivered
| efficiently won't drive profits.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Netflix figured out data-driven streaming better than anyone.
| That's its competitive advantage, full stop. It purchases
| content based on unparalleled data analysis, i.e. big-data
| _tech_. They often don 't even order pilots (previously
| unheard of), they're so confident in their statistics.
|
| A useful contrast is with HBO. Yes HBO has a streaming
| service and app... but its competitive advantage is in
| prestige content people will pay $$$ for. Somehow HBO's
| management team is _incredibly_ good at nurturing content in
| an artistic critically-acclaimed way, rather than tech-data-
| driven way.
|
| For Netflix, tech is the primary differentiator and the
| content is table stakes. While for HBO it's reversed. It all
| depends on how a given company is choosing to compete in the
| same market.
| wccrawford wrote:
| >They often don't even order pilots (previously unheard
| of), they're so confident in their statistics.
|
| And a lot of their Netflix-branded shows are quite
| mediocre. I'd say they're not so much confident of their
| statistics about each individual show as they are about
| being able to promote their shows and get them viewed
| anyhow.
|
| And on the average, it works out for them without the messy
| bits in the middle with ordering a pilot and having to
| somehow assess the quality of that pilot in regards to a
| full show.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >Somehow HBO's management team is incredibly good at
| nurturing content in an artistic critically-acclaimed way,
| rather than tech-data-driven way.
|
| It was good. As far as I understand, ATT got rid of most of
| the bosses responsible for nurturing that quality over
| quantity atmosphere and they are also now pumping out
| garbage.
|
| A few months ago, I opened up the HBO Max app (which I only
| have access to due to it being bundled into my mobile phone
| plan), and this is the show that was being advertised:
|
| https://www.hbomax.com/series/urn:hbo:series:GYN4ywAXUS1OLN
| g...
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _and they are also now pumping out garbage_
|
| ...you mean shows like the critically-acclaimed _Mare of
| Easttown_ and _Hacks_ and _The White Lotus_ , all this
| year?
|
| Nobody ever said HBO was _exclusively_ prestige content.
| There isn 't enough to fill multiple channels 24/7. But
| it's still the main factor that drives subscriptions.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It was exclusively quality content (or a higher
| probability of it). That is why people used to pay $15
| per month just for HBO. HBO's curation was its value. If
| I have to research whether or not an HBO show is good or
| not, then the HBO branding is worthless.
|
| Thanks for the recommendations though! They look
| interesting.
| jbay808 wrote:
| The trouble with this definition is that as it defines tech as
| an _advantage_ , it intrinsically depends on what your
| competitors are doing.
|
| Is Netflix still a tech company when Disney (incumbent) now
| offers similar tech? Does Netflix still have tech as its
| principal competitive advantage, or are subscribers now
| choosing who they subscribe to based on content?
|
| If the latter, then Netflix is now a media company, and
| whatever tech superiority they still have is about as relevant
| as Betamax's tech superiority over VHS.
| InternetPerson wrote:
| This is an important question! Is Netflix a "tech company"?!
|
| We should all describe our own thoughts and feelings about the
| term "tech company", in order to sort this out...
| vdnkh wrote:
| > , the streaming and compression are good,
|
| I've been in video tech for a long time, and you glossed over the
| part where Netflix does tech company things. They invented VMAF
| and per-title encoding. I've seen countless video tech talks and
| Netflix consistently brings innovation to the table.
| btown wrote:
| Ah, nothing like a clickbaity title to nerd-snipe us the morning
| after a holiday!
|
| > Like Sky, Netflix has used technology as a crowbar to build a
| new TV business. Everything about how it executed that technology
| has to be good. The apps are good, the streaming and compression
| are good, the UI is good, the recommendation engine is good, and
| the customer service and experience are good. Unlike American
| cable subscribers, Netflix subscribers are generally pretty happy
| with the tech. The tech has to be good - but, it's still all
| about the TV... It used tech as a crowbar, and the crowbar had to
| be good, but it's actually a TV company.
|
| By this logic, Google is less a tech company than an advertising
| firm that used tech as a crowbar! Microsoft is an office supplies
| manufacturer! Which seems absurdly reductive.
|
| In my mind, if you're scaling _customized services for individual
| users_ far beyond what a team of top-tier customer service
| professionals could do (or you 're cyborg-izing those service
| professionals!), you're a tech company. Plain and simple. And
| Netflix fits this bill because part of its approach to content
| creation is that _programming choices_ should be driven by
| quantitative insights about individual users - it 's just a very,
| very long iteration cycle on the optimization algorithm.
| eruleman wrote:
| In 1997, Hastings and Randolph mailed a DVD to see if it would be
| delivered without damage. Netflix was created because a new
| market (home delivery of movies) was created by an emerging
| technology.
|
| 10 years later, Netflix kick started the streaming revolution. In
| 2008, Netflix licensed the Starz catalogue of 2,500 titles.
|
| In a podcast episode _, Ben Thompson said Netflix was his
| favorite company to write about because they have successfully
| transitioned their business model multiple times to take
| advantage of technological shifts.
|
| _ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ben-thompson-platforms...
| pySSK wrote:
| The always had streaming in mind though but the infrastructure
| for it did not exist for mass adoption. They used DVD and USPS
| to gain footprint get off the ground. This enabled Netflix to
| wait it until the market was ready for their big tech-play.
| c.f. SV failures like WebTV and General Magic who were ahead of
| their time but the market/infrastructure didn't exist.
| marban wrote:
| In five years, every company will be an Internet company -- or
| they won't be companies at all. Andy Grove, 2000
| andrewla wrote:
| This is attributing much more coherence to Netflix's strategy
| than could be reasonably assumed.
|
| Netflix is still trying to figure out what it is. I think their
| growth post-DVD was based on the assumption that they would be
| the clearinghouse for all video content; with Hulu and the
| further balkanization of the video space, it was clear that this
| was not going to happen; that Netflix was destined to be one
| provider among many, and that their sources of content would
| start to dry up as other companies decided that the streaming and
| application and appliances were commodity technology that they
| could just brand in-house.
|
| The quality of the UI of Netflix is terrible, but everyone else
| is so much worse that for the moment they stand out. And they
| never managed to get on the bandwagon of selling add-on packages
| like Hulu and Amazon did (although both of those products have
| such abysmal UX that you gain very little over using the
| respective native apps).
|
| So now they're continuing to play up the original content game,
| which appears to be where the industry in general is headed,
| because the Paramount Consent Decree is so dead that it can't
| even hear our prayers.
|
| They are a tech company insofar as they have invested heavily in
| the tech and as a result have the most reliable and usable
| platform (and the most research into recommendations), but the
| gap between Netflix and commodity streaming is narrow enough now
| that their edge in the technology space is gone. So they're
| basically a studio/theater at this point, like everyone else in
| the space. The only difference between Disney and Netflix is that
| Netflix doesn't have a theme park (yet!).
| aidenn0 wrote:
| > based on the assumption that they would be the clearinghouse
| for all video content
|
| Unless they pivoted at lightning speed, I don't think this is
| true. When I saw the online subscriptions start for Netflix, I,
| some random person on the street, observed that the moment a
| white-box streaming service is created, all of the content-
| owners will have zero incentive to put their content on
| Netflix.
|
| If I could think of this, then so could Netflix, and sure
| enough we started seeing netflix buying and producing content
| of their own pretty quickly.
| btmiller wrote:
| This was only part of your comment, but I'm very happy with my
| Apple TV purchase (especially now with the "fixed" remote). The
| hardware has always been sufficiently fast which enables app
| devs to present the best version of their UIs. Though this
| isn't a silver bullet (see the Prime Video app), the same APIs
| many devs are used to on iOS do enable a delightful experience
| (insofar as delightful = objectively better than the
| experiences on alternative hardware).
|
| (Woof, so many caveats here!)
| mandeepj wrote:
| I've always thought of Netflix as a media company.
|
| I believe a simple approach to find out what type of a company -
| a particular entity is - is to seek what comes to your mind when
| you think about that co.
|
| Toyota - Cars: so, they are a car company.
|
| Microsoft - Windows. So, they are a software/tech co.
|
| Google - Search. But, they are part of a conglomerate.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Why is Microsoft a "software company" but Google a
| "conglomerate"? What's the difference?
| mandeepj wrote:
| Good question. I said 'Google is part of a Conglomerate' -
| Alphabet. I also consider them a software co. But, some of
| you might disagree by bringing - Google ads and YouTube into
| discussion. This is where things get complicated. Microsoft
| also had MSN and serve ads in Skype and Windows. Does that
| make them a media co? I don't think so. Similarly, FB also
| does not consider themselves a media company. They say they
| are a tech co.
| pyrrhotech wrote:
| Neither is Facebook or Amazon. In fact, all three have already
| been moved from tech sector and into communications / consumer
| discretionary by economists. Google, Microsoft and Apple still
| qualify as tech for now.
| abvdasker wrote:
| A fundamentally semantic argument like this seems mostly
| irrelevant to me. It's like calling Google or Facebook
| advertising services, which might technically be true but isn't
| usefully descriptive. Using the author's logic you could call
| high frequency trading firms tech companies instead of financial
| services. If his semantics here were correct one might wonder why
| nobody calls HFTs tech companies. The author ignores the more
| complicated side of the questions about what makes a company a
| "tech company" -- mushy concepts like internal corporate culture,
| sources of talent, and participation in the broader tech
| "ecosystem".
|
| Also the idea that Netflix's content strategy is cleanly
| separable from its tech is totally bogus. Netflix uses some
| sophisticated tech to decide what content to produce and also has
| a huge amount of in-house technology involved in the actual
| production of content.
| sfink wrote:
| I think it makes sense to an analyst. Is the company's success
| determined more by {TV,advertising,healthcare,...} concerns or
| by tech concerns?
|
| Which is a very different question from "if I like to do X,
| where should I try to work?" It's closer to "what is the
| company's largest expense" but that's still different.
|
| Different categorization schemes for different purposes.
| nimbius wrote:
| >all of the questions that matter are TV questions.
|
| I wish ben would do a little more research. Netflix imo very much
| is a tech company. they released an entire x.509 certificate
| orchestration framework. HBO and Disney to my knowledge havent
| released any devops tooling.
|
| https://netflixtechblog.com/introducing-lemur-ceae8830f621
| sfink wrote:
| "Tech company" is a label that is rapidly outliving its utility.
| We probably need another name for the small segment of the
| industry that is producing technology as its product.
|
| Looking forward, I'm guessing "tech job" is another label whose
| days are numbered. Already, "I work in tech" is a fairly
| nondescriptive phrase. It's the new "I work with a pencil."
| bilater wrote:
| The salaries for engineers says otherwise. Honestly that's a
| better metric than anything else as it directly correlates with
| how valuable they see engineering talent.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Netflix used to be head-and-shoulders above other streaming
| services, now it seems that streaming (which was unbelievably
| revolutionary 10 years ago) is trivial now. Look how Peacock and
| Disney+ just popped up overnight, streaming video is just
| commoditized now.
|
| I think what makes a company a "tech company" is doing actual
| R&D. Netflix pioneered a lot of technology around streaming.
| Google invented the modern search engine. Microsoft builds
| operating systems. Apple designs hardware and operating systems.
|
| NBC with Peacock? No, they just bought something off-the-shelf.
|
| Is Netflix still doing real cutting-edge R&D? Maybe? Maybe not.
| rodrigosetti wrote:
| Yup. Netflix doesn't sell tech, it sells subscriptions to
| scripted drama. It uses tech to expedite its business, like
| everyone else.
|
| Yes, they invent a little more technology than your typical small
| business spreadsheet. But tech is a commodity for them because
| the only strategy for tech is that "it has to be good".
| mrkramer wrote:
| Even WeWork called itself tech company. The term is widely used
| and abused.
| Communitivity wrote:
| The author says Netflix is not a tech company, but then does not
| give a definition of what is a tech company. At one point he
| seems to say anything that sells something online is not a tech
| company. I disagree, using SaaS companies as one set of counter-
| examples.
|
| For me a tech company is any company that offers product that is
| computerized hardware, software, digital asset, or digital
| service that they have created (so not just a case of
| repackaging). Netflix meets that definition because it offers a
| viewing experience with recommendations, watch lists, etc. By my
| definition many of the companies online would be considered tech
| companies though.
|
| I do think Areading314 is partially correct too. Most companies
| today are going to be using technology. Though not most will be
| creating it as a product.
| didntknowya wrote:
| tldr: it's a media company
| geodel wrote:
| Besides all the great comments here about Netflix being not a
| tech company. I will add that most of Netflix tech blogs lately
| are just describing integrating a bunch of Open source
| Apache/Spring Framework software.
|
| The "technical challenges" they are facing are similar to those
| Enterprisey IT developers face when they could not wrap their
| head around Kludgy Java framework APIs.
|
| Also If I look at Netflix OSS at github it gives that feeling of
| below average enterprise Java software with deeply nested
| packages with probably 5 percent of meat and 95 percent
| scaffolding / config around it.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised to learn if Netflix's famed extensive
| systems monitoring is not because they are on cutting edge but
| that million instances of half-assed Java microservices do need
| endless monitoring just for standard http/database request
| processing.
|
| So yeah, Netflix is not tech company in many meanings of tech.
| cardosof wrote:
| "Tech company" used to be vendors/providers of technology
| components (IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, etc) but today it is a label
| you slap on a stock, startup or IPO to mean "monopoly potential
| with very profitable operations / scalable revenue streams", so
| demand (and price) for said stock grow up.
|
| This is all BS of course - Netflix is a media/content company,
| Stripe is a financial services company and Tesla is an automotive
| and clean energy company. The fact they leverage technology much
| better than their peers (little offshoring, lots of R&D, "built
| here" mentality) is more relevant to the how they do it than to
| what they do.
| tester756 wrote:
| In my opinion Netflix is tech company, but is not part of FAAMG.
|
| The reasoning is that the rest of FAAMG does shitton of "other"
| kind of CS oriented tech (OSes, Databases, Compilers, Heavy ML
| research) and stuff
|
| They're way too big
| robertlagrant wrote:
| It's not your opinion that it's not part of FAAMG, that's
| definitional.
| vmception wrote:
| If you can provide a service to an additional subscriber at near
| zero overhead costs, near zero dollar sales and onboarding
| process, then you're a tech company
|
| the only reason additional industry specific questions exist is
| because they have so many simultaneous users that theyve reached
| theoretical maximums on their near-free resources
|
| when other industries reach the same place, if at all ever
| possible, then we can split hairs over this distinction
| Ekaros wrote:
| Yeah, when adding new customers is near marginal cost you are
| tech company. This ofc does fail some like Tesla at far end,
| but also Apple and Amazon.
|
| So tech is bit murky, but Netflix with Google and Facebook
| should clearly qualify.
| hintymad wrote:
| In a way Netflix is a productivity company. They relentlessly
| improve productivity in decision making, in building device
| ecosystems, in lowering streaming cost, in managing streaming
| assets... Cool technologies emerge from such endeavor.
| MargleBlorf wrote:
| Why does industrial help language at all? The idea that Netflix
| is regulated differently than Time Warner is a scam. It's bad for
| users. Everything was an insurance company for a while. Then
| everything was a finance company. Now it's tech. Why not break
| the cycle instead of just pushing it into the next field?
|
| Basically every company just shifts their marketing language to
| whatever industry has most aggree-able regulations.
|
| I kinda think a more important conversation is about what Netflix
| actually is. Subscribers are the livestock, not the customer. The
| customer are propagandists who wanna promote something with a
| documentary. So many of their docs have a clear influence
| peddling motive.
|
| My favorite is Fear vs New York City...a mafia doc? Well it
| turned into a commercial for Giuliani that was hyper-targeted at
| New Yorkers when it looked like he was going to get charged by
| SDNY. You can argue that the content is compelling but the idea
| is that they interviewed Rudy and Michael Chertoff and a whole
| bunch of real corrupt villains and...i bet netflix paid them.
| That's where our subscription money actually goes.
|
| We all agree they're not a tech company but what do ya'll think
| Netflix actually is?
| [deleted]
| amelius wrote:
| What used to be called "tech" is now called "high tech".
| [deleted]
| cletus wrote:
| Here's the framework I use: "tech companies" are those where tech
| still plays a significant factor in the growth of the company
| such that it's important to an executive level.
|
| Example: Google is still a tech company. As much as some might
| view search as "solved" (just like it was when Google was founded
| I might add), search continues to get better. Tech still plays a
| significant role in the actual core business (ie advertising)
| too.
|
| I once again return to the Steve Jobs take on why Xerox failed
| [1]. An effective monopoly devalued the tech such that Xerox
| became a sales and finance company.
|
| So, returning to Netflix. I agree Netflix isn't a tech company
| _anymore_ because Netflix ultimately is about serving several
| thousand VODs and that problem is solved. Now Netflix 's core
| business is about making content, licensing content and acquiring
| and retaining customers.
|
| Obviously doing this (or anything) at scale is a lot harder than
| it sounds but at the end of the day Youtube is monumentally more
| technically challenging than Netflix due to the number of videos,
| the number of viewers, the advertising and live streaming.
|
| "Tech company" is still a useful classifier IMHO.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlBjNmXvqIM
| coding123 wrote:
| If it's solved, why is the UI for any other content streamer as
| seamless on my roku as the Netflix one. All the others, I might
| as well be using a 13 channel rotary dial still. Even Prime
| sucks, just try rewinding or fast forwarding a minute and see
| how frustrating that is.
| ativzzz wrote:
| The problem is, for consumers, these minor technical issues
| don't matter as much as the content on the platforms. Yes,
| Netflix works much more smoothly than HBO, but we don't
| choose Netflix over HBO because of the quality of the video
| streaming app, but for the shows we actually want to watch.
| Msw242 wrote:
| I disagree. Netflix is a dramatically more polished
| experience. I'm not even going to touch channel specific
| libraries like peacock because hbomax/Hulu are already
| painful enough.
| jboy55 wrote:
| As someone who seemingly in the past 6 months has
| subscribed to them all. The worst technically (Hulu on
| Android TV), has got the most interesting content, and has
| just passed Netflix as my go-to streaming channel. HBO,
| Prime, Disc+, Hulu, Vudu, Apple TV, they might as well use
| the same software.
| bradknowles wrote:
| Hulu is only of interest to me if it is truly ad-free, a
| feature that I willingly pay for.
|
| If I pay for ad-free and then they serve me incessant ads
| anyway, I get really pissed off.
|
| So, I don't watch Hulu. If something is only available on
| Hulu, then I just don't watch it. I'll happily watch
| Disney+, though.
| ariwilson wrote:
| I don't think this is true; I definitely choose YouTube /
| Netflix over e.g. Amazon Prime just to browse for new shows
| as the UI/recommendations are way better. This affects my
| watch time significantly.
| sokoloff wrote:
| 100% agree. I'm watching these over 99% of time _on an
| Amazon FireTV device_ and YouTube and Netflix both have a
| better UI /UX than Prime video. It's not even close.
|
| FireTV device is an excellent value. Prime video? Well,
| it's free with Prime at least...
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| I go to Netflix when I want to watch TV but don't have
| anything in particular in mind partially because of the
| more pleasant UX. I only venture onto the other services
| when motivated to watch a particular show. I sometimes
| cancel these memberships after finishing a show because I'm
| not getting any value.
| bradknowles wrote:
| I find Netflix to be extraordinarily frustrating and
| annoying, because of their insistence on auto-playing
| video constantly based on whatever I momentarily hover
| over or pause on.
|
| I have to dash through shit way too fast to try to get
| somewhere that they won't auto-blast me with whatever
| high volume video shit they want to force down my ocular
| neural pathways.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| That feature can be oppressive. You can disable it if you
| log in to the website (you may need to sign out and back
| in on your streaming device for the setting to take
| effect).
|
| My guess is that it appeals to the average "turn on the
| TV and watch whatever is on" consumer, and Netflix
| probably prioritizes retaining them.
| ssully wrote:
| I understand this is an anecdote, but out of the apps I
| use, I probably go to Netflix or HBO first, then Hulu, and
| Amazon Video last. I honestly try to avoid Amazon's video
| app as much as possible because of how poor the navigation
| and discoverability is.
| wheelinsupial wrote:
| I try to avoid Amazon Prime Video because of the
| practices they use. It's basically becoming a cable
| service now. Ads before the video plays, content locked
| up behind additional pay channels, which have the TV ads
| play during the content, and getting teasers of the first
| season of first few episodes only to find out the rest of
| the series is on a pay channel.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Look at the Roku API and see how primitive it is. Either
| Netflix cares enough to make it polished or they're getting
| special access to private APIs.
| conductr wrote:
| This are highly subjective design choices. Hence why they are
| perpetually unsolved. For me, Netflix on fire Tv is by far
| the worst experience I encounter lately. I had to relocate
| the icon because if I accidentally click into it, it takes me
| 5 minutes to get back to Home Screen. Yes I timed it. Amazon
| has given apps ability to control the exit app UI and
| naturally apps do not want to let you exit. They hide and
| make it difficult to get to the exit app "button" and then
| still ask "are you sure?" But just getting into Netflix,
| there is a loading screen, a profile selection screen, a
| loading screen, then the last screen I was on (or home), then
| I have to scroll to the navigation bar, go all the way down
| to "exit netflix", yes I'm sure, loading screen, then finally
| back home on fire tv. It takes 5 minutes and I never streamed
| any content. The Disney+ app is nearly as bad. It's just
| faster so doesn't take as long but requires a lot of remote
| control clicks. They actually make me choose a profile when
| we only have 1 profile.
| r00fus wrote:
| Perhaps you need a new streaming device. My 3-year old
| AppleTV4 it's near-instantaneous. Both Netflix and Disney+
| are great, even Prime is good.
| bradknowles wrote:
| Yeah, I think the device makes a huge difference. Amazon
| Prime on AppleTV is not horrible. It's not the best UI
| out there, but it's loads better than Hulu, and I like it
| much better than Netflix because it doesn't try to
| constantly scream at me while I'm trying to find
| something to watch.
| nine_k wrote:
| I would hazard to say that a sufficient (not a necessary)
| condition for a company to be a "tech company" is its tech
| being hard to replicate, that is, far from a commodity.
|
| Google is a tech company because both the search and the ads
| networks are hard at the planet scale; we can see how hard it
| is to compete.
|
| Same applies to e.g. Twitter or Uber. It applies much less to,
| say, Reddit, or eBay, or Craiglist; their tech is secondary to
| their existing network effects.
|
| A company like GrubHub definitely has a strong tech branch, but
| the tech is secondary to its delivery network and restaurant
| contracts.
|
| A company like CNN, equally, must have a strong engineering /
| IT branch, but it's so secondary it feels totally invisible,
| and everyone sees them as a "media company", not a "tech
| company".
| Rd6n6 wrote:
| > tech companies" are those where tech still plays a
| significant factor in the growth of the company such that it's
| important to an executive level.
|
| By similar definitions, aren't almost all companies also money
| companies, employee companies, legal compliance companies,
| strategy companies, marketing companies, mission statement
| companies, fundraising companies, etc?
|
| That sort of definition works for giving job applicants a hint
| about whether the company might need them I guess.
| nostrademons wrote:
| By definition, "almost all" companies are not whatever
| departmental adjective comes next. In business, you're
| defined by your differentiators, the things that make you
| different from all other companies. Finance, HR, legal
| compliance, etc. are commodities: pretty much everyone knows
| how to do them. The companies that _are_ defined by those
| labels (Goldman Sachs for finance, for example, or Gusto &
| ADP for payroll) are those that know how to do them _so much
| better that other companies would rather pay them than do it
| themselves_.
|
| So it is with tech. On some level all companies are tech
| companies in that you need a website, Intranet, database,
| etc. These are all commodities though. A "tech company" is
| one where your tech is _so good_ that either you can offer
| differentiated consumer experiences that nobody else can
| offer (eg. YouTube, Apple, FB 's various products, consumer
| parts of Google) or people pay you to handle the tech things
| for them (eg. AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud).
| Rd6n6 wrote:
| > A "tech company" is one where your tech is so good that
| either you can offer differentiated consumer experiences
| that nobody else can offer(...) or people pay you to handle
| the tech things for them
|
| It's a decent definition. It has some implications though
|
| Almost no companies really differentiate via tech that
| nobody else can offer
|
| Almost no game or app companies meet that bar. Most game
| companies have tech that another company can reproduce for
| example. Almost all apps use fairly commonplace tech.
| kenhwang wrote:
| Within gaming, there's Unity, Unreal, Crytek, and the
| like which I would classify as tech, but otherwise, most
| gaming companies are far more creative-focused much like
| film.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Depends on the company. Roblox, Epic, and Wube (Factorio)
| I'd also classify as tech. Most of the other ones are
| either driven by gameplay or art, though.
|
| There's a pattern there: Unity, Roblox, Unreal, Crytek,
| and Epic all build platforms and game engines used by
| _other_ game developers, so again, you are what you do
| well enough to sell to people who don 't want to deal
| with it.
| alberth wrote:
| Is Telsa then a "tech company" by your definition?
|
| What about Jet.com (pre-Walmart acquisition) that pioneered
| cheaper shipping / savings by informing users to by substitute
| products from the data distribution center.
| cletus wrote:
| Tesla is interesting because even they've described
| themselves as an energy company masquerading as a car
| company. Put another way: battery tech is Tesla's core
| business. They just happen to make cars as a way to sell
| batteries.
|
| It's a bit like how SpaceX is set to become a major player in
| regional Internet delivery but you wouldn't call SpaceX an
| Internet or a networking company. It's just a synergy between
| Internet as a business and reducing launch costs while
| proving reliability of first-stage reuse.
|
| I'm tempted to describe both companies as "engineering
| companies" more than "tech companies". I just looked at Tesla
| spends a relatively modest (for its size) ~$1.1B on R&D.
|
| So what's the difference? I'd say "tech" is largely about
| software and "engineering" is largely about hardware.
| Specifically, both Tesla and SpaceX are capital-intensive
| businesses where that capital is being used to produce
| physical products.
|
| To be clear, none of this is official in any way. This is
| just the framework for how I think about things.
| alberth wrote:
| Interesting take and I largely agree.
|
| I wonder how Boston Dynamics should be characterized.
| spoonjim wrote:
| There is probably still a lot more AI/ML work to do at Netflix.
| For example if you are browsing through standup comedy specials
| and you see the trailer joke, and you skip to the next one,
| they know exactly where in the joke that comedian bombed for
| you. So for other people like you, they can show a different
| joke from their special, and for you they can build a profile
| of the kind of humor you like. Then if you start a video and
| stop it, they can know that the joke they showed as a trailer
| was not representative of the first impression the comedian
| gives in the special. etc.
| jakeinspace wrote:
| I don't see how this example would necessarily benefit me as
| the content consumer/customer nor Netflix. What if the clips
| that Netflix learns to show me aren't representative of the
| entire special, and I'm disappointed? And while Netflix to
| some extent wants to have me spend time using their service
| (to ensure I feel like I'm getting value and don't cancel my
| subscription), watching more things I don't enjoy may not
| help.
| mulmen wrote:
| It's an open question if this kind of capability actually has
| a positive impact on the bottom line.
| cletus wrote:
| Honestly that's my experience with ML in general. And I
| know any organization that does a lot of ML has things like
| backtests and holdouts to supposedly measure impact on key
| metrics but I've seen too many cases where adding X has a
| +10% impact in some top line metric and then removing it
| later (and returning to the initial state) has another 5%
| increase in that same top line metric.
|
| Maybe we need to revise the famous phrase to: Lies, damned
| lies, statistics and machine learning.
| [deleted]
| spoonjim wrote:
| They must know whether people encouraged to watch more
| Netflix actually retain Netflix at higher rates. As their
| prices have gone up I assume this is becoming a bigger and
| bigger issue.
| duped wrote:
| There are numerous "unsolved" problems in VoD - technical,
| economic, and creative. Netflix and YouTube barely scratch the
| surface, and traditional multimedia organizations give up and
| ship what they can on other companies' infrastructure without
| any technical innovation.
|
| XR and interactive content are the obvious next generation of
| platform with many technical challenges to overcome. It's
| hardly solved.
| kbenson wrote:
| It's solved to the level that additional changes and
| advancements won't make a major difference to the company as
| it is right now. Those advancements might end up being a
| major component later, but someone else could solve that
| problem and they could license it just about as easily. At
| this point Netflix is a multimedia company that runs their
| own infrastructure, not a tech company focused on delivering
| multimedia.
|
| Netflix could swap out all the underlying tech for someone
| else's and update their players to use that and nobody would
| really notice, except possibly for the very few interactive
| experiences they run. That's why they're not a tech company
| anymore, they've matured the technology, and so have their
| competitors, to the point it's a commodity.
| lliamander wrote:
| I distinguish between _tech_ companies like Adobe, Microsoft
| and Intel, and _tech-enabled_ companies like Netflix, Amazon
| (the store part, at least) Facebook. The former actually sells
| technology (hardware or software) whereas the latter uses
| technology as a strategic tool in selling something else.
| majormajor wrote:
| One core problem Netflix is currently trying to solve with tech
| is "how do we produce hundreds of series/movies concurrently
| with predictable budgets and predictable performance."
|
| They want to be a tech and data-driven studio.
| fullshark wrote:
| Doesn't every large mature company basically try to solve
| this problem, namely predictable revenues and expenses?
| bradknowles wrote:
| They need predictable revenue GROWTH, not just predictable
| revenue.
|
| Because if you're not growing, then you're dead. And no one
| wants to be dead.
|
| This is the fallacy that all big companies seem to fall
| into, because they try to keep chasing the kind of growth
| numbers they had when they were small, but of course they
| can't possibly sustain that level of growth.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > Netflix isn't a tech company anymore
|
| They're still solving some interesting problems like how to
| watch the same content, in sync, with your friends.
| Interestingly my gf and I noticed that when we watched NFLX
| together using a video call to see eachother's faces/commentary
| our video would skew by noticeable amounts across the span of a
| movie. (eg even a 0.5% speed difference would give a 3 second
| skew in 10 minutes, which is enough for one to see someone's
| reaction to a surprising part of the video differ from your
| own.
|
| So there are still technical fringes to solve that can value
| differentiate from late adopters like the channel specific
| providers like say the ABC app https://abc.com/apps
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| Is one of you on NTSC and the other PAL? One of them is
| slightly faster.
| NordSteve wrote:
| Target and Walmart are still solving some interesting
| problems around online ordering and fulfillment. Are they
| tech companies now?
| ozim wrote:
| I see that is going on with "Metro cash & carry" - while
| they don't cater to simple consumers but small businesses
| they start to provide tech services to those small
| businesses not only supplies.
|
| I can imagine part of Target/Walmart business to be like
| Amazon so they sell their tech to smaller or local players
| because they would have loads of knowledge in that specific
| area of ordering and fulfillment.
|
| It is not counter argument as such - but idea that they
| could become Amazon competitors in some areas and be tech
| companies.
| kenhwang wrote:
| I'd say AWS is what gives Amazon the "tech" credentials,
| not Amazon.com which Target and Walmart are working on
| becoming.
| cletus wrote:
| Co-watching is an interesting space. One I've worked in
| actually. And yes, I agree it's not "solved".
|
| Amazon has taken a stab at this with a watch party on Twitch.
| I imagine you could have a private stream and do it that way
| maybe? Not ideal of course. It's intended for a different use
| case.
|
| The best options I've seen involve using sites of
| questionable legality plus Discord.
|
| Your observations of skew are kind of interesting and larger
| than I would've expected. But I guess this is the video
| players being built to show you the content not showing you
| the content at the same time as someone else. Specifically
| this means no effort is made to "catch up" in case of
| buffering. You or your GF must have a lot of buffering. This
| alone surprises me because Netflix's core delivery tech seems
| to be extremely good. But again, their delivery tech probably
| isn't built to solve this problem.
|
| Anyway, while that's an unsolved problem it's not core to
| Netflix's business and that's the key criteria here.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| On different hardware how do they synchronize the playback
| speed? Each device has very different processing
| environment, so I cant imagine it would be easy to ensure
| that exact of playback speed. eg maybe one is playing 30
| frames per second, and the other is playing 29.85 ...
| snovv_crash wrote:
| Double or drop the occasional frame I guess? Audio is
| easier to stretch because it is stored as frequency
| components already.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Audio is easier to stretch but audio should also never be
| stretched because we are extremely perceptive to it in a
| way that we aren't with our visual processing abilities.
|
| Video should always be kept in sync with audio and not
| the other way around. You can freely drop or repeat video
| frames (within the boundaries of reason) without anyone
| being able to detect it in a blind test, but audio should
| not be messed with. This is why when syncing audio and
| video from different sources during production, the
| master clock is always the audio.
| charwalker wrote:
| Plex has offered a watch together solution which seems to
| work really well for my users. I'm not sure if that is a
| unique bit of code Netflix put together or one of many decent
| solutions. I'd guess they need theirs to be the fastest and
| most efficient though.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| Syncplay already solved co-watching ages ago, the only
| remaining issue is streaming platforms like Netflix holding
| the content hostage.
| tomrod wrote:
| Tech firm: your product team creates externally used
| technologies.
|
| Not tech: tech improvements are internal and/or your IT staff
| is all about maintaining/integrating external products.
|
| IT as cost center versus profit center may be a useful
| distinction.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| but even if the center is profit, is the focus weighted on
| the technology it uses or just accomplishing the task (and
| time to market because any median engineer can accomplish
| this)?
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > IT as cost center versus profit center may be a useful
| distinction.
|
| Or perhaps "has a software engineering department".
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| > search continues to get better
|
| Many here would dispute this claim. However, it may be that SEO
| spam has caught up and we're merely at the old equilibrium
| rather than worse than before the peak of Google usefulness.
| AStrangeMorrow wrote:
| This might be very anecdotal, but in my case, outside of
| tech/programming topics, I feel like google results are
| getting more and more generic. For example, a while back I
| had some changes in my life and had to fill lots of
| paperwork. I had various administrative issues regarding 2/3
| specific forms. When I searched for people that ran into
| these issues, I found many helpful link/forums etc... Fast
| forward these past few months, had to fill the same forms and
| ran into some of the same issues. But now and all I am
| finding is stuff like links to the forms, links to the
| administration websites, links to how to fill the form and so
| on. Maybe it is a SEO issue, but overall I feel like I am
| struggling more and more to get useful search results to very
| specific questions. But then again, sample size of 1.
| cletus wrote:
| Search is one of those areas where I find people have very
| strong but very subjective opinions for some reason.
|
| It's like every DDG related HN thread _always_ has these
| comments:
|
| - I moved to DDG X years ago and it's [fine|better than
| Google]
|
| - I can't find anything on Google anymore
|
| - Here's a search where I didn't find what I want.
|
| It's reached the point that I just immediately tune out
| whenever someone brings up anecdotes. There just seems to
| be so much confirmation bias.
|
| I mean no disrespect here. This is generally true.
| Anecdotes just don't mean anything but for some people tech
| people love them when it comes to search.
| websap wrote:
| > serving several thousand VODs and that problem is solved
|
| You're kidding right? You think this problem is solved? Try
| using HBO.
|
| A tech company is any company that understands it can leverage
| technology effectively to run a more efficient organization.
| They treat tech as the way to solve problems rather than
| throwing people at the problem.
| flerchin wrote:
| You're kidding right? Netflix, HBO Max, Amazon Prime Instant
| Video, CBS All-Access, whatever, they all do basically the
| same thing, and the only differentiator for my parents is the
| content.
| tomrod wrote:
| And UI and price.
| burntoutfire wrote:
| And bugs. Haven't encountered any in Netflix yet, while HBO
| Go's are annoying.
| bumby wrote:
| > _any company that understands it can leverage technology
| effectively to run a more efficient organization._
|
| This feels like too broad of a generalization to be a useful
| definition. I could make the case any hospital or logistics
| or <insert business here> is a tech company by this. Tech
| seems too ubiquitous for this to be an effective definition.
|
| I haven't given it much thought, but maybe "a company with a
| business moat hinging mostly on its unique technology or
| ability to use technology" would be a better definition.
| E.g., Walmart could still be a (less) successful business
| without an online presence but Amazon couldn't.
| jerf wrote:
| It's solved by Netflix. Doesn't mean it's solved by anyone
| else, though there are also quite a few other companies that
| have it "solved" for their level of usage, even if they
| couldn't flip the switch tomorrow to become Netflix.
|
| "Solved" also doesn't mean there aren't people maintaining it
| or working on it or getting woken up at night by pages to
| keep it going. It just means, they've got a handle on it and
| when the Netflix executive team meets to discuss the
| business, they aren't spending much time discussing the
| question of whether or not they can stream video to their
| customers.
| cletus wrote:
| Exactly this.
|
| It doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. Others
| have pointed to UI issues, for example. It just means the
| state of the tech probably isn't the top of mind for the
| C-team and the board.
| tapoxi wrote:
| Could you clarify? I subscribe to HBO Max and it works fine.
| cletus wrote:
| I wonder if that commenter meant HBO Go? HBO tech has had
| an interesting history.
|
| First came HBO Go. This was the online streaming for those
| with HBO as part of a standard cable package. Apparently it
| was built on a .Net stack and had huge problems.
|
| HBO Now is the service created for standalone sales of
| streaming. Apparently it had a completely different tech
| stack because of issues with HBO Go. Apparently it came
| from the same people who did the streaming services for MLB
| (Major League Baseball)> In my experience it was very good.
|
| HBO Max is the expanded and updated content ecosystem that
| came with the merger. I don't know what the tech stack here
| is. I suspect it's just incremental changes to HBO Now but
| that's just a guess.
|
| Perhaps the commenter was referring to HBO Go's problems as
| evidence that serving VODs isn't "solved". To clarify, I
| mean "solved for Netflix".
| jen20 wrote:
| The UI of HBO Max on an Apple TV is entirely befitting of
| AT&T - it makes me want to watch anything else because of
| how bad scrolling is because they insist on using their
| own crapware instead of the platform-native software.
| [deleted]
| kristjansson wrote:
| Chalk up DirectTV NOW/ATT TV/DirectTV Stream (all the
| same product) as a victim of that too. Scroll
| interactions take multiple seconds to register, click
| activates elements other than the one indicated as
| selected by the UI, just an overall shitshow.
|
| But they're the only OTT streamer that carries the Lakers
| and Dodgers channels, so alas...
| bradknowles wrote:
| Oh, if only I could outright kill all sports channels and
| sports content.
|
| Or at least permanently hide all sports-related content
| on all devices I own.
|
| I pay for the Hulu+/Disney+ combo that does not include
| ESPN, because I don't want to pay for ESPN. Even if that
| triple combo was cheaper, I'd still pay for the combo
| that doesn't include ESPN.
| mulmen wrote:
| This is the marketing equivalent of a leaky abstraction.
| southphillyman wrote:
| HBO Max performance seems to be platform/tv dependent. It
| works fine on my Ipad but is absolutely dreadful on my
| Samsung televisions. Super slow and crashes every single
| time when viewing content that is 30+ minutes.
| Areading314 wrote:
| We should stop thinking in terms of "tech companies" and think of
| them in terms of "companies that use tech with a high degree of
| success". Ultimately any company that makes money is not a tech
| company because pure technology on its own does not make a
| business. Also, with the right incentives and management it is
| possible, although hard, for legacy companies to start using tech
| better to compete.
| wpietri wrote:
| I think it's still a useful category, but we need to be careful
| with it, because "tech" is a moving target that only includes
| what's novel.
|
| As an example, pencils are an excellent technology for writing.
| (Petroski's "The Pencil" and "The Evolution of Useful Things"
| are great reads on how much innovation it takes to make
| something mundane.) But Faber-Castell is definitely not a tech
| company. Similarly, ~100 years ago, electricity was novel.
| Fortunes were made starting and investing in electricity and
| electrical-adjacent companies. Now it's mundane.
|
| Dealing with novel technology requires different skills. Both
| for the specific technology involved and for wrangling things
| that are less well understood and keep changing. A good example
| is the IT department and what they are and aren't responsible
| for. The breakroom toaster? Nope. The breakroom wifi? Yup. The
| breakroom TV? Well, that depends.
|
| For me the useful dividing line for "tech company" is where
| novel, volatile technology is at the heart of their business
| and vital to their success. That doesn't last. And indeed, the
| markets have been too generous about pretending certain things
| are tech companies. Most notably, WeWork, but I'm sure here
| folks here can name plenty more.
| 3np wrote:
| How about TSMC, Intel, Dell, or Microsoft? I don't see the
| usefulness in arguing that running a successful business means
| it can't be a tech company.
| abeppu wrote:
| > Ultimately any company that makes money is not a tech company
| because pure technology on its own does not make a business.
|
| Making money is what the _company_ part of "tech company" is
| about ... right?
|
| It sounds like you want to imagine a world where making tech
| for non-business purposes is more normalized. I also want to
| live in that world. But I think perhaps we're so far into a
| world where tech to be used by an open audience (as vs e.g.
| secret defense tech) is entirely the province of for-profit
| enterprises that people have ceased to consider that the
| players in tech need not be companies.
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| A 'tech company' is that is internally built of software, so it
| is (theoretically) as easy to evolve as software - which is not
| that easy, except compared with anything else. So, amazon,
| stripe, airbnb, uber, reddit, github etc. Perhaps a bit like
| when companies started to be built around the new-fangled
| telephone instead of telegrams and dictated letters. More
| responsive and free-form.
|
| This does not guarantee a strong competitive opportunity, nor
| strong execution - but it makes it possible for the benefits of
| IT to be realized.
|
| Actually, there are several legitimate definitions of 'tech
| company', this is just a relevant one today that is significant
| long-term.
| 3np wrote:
| Why limit it to software? Manufacturing technological
| hardware makes you a tech company for any meaningful
| definition of the word, no?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > A 'tech company' is that is internally built of software,
|
| Aside from weird blockchain entities, this doesn't exist.
| Companies may use software, but they are made of people.
| dralley wrote:
| I agree. What most HN commenters seem to really mean when they
| say "technology" is "consumer software", or more cynically,
| "company is made of mostly software engineers".
|
| There is an incredible amount of advanced technology being
| created and used by more "traditional" industries like
| manufacturing, aerospace, or animation.
|
| Why should Facebook be considered a technology company but not
| Pixar, Ratheon, General Dynamics, Corning or TSMC? It makes
| zero sense and relies on a very self-serving definition of
| "technology".
| samhw wrote:
| > company is made of mostly software engineers
|
| This hits the nail on the head. If you dig down into it, this
| almost always aligns with the companies people describe as
| 'tech companies'.
| desas wrote:
| Uber is mostly made of drivers, yet is considered a tech
| company. (I'm aware drivers are not technically employees).
|
| Maybe it's more to do with the strategy of the company.
| mikeryan wrote:
| This whole argument seems a silly bit of semantics. Is a
| company's product is not "technology" a tech company?
|
| For the vast majority of companies technology is tool, not the
| product, but whether you call them a "tech company" seems a
| silly game. I'd think pretty much all companies are "tech
| companies" and the better you are at using those tools can
| provide a competitive advantage.
| chipotle_coyote wrote:
| > Ultimately any company that makes money is not a tech company
| because pure technology on its own does not make a business.
|
| "X makes money, therefore they are not a tech company" seems
| rather oversimplified in the same way "X is a tech company" is
| oversimplified. Actually, it seems oversimplified to the point
| of maybe not being so useful.
|
| I think the way most people would define "tech company," if
| they were pressed to offer a definition, is that a tech company
| is one that derives the bulk of their revenue from selling
| technological goods and services, rather than using technology
| as the means to sell other goods and services. There's no way
| to keep that definition from being somewhat fuzzy, but if I say
| "Dell is a technology company and Cadbury is not," I don't
| think people will really object to that unless they're trying
| to be pedantically clever about it: Cadbury may use technology
| in all sorts of clever ways to manufacture chocolates and get
| them to retail shelves, but they're selling you chocolates.
|
| There are obviously companies that complicate this by having
| multiple divisions with different kinds of revenue streams --
| Amazon and Apple both come to mind immediately -- but Netflix
| really isn't one of them. What they do requires a lot of
| _focus_ on their technology, and from the perspective of
| someone perusing their job listings it 's very easy to think of
| them as "a tech company." But what they're ultimately selling
| is access to their content.
| tshaddox wrote:
| To me "tech company" also usually implies that the company
| has replaced some older thing with a newer technological
| solution. I think that's why Netflix intuitively feels like a
| tech company, even though all the other TV/movie home
| distribution companies (cable TV, satellite TV, pay per view,
| even physical media sales/rental, etc.) have always used
| advanced technology. Netflix is just the company that's most
| famously associated with the introduction of the newest
| mainstream technology for distributing TV and movies:
| Internet VOD.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Most people wouldn't consider car companies tech companies,
| but they definitely do R&D and directly sell the technology
| that results from that inside their cars.
|
| Probably because people don't even have a good definition of
| "tech". Everything we use is tech. Even books. Some of it is
| old, some of it is new. But people's definition of tech
| mostly centers around when they were born.
|
| As a software developer, I mostly care if a company considers
| their software a competitive advantage. Because they're more
| likely to treat me well. This is also similar to how I tend
| to define tech companies: companies that view tech as a
| _competitive advantage_. So they aren 't just buying stuff
| off the shelf - they're figuring things out in house,
| regardless of what they sell.
| auggierose wrote:
| Everybody I know considers a car company a tech company. I
| think there exists a strange Silicon Valley definition of
| tech out there. But maybe my German bias shows. I mean,
| most of the stuff in SV barely qualifies as tech.
| bluetomcat wrote:
| The SV definition of tech leans towards "a user-centric
| service delivered over the web, with some clever software
| solutions behind it to handle a lot of data and users".
| rileymat2 wrote:
| I thought the definition was more about scaling because
| of the near zero incremental cost of servicing another
| customer. But using some sort of tech as the product.
|
| Other industries also exhibit this, like media.
|
| And that is what differs an auto company from a Google.
| The next car sold still has significant capital
| investment.
| Jensson wrote:
| > Everybody I know considers a car company a tech company
|
| I have never heard that. Car companies are mostly
| manufacturing, that is the major part of their
| organizations and what drives their decisions. They have
| big engineering teams, but they have way bigger teams
| working at factories. If you had a company just creating
| car designs and selling those to manufacturing companies
| it would be a tech company, but the current ones aren't.
| auggierose wrote:
| Audi. Vorsprung durch Technik.
| Jensson wrote:
| I don't doubt they were tech companies 80 years ago when
| things were new and creating new tech was more important.
| However I don't think that Google or Facebook or
| Microsoft will be tech companies in 50 years either, its
| just the nature of having a field being mostly explored
| and companies being in maintenance mode since there isn't
| much else they can do.
| burntoutfire wrote:
| For some weird reason, "tech" means "consumer software
| /SaaS". So, Trello or Yelp is tech, while lasers in space
| are not tech.
| jdsully wrote:
| Cars have been in the small incremental improvement camp
| for decades which is why they're not considered tech. Tesla
| is the outlier because they are pushing a revolutionary
| change not just incremental ICE improvements and are valued
| as such on the stock market.
|
| Auto makers could turn into tech companies again but their
| risk tolerance has to be turned way up.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| The history of the word "tech" as an industry sector is
| that it has been used to refer to computing technology, but
| cars are certainly a technology more broadly understood.
|
| But we probably should just stick to industry standard
| jargon. Lockheed and Boeing are definitely technology
| companies, but not "tech" companies, although that is even
| further complicated in that they do sell computing hardware
| and software products, not just airplanes and missiles.
|
| Netflix unambiguously only sells entertainment, though.
| They use an app and a website as a delivery mechanism, but
| the app isn't the product.
|
| Also, as much as the emphasis on hacker news is think of
| employment by Netflix as being an engineer for Netflix,
| engineers are very far from the highest paid contracts. No
| engineer is getting the $500 million deals Netflix hands
| out to Shonda Rhimes and Benioff and Weiss. Netflix itself
| recognizes content is king here.
| bumby wrote:
| > _a tech company is one that derives the bulk of their
| revenue from selling technological goods and services_
|
| How would you define pre-AWS Amazon? It doesn't seem to meet
| this definition, yet I think most would still consider them
| to have been a tech company
| wffurr wrote:
| There's a third category that you're missing, and it's where
| the definition gets real blurry.
|
| There are companies that effectively use technology to
| outcompete (or "disrupt") incumbent companies in a market.
| Amazon in retail, Netflix in media, Craigslist for
| classifieds, Uber for taxis, etc.
|
| It seems as if many existing companies, like Cadbury's
| perhaps, aren't able to effectively re-work their business
| models with the new possibilities available via tech. Thus
| they're "non-tech" companies even if they do make some modest
| use of technology, but ultimately their business model
| predates tech.
|
| "Tech" companies in this space are the ones creating or
| adopting brand new business models in an existing space
| enabled by technology. This is the "software eating the
| world" part of the tech market.
| neogodless wrote:
| I really like the focus on strategy (or tools) rather than
| trying to label the company itself.
|
| Across many industries, especially in the past several
| decades, companies have used (modern) technology to
| compete, and the successful ones grew and gained
| recognition for good application of technology.
|
| Google, at the core, doesn't sell technology to consumers.
| They help people find and share information. (Yes, they
| sell consumer products that have evolved in the technology
| age, and we often call a phone or a modern speaker
| "technology.")
|
| Apple is a consumer products company. Microsoft is (by
| revenue share) an enterprise solutions company. (This
| includes software, hosting, APIs, etc - all technology.)
|
| As sibling comments have pointed out, from the beginning of
| their existence, automotive companies took the newest
| technology (initially motorized transport!) and used it to
| sell personal transport to consumers. Technology is in
| almost everything sold (except when it clearly isn't...
| food, most clothing, some services) or it's used behind the
| scenes.
|
| Overall, what value do we get from trying to draw a line
| between technology company, and "not" a technology company?
| Netflix by itself doesn't really try to sell you
| technology, and yet they were instrumental in selling smart
| TVs and streaming boxes.
|
| Do we want to know as prospective employees? Knowing if we
| are cost centers or profit centers?
| nonameiguess wrote:
| We used to have a better word for companies doing things
| like the Amazon Marketplace: eCommerce. But now that AWS is
| most of their business, they're "tech" because cloud
| infrastructure is a computing technology they directly
| sell.
| omarhaneef wrote:
| I like this definition, but I think it should be associated
| with a strategy rather than a company.
|
| So Netflix is using a tech strategy, but it won't forever
| be a tech company.
|
| As the particular technology a company deploys becomes
| widespread, then everyone will deploy it and it will no
| longer be a tech company.
|
| To put it another way: Netflix was not a tech company when
| it launched and was mailing DVDs, it became a tech company
| when it started its streaming service, and as other
| companies also launch streaming services, it won't be a
| technology company in the future.
| [deleted]
| comeonseriously wrote:
| > but if I say "Dell is a technology company and Cadbury is
| not," I don't think people will really object to that unless
| they're trying to be pedantically clever about it
|
| Such as if you were to ask people, "which is the tech
| company, Apple or Ford?", most would choose Apple, choosing
| to call Ford, instead, a "car company".
| munk-a wrote:
| Is Dell really a tech company though? Does selling computing
| hardware really count as tech these days since Apple would
| definitely end up being a tech company under that definition
| - even with all the other revenue streams it has I think
| being one of the largest manufacturers of computing hardware
| would automatically qualify them.
|
| I personally consider "tech companies" to be companies with
| tech I find interesting to think about - Netflix definitely
| qualifies under that header, Apple does too owing to
| producing a huge operating system, Amazon not only has AWS
| services on offer but they also run a storefront of a
| staggering scale and were pioneers in how storefronts like
| that were discovered... Dell - Dell might get grandfathered
| in as a tech company based on how they were earlyish into the
| market of web-based computer sales (ala "Dude you're getting
| a Dell" days) but now a days I assume their tech stack is a
| pretty ornery customized CMS like thing with a relatively
| simple order processing system behind it.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I'm confused by how at the very end of your comment you
| seemingly switch to only considering the tech stack of a
| company's online ordering system, which seems to me to be
| always completely irrelevant to whether a company would be
| considered a "tech company."
| detaro wrote:
| It's in the context of the first half of the sentence: If
| "online ordering being interesting" was what made Dell
| relevant, then the fact that it isn't interesting today
| is relevant.
| parasubvert wrote:
| Dell takes in a $94 billion dollars in annual revenue
| across several lines of business and is the 4th biggest
| "tech" company by revenue after Apple, Microsoft, and
| Alphabet. Facebook is 5th ("tech"?), then Intel, IBM, HP,
| Cisco.
|
| Only half of that revenue is from "Dude you're getting a
| Dell" - PC (and network / peripheral) sales. DellEMC
| (mostly enterprise storage or hyperconverged hardware and
| software) top line is $35 billion or so of that number. The
| rest is VMware and other software / services.
|
| Simple order processing it is not, it's like saying a
| Google is "just search and ads". Somewhat true, but misses
| a lot.
| vel0city wrote:
| Suggesting Dell is just a customized CMS thing is like
| saying Netflix is just an account registration tool.
| They're not just reselling equipment designed and made by
| other companies, they actually make a ton of things as in
| making actually new technologies. Maybe not things _you_
| touch on a day to day basis, but they make tons of things
| nonetheless.
| burntoutfire wrote:
| Apple is not manufacturing any computers, only designing
| and marketing them. Foxconn et all is manufacturing the
| Apple-branded computers.
| philipov wrote:
| I like this definition, but I think it breaks down even if
| you're not trying to be clever. AWS is a tech company. Amazon
| is not a tech company, it's a retail store. But AWS isn't
| actually an independent company, it's just a division of
| Amazon. So we've got a retail store hiding a massive tech
| company because the retail store is even more massive.
|
| I think this is less a flaw of the definition and more a sign
| that Amazon should be broken apart and AWS spun off as an
| independent company.
| phil_e_delphian wrote:
| I generally agree with you here, since it _seems_ like
| "tech" or "not tech" should be based on services actually
| provided (ie selling physical books online isn't really
| tech).
|
| Except, many of these companies have a second, b2b service
| that they're cultivating as a goal unto itself: customer
| attribution, identification, aggregation, etc. Companies
| like goPuff (or Amazon, but Amazon has a hand in everything
| so is more complicated for this example) have a core "not
| really tech" service of online ordering of human-delivered
| goods, but they are actively working to turn all of those
| engagement/sales/preferences info into a packaged product
| they can sell to brands and marketing companies, which is
| at its core, data aggregation and analytics as a
| service...so "kinda tech"?
| mbesto wrote:
| I'll just copy and paste my response from before because this
| comes up often:
|
| _there is no real definition of a "tech company" or "tech
| industry", the word "tech" defines the operating model. This is
| the dirty little secret VCs don't like to tell you because it
| means they can call Tesla a tech company (its a car and battery
| manufacturer) to fetch tech-like valuations or Facebook a tech
| company (its a media company). Tech operating models typically
| net high gross margins (i.e. Facebook) which is one of its
| major defining characteristics.
|
| I therefore posit there is no such thing as a "tech industry",
| but rather businesses that sit on a spectrum of operating
| models from:
|
| - Back office IT supported
|
| - Tech enabled
|
| - Tech Led_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27693634
| wcunning wrote:
| How would you compare GM and Tesla using this framework?
| They're both very tech dependent given the impact of the chip
| shortage and electric car manufacture, but one is certainly
| more "novel." I'm honestly not sure where I would come out, but
| I think it's a good point of comparison for the framework as a
| result.
| SkipperCat wrote:
| Both of them are tech companies. One in battery and AI/ML
| self driving software, the other in supply chain management.
| gitfan86 wrote:
| Tesla is an engineering based company. GM is a MBA based
| company.
|
| It isn't that Tesla has no MBAs on staff or the GM has no
| engineers on staff. But a culture that leverages engineering
| culture can iterate and reinvent itself and include new
| technologies faster than one who is focused on management
| metrics.
|
| I'm not saying that MBAs are bad, there are plenty of
| companies that went way to heavy on hiring engineers and went
| bankrupt before their business plan was viable.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| I was thinking the same, but you said it better.
|
| How many "non-tech companies" are non-tech companies simply
| because they're too disfunctional to use technology
| effectively? Think of your bank with its shitty password rules,
| only offering 2FA using SMS, and no useful APIs; that's a non-
| tech company. They either aren't aware of their lackluster
| technology, or are unable to organize themselves well enough to
| improve it.
| tempest_ wrote:
| I think it is pretty easy to define tech company.
|
| Is the IT/Software Dev a profit center or a cost center, easy
| as that.
| tshaddox wrote:
| What about companies that aren't remotely profitable at
| all? Isn't that a huge portion of notable tech companies?
| tomrod wrote:
| Better term would probably be revenue driver, which is
| typically what is meant by "profit center." In other
| words, IT brings sales contracts through the door.
| burntoutfire wrote:
| For banks, online banking is a huge driver of business.
| Some banks have even started claiming (I suspect mostly
| for recruiting purposes) that they are "in tech sector".
| mhh__ wrote:
| Similar Point: "Hedge" and "Edge" share a lot of letters and
| semantics. If you are really good at dealing with tail risk
| (Pandemics, perhaps...) this not only allows you to rugged-
| ize and preserve your internals structures and practices in
| extreme circumstances but also potentially _massively_
| outcompete your competitors.
|
| For a modern information-centric company, what does that
| mean? Get the technology right. Pay some smart people to get
| your internals ship-shape and reproducible, for example.
| browningstreet wrote:
| Banks are run by the bankers and the tech team is typically
| very second fiddle. I work in fin tech.
| barbecue_sauce wrote:
| Isn't that his point?
| jcims wrote:
| This varies greatly by size and age of the bank.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Or just have customers who mostly can't grasp authenticators.
| A friend worked for a company that implemented 2FA with the
| authenticator app. They removed it in a day as it ground the
| company to a halt.
| thedougd wrote:
| I also tend to think the distinction is related to
| compartmentalizing all technical activities into an IT
| suborganization. A tech company performs all these activities
| as a matter of the regular course of business, within the
| lines of business organizations. A bank would have a
| dedicated IT organization, a few layers of 'governance' and
| human orchestrators to slow down your builders, and you get
| all the dysfunction you describe.
| jcims wrote:
| Large banks have an entire universe of challenges that don't
| impact firms like Netflix or Google. I've worked with enough
| of them and seen many high speed engineering folks from FAANG
| companies flounder for months as they try to recalibrate for
| the highly regulated environments.
|
| I'm not saying banks are great at tech, because on any
| individual metric it would be really hard to find an example
| of where they lead, but they (and other highly regulated
| industries) have a lot more to solve for along the way.
| randomdata wrote:
| I imagine all successful companies use some kind of tech to a
| high degree of success. That tech may not necessarily be
| computer-based.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> Ultimately any company that makes money is not a tech
| company because pure technology on its own does not make a
| business.
|
| What is Microsoft then? What is Apple?
|
| Google I can accept as some kind of service provider and
| advertising company that uses a lot of tech. Amazon as well.
| SkipperCat wrote:
| What about companies that use tech to make tech and that people
| buy to incorporate into their tech? GitLab, Atlassian,
| 1Password and others. No physical products, just tech for your
| tech so you can make more tech.
| xtracto wrote:
| For me a tech company is one that sales APIs, SDKs or similar
| products. I was in 3 "tech" startups before that were both b2c
| and b2b. Their product was perpendicular to their technology
| (one video-tech 2 Fintech) my current company's product is a
| set of APIs. It means that the features that we sell ARE the
| technology, instead of some footnote that buyers send to their
| nerd department to make sure it checks a box.
|
| Needless to say, the difference on how the tech team is valued
| is night and day between this last one and all the others.
| stumpedonalog wrote:
| Yeah my idea of what a tech company is: a company who is
| product first and that product is digital.
| rvz wrote:
| > Ultimately any company that makes money is not a tech company
| because pure technology on its own does not make a business.
|
| So Intel, TSMC, Nvidia are not tech companies?
| jefb wrote:
| Netflix is absolutely a tech company. Everyone wants to be "tech"
| because the valuation multiples are higher due to non-linear
| revenue potential per unit invested. That's pretty much what a
| "tech" company means today - the cost of acquiring user 1 might
| be millions, but user 2 is pennies. The only way to push those
| user n+1 costs so low is with heavy tech automation, which
| Netflix et al. has in spades.
| simonw wrote:
| When I worked at Yahoo back in the mid-2000s one of the most
| depressing internal messages was the idea that "we're not a tech
| company, we're a media company" - while Google were running
| circles around us on basically every front.
| PieUser wrote:
| Yes they are.
| [deleted]
| nostrademons wrote:
| This gets complicated though. Is AirBnB a tech company? A simple
| analogy to the article would suggest no, AirBnB is a hotel
| company.
|
| However, the actual "hotels" are owned and operated by AirBnB
| hosts, and AirBnB does not derive significant competitive
| advantage from the quality of their administration, beyond the
| value of having a large number of hosts on the platform. AirBnB
| is fundamentally an _information_ company. Its real competitive
| advantage is that it owns the channel to the customer, it has a
| really good search function, and it also owns all the data that
| makes up reputation-management system that 's critical to good
| hotel reservations. These are all tech areas; AirBnB can afford
| to lose a bunch of venues, even really good venues, but if it
| loses the review database a good portion of its competitive
| advantage goes away.
|
| There was a time when lots of people believed Netflix's key
| competitive advantage was the recommendation algorithm and
| viewing history. I'm not certain we're in that world anymore -
| Netflix seems to care a lot more about content than
| recommendations these days - but I can see why Netflix would've
| been considered a tech company back then.
| ycomb9 wrote:
| I think almost every company is a tech company in some ways. Tech
| enables them and has moved on from a concept of being a cost
| center to revenue enabler. Also tech resources are likely the
| most expensive resources as well.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > The tech has to be good - but, it's still all about the TV. If
| Netflix was only showing reruns of Frasier and Ally McBeal no-one
| would have signed up
|
| I think this is always a bit of a silly argument. If Netflix was
| showing everything, but the tech was terrible, no one would've
| signed up. You need both.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Netflix wasn't the first service to show TV online. Others
| didn't catch on because the tech WAS terrible. That's why we
| all would stream torrents before. Netflix's promise was
| convenience at a good price and it definitely came down to the
| tech.
| asdff wrote:
| Especially when you consider before netflix made content and
| first got its subscribers, it was just showing reruns of shows
| like Frasier. Cheaper to get through a box set on a netflix
| subscription than at the video store.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Maybe I am just getting older, but I would pay for a service
| that simply showed reruns of my favorite shows (including
| Frasier). That is 99% of what I watch anyway nowadays, just
| from my NAS.
| [deleted]
| ses1984 wrote:
| The tech isn't just content delivery. It's also extracting
| useful information out of their customers' habits so they know
| what to license, what to renew, how much to pay for it, etc.
| travoc wrote:
| Is that what's happening? Because it seems like they're still
| funding an awful lot of flops to find a couple of successes.
| ses1984 wrote:
| They're not optimizing for fewer flops, they're optimizing
| to attain and retain subscribers for the least amount of
| money. If that means 20 flops for every success, who cares?
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| I'd disagree considering there's more than a few streaming
| platforms with sub-par tech. Hulu is quite buggy, as is HBO
| Max. Criterion Channel is literally just Vimeo and didn't even
| have working closed captioning until recently.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Delivering streaming content at all is pretty remarkable.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Hulu is technically quite good and Criterion is a failing
| service (< 100k subs)--but regardless, technical evaluations
| need to be made relative to missing would-be subscribers and
| expectations relative to library size, market size, brand
| value and marketing budget.
| fedreserved wrote:
| So long as your not getting spammed with ads and viruses people
| will jump through almost any hoop to watch something online
| short of paying
| soneca wrote:
| I disagree. The HBOGO app used to have pretty poor tech. It
| would logout with no reason, forget where I was in the show,
| sometimes freeze requiring to close and open the app multiple
| times, have problems with Chromecast. Still, I wanted to see
| GoT
| ajford wrote:
| I mean, I have Paramount, Hulu, and HBO subscriptions, but
| I'm far more likely to fly the black flag and watch it from
| my Plex server instead of their apps due to how painful those
| apps are to use.
|
| If I was a little less honest, it would be easy to skip
| paying the subscription entirely. I generally use their apps
| now to find and try new shows, then download them to Plex
| once I know I like a show (so I'm not burning bandwidth
| fetching shows I'm not gonna watch).
| plandis wrote:
| This is fair but is your average person setting up plex
| servers? My guess is no.
| ajford wrote:
| No, but my tech-illiterate father is now setting up fire
| TV sticks with Kodi and plugins using Youtube guides for
| him and my step-siblings.
|
| The whole "are the normies capable of this" argument has
| turned into an arms-race against Youtube/FB for easy
| setup guides.
|
| That said, yes, the number of people they'd loose over
| shitty interfaces is probably kinda small, but I'd argue
| that as guides, youtube vids, and even all-in-one
| seedboxes become more available, that population is gonna
| grow. All it takes is some streamer to lay out the
| current process.
| Benji_San wrote:
| Yeah I kind of agree, Netflix still seems to be the only
| streaming service that actually offers a better service
| than just pirating the content and watching it through Kodi
| or Plex. There is always some minor or major technical
| issue or missing feature with every other streaming service
| I've tried except Netflix.
| djanogo wrote:
| Once the tech gets good enough to show tiles on all platforms
| and distribute the content to edges efficiently what "new tech"
| does Netflix need quarter over quarter?
| subpixel wrote:
| As a counterexample, the tech and design behind remote controls
| was, for a decade or more, abysmal.
|
| I am willing to bet that this had zero impact on cable
| subscriptions.
| OneEyedRobot wrote:
| I'm probably wrong here, but it seems to me that storage is
| practically cheap enough (not quite) that Netflix could simply
| send out a drive with their whole library and then a membership
| gives you access codes.
|
| Send out a new drive per year.
|
| Do they really only have 4,000 movies in the US?
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I doubt my subscription would cover the cost of that drive
| every year, even if I wanted to wait 12 months for new content!
| OneEyedRobot wrote:
| Imagine how small the drive would be if it just had 'things I
| might ever watch'.
|
| The size for 100% isn't even that big given a few iterations
| of storage tech.
|
| I'm just blown away by how little Netflix really gives you.
| Given the push to internally-financed programming they've
| basically become a production company with streaming bolted
| onto the back end. Their market cap is kind of a joke.
| bloak wrote:
| As I understand it, the category "tech" was invented by stock
| traders. The applicable definition of "tech" company is a company
| whose share price movements correlate with the share price
| movements of other "tech" companies, which in turn tends to
| depend on how stock traders view the company, so the definition
| is circular in at least two ways. But it's probably still a
| useful concept. For stock traders.
| paxys wrote:
| While you can make that argument today, Netflix as a company is
| 24 years old. It got to its current position not by spending
| $15B/yr on original content (which it can afford to do now) but
| purely based on a superior and novel tech experience for its
| users.
|
| Of course eventually all discussions of this nature devolve into
| the intricate definition of "tech company", and in the absence of
| one that is agreed upon, bringing this whole thing up is
| pointless.
| omegalulw wrote:
| > but purely based on a superior and novel tech experience for
| its users.
|
| I mean they were the pioneers in offering tv and movies via
| streaming. The tech is really not that dramatic.
|
| You can think of streaming tech in three parts: video quality,
| recommendations and UI.
|
| Arguably video quality is the most important, but other
| platforms have already offer similar/better quality (albeit a
| lil more data).
|
| Their recommendations and UI are better than others but I
| honestly don't care about these two as they are still not good
| enough for me to discover content I would want to watch, for
| that I still have to go to reddit/curated articles.
|
| So I would say Netflix's contribution was more in pioneering tv
| streaming as opposed to tech. They are now competing mostly in
| terms of their originals, so I would label them more like
| Disney/HBO rather than tech.
| tnzk wrote:
| Definitely. The title of OP should be 'Netflix is no longer a
| tech company' or so.
| sfink wrote:
| Right. It started as a shipping service company that
| specialized exclusively in DVDs.
| eslaught wrote:
| Perhaps Netflix has shifted. In the beginning, I think you
| could have made a good argument that technology was their moat,
| but I don't think you can say so today.
|
| Today, their best attempt at a moat is content, and it's a poor
| one at best since they can only make so much original content
| and it's not as if they can do so in a way that is inaccessible
| to other services.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Content for them seems a desperate attempt at countering deep
| content firms' moats, who can now build streaming services
| copycatting Netflix.
| pmoleri wrote:
| I disagree, I think getting the license to stream the content
| is a much more difficult problem than the technology to stream
| it.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Only once each of the thousands of impossible problems that
| need solving in order to stream reliably have been solved.
|
| That's the problem with software. It solves problems so well
| they stay solved, and only constructed problems such as IP
| ownership remain.
| saalweachter wrote:
| Eh, as a user Netflix original content is a large part of why I
| still have a subscription.
|
| I used Netflix back when it was mailing me DVDs, and loved the
| online streaming back in the halcyon days when it seemed like
| they had _everything_.
|
| Then came the dark days when content owners began pulling their
| IP from Netflix and scattering it all over the internet behind
| a dozen different options that offered them more money or
| control, and Netflix was a barren wasteland without anything
| that caught my eye; my queue was a variety of B-tier series
| that I tried a few episodes of and gave up on.
|
| So I canceled my subscription, for several years. It didn't
| matter what their UX or uptime was or how smooth their video
| codecs, they didn't have enough content I wanted to watch.
|
| Then I came back for the original content -- I forget which
| series first made me sign back up; House of Cards? -- and while
| I watch licensed content on Netflix from time to time, at least
| half of what I watch is produced by Netflix.
| musingsole wrote:
| > It didn't matter what their UX or uptime was or how smooth
| their video codecs, they didn't have enough content I wanted
| to watch.
|
| Netflix has developed a novel data system (as evidenced by
| papermill) that is likely responsible for countless decisions
| that manifested the content which brought you back. I don't
| know first hand but I suspect data is integrated into their
| everyday processes in ways most companies can't even dream
| of. Does that make them a technology company again?
| asdff wrote:
| This is a little bit hyperbole don't you think? I think
| companies with means these days just invest in this sort of
| technology because that's what you do in business now.
| Target is a department store but I wouldn't be surprised to
| learn they are hiring pure machine learning researchers too
| and doing remarkable things with data as well, same goes
| for any large company. 60 years ago you had large companies
| operating complex switchboards in their offices but you
| would never call these businesses telephone companies even
| though they operated their own internal telephone network.
| That sort of technology was just a tool of the trade, just
| like data science is now for large companies. I wouldn't
| call netflix a technology company when literally every
| large video production company is investing in the same
| things and trying to hire the same sort of talent, and you
| wouldn't call MGM or warner brothers a technology company
| either.
| saalweachter wrote:
| And Disney/Pixar is constantly pushing the bleeding edge of
| computer animation and CGI special effects. Is Disney a
| technology company?
| mattkrause wrote:
| Disney's research divisions do a lot of really cool
| stuff:
|
| - https://studios.disneyresearch.com/publications/
|
| - https://la.disneyresearch.com/publication/
| makeitdouble wrote:
| As much as I am not a fan of Disney, I think they are.
|
| Even outside of movies they have significant care to
| innovate and push the boundaries, for instance in theme
| park animatronics or toys in general.
| lmkg wrote:
| I was going to say something similar. It's inarguable that they
| _were_ a tech company, when they pioneered streaming delivery
| for existing video content. Their tech platform was their
| primary differentiator to competitors for a number of years.
|
| Whether they are _currently_ a tech company is a bit fuzzier.
| Certainly they new have content as an additional
| differentiator, and the margin of their tech advantage has
| narrowed.
| drewg123 wrote:
| I think we have a large advantage in the CDN space, both in
| integration and efficiency.
|
| In terms of efficiency, we've been serving at 100Gb/s (mostly
| TLS encrypted) from single socket servers since 2017, and are
| moving towards 400Gb/s today. How many other companies can
| say that?
|
| I'm talking about the push to 400Gb/s at EuroBSDCon online, a
| week from Sunday..
| treis wrote:
| But that mostly doesn't matter. The consumer doesn't care
| if their movies are coming from a server handling 10Gb/s or
| 100 Gb/s or 400 Gb/s. There's cost savings there, but I
| imagine that content costs dwarf delivery costs at this
| point.
|
| There is some technology component where the UI,
| resposiveness, reliability, and so on impact the user
| experience. But still content is king there. The HBO apps
| suck and their streaming is less reliable than others but
| they've got the content I wanna watch so I put up with it.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _purely based on a superior and novel tech experience for its
| users._
|
| I don't think this is accurate - the main value proposition of
| Netflix seems to have always been "streaming site with lots of
| mainstream content, _that is also legal_ ". I.e. it's the
| streaming deals they've made that mattered, not delivery tech
| or their web player.
| barbecue_sauce wrote:
| Pretty sure he's talking about the OG Netflix DVD-by-mail
| request-by-web model.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| No. For the first decade plus of its existence, Netflix was a
| DVD by mail rental service and there, its technology was a
| key differentiator. You paid a subscription depending on how
| many DVDs you wanted to have out at a time, Netflix mailed
| them to you in red envelopes, and you mailed them back in the
| same envelope. The ingenious part was that there was a
| website where you entered in all of the DVDs you wanted and
| Netflix would mail them to you as they either became
| available or in order of priority (the original Netflix
| queue).
|
| Yes, you could be pedantic and call a lot of that logistics,
| but the lack of physical stores, the website, the queue and
| rating and recommendation system (the Netflix recommendation
| algorithm was a huge part of its appeal, even after the
| streaming stuff, until Netflix got sued for accidentally
| outing someone with the algo), were all tech.
|
| Netflix has ALWAYS been a hybrid tech and content company.
| Always. But it started out very much more on disrupting the
| video store model the same way Amazon disrupted brick and
| mortar bookstores.
| teawrecks wrote:
| Then all companies are tech companies. They all aim to come
| up with a product that's better than the last, and they
| almost never use old tech to do it.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| Well, yes. In a certain way, _everything_ is tech. Tech
| != computers /engineers/algorithms/robots/HAl/whatever.
|
| But even in the popular understanding of what a tech
| company is, Netflix more than many others DOES have
| historical and current tech bonafides. 25 years ago
| during dot com mania, there wasn't a lot of hand-wringing
| about whether WebVan or Pets.com or Amazon or whatever
| were tech companies. It was accepted that e-commerce WAS
| tech, even if it was different than DEC/Compaq/HP or Sun
| or Microsoft or Apple or whatever.
|
| And Netflix operated from a website, used technology for
| its logistic and delivery system (much like other
| e-commerce systems)and had a recommendation algorithm
| (that they had a contest to improve, because they saw
| that good recommendations reduced churn) and a focus on
| UX to keep the product good.
|
| It took them more than a decade, but the goal of
| delivering video via the Internet was always there. Roku,
| which in its original incarnation was simply a Netflix
| streaming box, was originally ideated and developed at
| Netflix before the company decided it didn't want to be
| in the hardware business and so the head of the project
| and the engineers left to make Roku. Netflix has done as
| much work as any single company except perhaps YouTube to
| optimize and pioneer how to effectively serve large
| swaths of video to users across the globe.
|
| The problem with Ben Evans' piece is that he
| misunderstands that Netflix has always been a tech and a
| content company. Even when it was a rental company with
| more tech and no original content, the recommendation
| algorithm and the dedication to buyers and curators who
| would make the decisions about what DVDs were purchased
| (eventually customer signals played into this too) always
| had a very strong content focus in the product.
|
| That's the reason Netflix works. It was the first media
| company to really innately understand both tech and
| content. Disney and HBO (WarnerMedia, whatever) have
| great tech stacks too (especially Disney), but Netflix
| was the first and is still the most successful.
| jbay808 wrote:
| My local library has had the same service for about equally
| long. The only difference is that instead of ordering them
| to my house, I order them to the nearest branch and then I
| walk in and pick it up whenever I feel like it. Then I drop
| them off a couple weeks later. No need to mess with
| envelopes and shipping. And it's free!
| yurishimo wrote:
| While I don't disagree that this experience exists in
| many places, the reality is nowhere near as convenient as
| you describe it. The waitlist for any movie I want to see
| is astronomical unless it's a decade old so by the time I
| get it, I might not be interested anymore. Netflix
| somehow had the logistics worked out that everyone could
| get most new movies pretty close to release which I think
| is why they took off in popularity.
|
| Also, the Netflix shipping/return mechanism is arguably
| more convenient than even driving to the library. The
| envelopes were prepaid and were built in such a way that
| opening it uses one part of the packaging, which exposed
| a tape seam to seal it for return. Chuck that in any
| mailbox and you're good to go. Better than driving 15
| minutes across town to the library to return a movie in
| the drop-off bin and hope it doesn't get lost and I get
| charged for it, forcing me to go inside so I know it was
| returned properly...
|
| I want the local library version to get better, but right
| now it still has a ways to go in my city.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| It just depends on the dimension you are talking about.
|
| If you describe a company based on the product/service it
| provides, there is no such thing as a tech company. There are car
| companies, project management software companies, web search
| companies, entertainment companies, oil companies, etc.
|
| If you describe a company based on their core competency, there
| are tech companies, product companies, brand companies etc.
|
| You can choose any dimension you want. It's usually just helpful
| to then be consistent, ie Tesla is a car company and Netflix an
| entertainment company. Or both are technology companies.
| aynyc wrote:
| I have a much simpler definition.
|
| 1. If a company sees its technology capability as a profit
| center, then it's a tech company.
|
| 2. If it sees technology as a cost center, then it's not a tech
| company.
|
| It's a bit of over-simplification, but it usually works for me
| and people I speak with.
| dfdz wrote:
| Anyone who has used Netflix and HBO MAX (the best and worse
| streaming site, respectively, in terms of streaming tech) will
| beg to differ that Netflix is not a tech company...
| poopypoopington wrote:
| Facebook is not a tech company it's a (social) media company,
| Google is not a tech company, it's an information search company,
| Apple is not a tech company it's a consumer electronics company,
| Amazon is not a tech company, it's a retail company.
|
| You can say this about any tech company, it's just where you draw
| the line of what "tech" is.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| They are a tech company. Just not only a tech company.
| swman wrote:
| Every problem that business solve, even if it is "technical", is
| still a business problem.
|
| Nobody cares about docker, until businesses (that might be in
| retail/healthcare/cruise/whatever) realize they can use docker
| for their needs.
|
| Nobody cares about stripe. Until businesses realize they just pay
| for a well documented, easy to use SDK.
|
| I work for a company in a sector that is not that familiar with
| technology. We're bridging that gap, and the software we sell is
| a technical product, but engineering is only part of the
| equation. Again, nobody cares about what we make until those
| business realize that software loaded on those phones everyone
| carries can help them improve/increase their business.
|
| Just solve problems. Labelling problems is for business
| analysts/consultants/hamster wheel professionals.
| [deleted]
| throwawayswede wrote:
| Reads like a clickbait title. Of course they are. Somewhat out of
| touch if Ben really thinks like that.
| mdoms wrote:
| Is this an interesting or actionable insight? Or just arguing
| semantics for the sake of it?
| bytheway wrote:
| tech make it possible.
| [deleted]
| 0xdeadbeefbabe wrote:
| They are a crowbar using company. They use leverage. What big
| news.
| vincentmarle wrote:
| Can Netflix exist without tech? No.
|
| Can Netflix compete just on its tech? No.
|
| Both can be true at the same time.
| nashashmi wrote:
| First focus on Netflix started out as emailing dvds. So it was a
| supply chain company. Then it started going into recommendations.
| So it was data mining. Now it is streaming. So it is streaming
| company. Like Real (remember them?) was a streaming company.
|
| Large companies with established proven processes can migrate
| towards the tech ladder. But small companies cannot become a tech
| company aka shark tank funded red dress.
| [deleted]
| rhacker wrote:
| If no one is a tech company, what IS a tech company? We have the
| habit of getting into pedantic esoteric arguments that are
| meaningless. I can't accept that Netflix is a "Television
| company" because they don't sell TVs. They are a content provider
| and license holder. However there are billions of content
| providers and license holders.
|
| Also let's say that a mega rich person starts investing in
| 15Billion / year on content like Netflix, but at the same time
| does it by creating Blockbuster like stores where people can walk
| in and rent said content. That's not a Tech company is it?
|
| There IS a reason these companies born out of the SV are tech
| companies. Flagging as this is just a click bait puff.
| hongloumeng wrote:
| If they use data science to make content decisions, and
| algorithms to recommend content, is that not a tech company?
| ARussell wrote:
| I think "tech company" is a near-useless label, anyway. I
| struggle to think of any company that isn't, or at least
| shouldn't be, a tech company. Everyone uses technology to provide
| their product or service, even if they are rudimentary ones.
| There are those companies that are pushing the boundaries of what
| was previously possible, sure, and if that's what people agree is
| the definition of "tech company" (high innovation), then surely
| Netflix counts. No one watched much TV on computers or phones
| before them.
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| almost every company is a tech company now
| eldavido wrote:
| I used to read a lot of writing like this and still do (tech
| strategy newsletters--Stratechery, Benedict Evans, etc)
|
| The hazard of reading stuff like this is that it makes the world
| seem much more orderly and predictable than it is. Case in point:
| Zoom. "Videoconferencing is a commodity". "Distribution is all
| that matters". And all of a sudden, someone does this "commodity"
| a lot better, without the pre-existing network/distribution/brand
| of someone like Skype, Google, etc. How do they explain this? How
| does it make sense that a team can work heads-down without any
| clear distribution advantage and just grind, and build a large,
| meaningful company by making _a better product_?
|
| It's the same deal with Yamaha Motorcycles. Read their story.
| Bootstrapped from a "nobody" brand in the US, stiff competition
| against Harley-Davidson and their ilk. They just got better and
| better, gradually improving year after year, until they're taken
| seriously by hardcore enthusiasts and are one of the leading
| motorcycle companies in the US. How do you explain this success
| in terms of moats, 2x2 matrices, SWOT analysis, competitive
| positioning, etc? Sometimes a company wins because they just want
| it more badly and are willing to push their people harder, and
| outwork/out-deliver the competition.
|
| Calling the tech "still fundamentally a commodity" bothers me not
| because I'm a technologist, but because it's horribly hand-wavey
| and imprecise. It sounds precise, but what...exactly...does this
| mean? As other commenters have pointed out, sure, a commodity
| that cost oh, 100 billion dollars and a decade to build, isn't
| easily duplicated, and meaningfully contributes to the user
| experience? I heard someone describe gold as a "6000-year bubble"
| last week in the context of the "crypto bubble". Same idea--"a
| commodity that nobody else has, took a decade to build, and over
| 100 billion dollars". Some "commodity".
|
| As a CEO, I increasingly find all this strategy stuff noise. All
| that matters is delighting your customers. You do that and charge
| a reasonable price, you're going to succeed. It might take a
| while, and of course you need decent sales/marketing execution,
| but overall, just focus on keeping customers happy, and you'll
| get there.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Calling the tech "still fundamentally a commodity" bothers me
| not because I'm a technologist, but because it's horribly hand-
| wavey and imprecise. It sounds precise, but
| what...exactly...does this mean?
|
| Quite a lot of analysis seems to be making people feel better
| about not being technical, when technical jobs are exploding in
| prominence, and you can sell your analysis better if you make
| customers feel better.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| I would say strategy evaluation is more valuable on the
| investing side than real-world.
|
| Investing in companies with strategic advantages is much more
| profitable that trying to find the one commodity company out of
| thousands that are able to escape from the fires of intense
| competition.
|
| Strategy is also how you avoid having to delight your customers
| to be profitable. Just get a new law passed that is
| inconvenient for your competitors to follow.
|
| Delighting customers is also hard because people are
| unreasonable and unpredictable. Try selling an app. Even if
| your app adds lots of value over your competitor, people aren't
| used to spending money on apps. I would guess the vast majority
| of apps that make money play into people's addictions and get
| 1% of their users to buy pay-to-win items or custom skins for
| their players/items. Only the unreasonable people actually make
| these companies any money.
| liuliu wrote:
| I use Apple TV. Netflix does have better user experience (in
| terms of playing videos) than Prime Video, HBO Max, Hulu for
| me.
|
| It plays faster, seeks faster, properly does Dolby Vision / HDR
| when the content has it and has different language subtitles.
| It animates properly from one screen to another (in stark
| contrast to Prime Video).
|
| The content exploration and navigation is something to be
| desired, but comparing to other apps, it is on par (similarly
| bad).
| eldavido wrote:
| 100% agree. Prime video is garbage through and through. I
| much, much prefer Netflix.
|
| I think Benedict's larger point is correct that I might put
| up with shitty Prime streaming because I want to watch what's
| on it. But it's not a delight. No way. And in the long term,
| that shit _matters_. The joylessness creeps up on you over
| time, until eventually you 're left with Eclipse, Windows 10,
| or Android scrolling. Your NPS scores fall off a cliff, you
| get zero word of mouth, no lines outside of stores, nobody
| talking about it on social media/news/etc. and then everyone
| acts like it's some big shock.
|
| It's not fun!!
|
| I think Tesla, Apple, and Netflix all really _get_ this.
| RangerScience wrote:
| I had to put my Tesla in the bodyshop, and the loaner I got
| was a "nice" Jaguar SUV.
|
| God damn the software was shit. All the "car" part of it
| was fine (arguably excellent, even) but the rest was just.
| Ugh.
|
| ( _four_ control surfaces to use cruise control?!)
|
| The Tesla dashboard software package is just plain
| delightful, and that's such a huge part of cars now, it
| really matters.
| funman7 wrote:
| Internet backbone
| rvz wrote:
| I would go for 'tech-enabled' company. Simple as that.
|
| Downvoters: So Nvidia, Intel, AMD, TSMC are not technology
| companies?
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| Very true.
|
| They are NO MORE a tech company than WeWork ever was or is.
|
| Simply using "IT" to do a non-technical job does not make you a
| "tech company"!
| netcan wrote:
| The "tech company" monicker is increasingly nondescript, but any
| kind of classification needs context to be useful. These big
| guys, at present, aren't doing obvious head-2-head competition in
| well defined market categories. Ford, GM and Toyota are similar
| to each other that Amazon & Google are not.
|
| To think in classifications, you pick your classification based
| on the aspect of company you care about.
|
| Netflix's culturalness, financing, hiring/labour practices are
| more like "tech companies." Their competition, is home
| entertainment for consumers, and media companies for content.
| Their business model is basically cable. etc.
|
| In any case, it seems the author goes through all these semantics
| to notice tha:
|
| _" you can access the same service on any device (Netflix,
| Spotify, Kindle), or the same content on any service (music,
| books), or both. Content doesn't stop you switching - unless it's
| exclusive, and that's a totally different budget."_
|
| So yep, key point. Media economics is understudied.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| The more important distinction it seems is how much of your
| sales is marginal profit, how your revenue scales, and the
| growth potential.
|
| If you have very high fixed costs, but the profit from each
| additional subscription is ~90%, and you have a clear path to
| growth - your future profits could be ridiculous.
|
| Netflix is selling non-durable goods with insane marginal
| profits. In this way, it isn't much different than a software
| company - like Microsoft in the 90s.
|
| The distinction between whether you are selling software or
| NFTs, streaming videos, or ads seems less relevant.
| tonymet wrote:
| The confusion here is expecting the tech to be visible in the
| user experience. Netflix tech is continuing to invest in
| targeting and data-driven content content production.
| ravivyas wrote:
| There are multiple OTT content providers in India, many with
| "popular" content, but their tech is bad ( to be accurate), so is
| the experience of watching shows on them.
|
| Look at it from that lens, and Netflix is a tech company.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| Netflix said that their strategy was to become HBO faster than
| HBO could become Netflix.
|
| Which to put it in the words of the author: get as good at "TV
| decisions" as HBO before HBO got as good at tech (making apps,
| good UI, good recommendations and streaming back-ends) as
| Netflix.
|
| I think it makes sense. Wish the article was better at explaining
| how the tech-crowbar worked for sky and Netflix.
| xgulfie wrote:
| Honestly what is a "tech company"? Google is an advertising
| company, so is Facebook. Amazon is a store. Etc etc.
| [deleted]
| ransom1538 wrote:
| Eh. Netflix gambled hard. Real hard. They thought streaming would
| destroy all dvd and physical mediums. That was a real gamble in
| 2005. That was a huge payout. Now we all have "genius" insights
| how it worked out - but honestly they deserve every penny. And
| no, they are not a tech company anymore they just produce
| content. Anyone can upload a video and hide it behind a paywall.
| Rock on netflix.
| beervirus wrote:
| Remember when WeWork (oops I mean just We) pretended to be a tech
| company instead of an office space leasing company?
| [deleted]
| zeckalpha wrote:
| (2019)
| [deleted]
| skim1420 wrote:
| I'm not a font guy, but I really dislike the 'a' character in
| this font set.
| nemo44x wrote:
| I think I heard someone describe Netflix as a logging company
| that occasionally streams videos.
| barrenko wrote:
| Tech company is a company that can sucessfully and repeatedly
| build product (product in IT sense). Which most companies can't
| even if it's a cold day in hell.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| > Coming back to TV, there's an irony here in the fact that the
| tech industry has spent decades wanting to get into the living
| room, get into TV, break up the cable bundle and move TV from
| scheduled linear to on-demand, and yet now that it's happening,
| it's happening in the TV industry, not the tech industry.
|
| I don't see the irony. This seems to be a circular definition of
| "TV industry". The technological breakthroughs (cable, satellite,
| streaming, mobile) that completely change TV don't count as "tech
| industry". Silicon Valley startups Netflix and Apple somehow
| don't count, neither does Amazon, and YouTube doesn't even get
| mentioned.
|
| I also have an issue with the implied definition of "commodity".
| I think a commodity needs fungibility and availability. So
| storage is now a commodity, but large scale streaming is not. You
| can't order a Netflix scale infrastructure on the market.
| Crosseye_Jack wrote:
| > The box was good, the UI was good, the truck-rolls were good,
| and the customer service and experience were good.
|
| What UI? Back when Sky launched the box would show you the
| channel number you where tuned to via LEDS over the channel
| selection buttons and/or via a simple OSD like you would get on
| any other TV with a OSD displaying channel numbers.
|
| The best UI you got was went something wasn't "working" (be it
| because you didn't have the auth or because something went wrong)
| and the OSD told you it couldn't decrypt a channel / to insert
| your viewing card.
|
| It wasn't until the launch of digital I would say it gained an
| UI.
|
| Granted the truck rolls and the customer service was decent from
| what I recall. I don't recall any major issues. (and the UI on
| the digital boxes wasn't bad when it came out and have been added
| to since, no idea what the Q boxes are like as I cord cut a fair
| few years ago.).
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Isn't Netflix the largest server of video in the world? I imagine
| they have truly massive technical challenges and innovate on
| those challenges.
| [deleted]
| pnevares wrote:
| Can we get an edit to add (2019) to the title?
| citizenpaul wrote:
| This whole thing is pointless. It is basically about clarifying
| the definition of a financial/MBA term. Where do you draw the
| line at "tech company" vs some other classification? It only
| matters if you need to check a box on a portfolio investment
| diversification.
|
| If a company came out with a fully automated oil drilling
| solution they are a tech company. Tech defined the company even
| if the majority of their business 20 years later comes from the
| fruit of their technical development labor. Netflix is tech
| company that now mostly makes money from content.
| skohan wrote:
| I think the broader point is that this term is getting less and
| less relevant in general. It would be like if you defined any
| company that transported goods by rail a "train company". It
| would have seemed relevant as a classification when trains were
| novel, but once it becomes the norm that ceases to be the most
| relevant characteristic.
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| My biggest gripes with headline and article that they used
| the term with extreme ambiguity. I'm sure 50% of the world
| companies are classified as "tech company". Every time I see
| those term popping up, all the question I have is tech in
| what? and What is their specialty? Espically with many new
| entities name and it is harder to track of what they do.
| rlewkov wrote:
| Who's on first?
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Once a company has grown to certain stage it HAS to be centered
| on business. So the ideal life of a technical person is to:
|
| 1: Join a start-up
|
| 2: Work hard to grab as much technical fields under belt as
| possible, preferably be the CTO or one of the tech director/VP
|
| 3: Leave when it's broke/successful enough to be less technical
| related
|
| 4: GOTO 1
| AvocadoCake wrote:
| Having used Paramount+ recently, it has really made me appreciate
| Netflix as a tech company, in addition to their FOSS
| contributions and other innovations. I think it's silly to say
| that only a company that directly sells tech (whether that be
| software or hardware) is a tech company.
| _greim_ wrote:
| "Tech company" is arguably a term whose meaning has shifted into
| the domain of common popular agreement, away from any rigorous
| first-principles definition.
|
| It would be equally futile to say "Betsy's Diner may serve
| coffee, but it isn't a _cafe_ ; it's mainly just a sandwich and
| pastry shop." Or, "Fritz's Foods may sell a few items in bulk,
| but it isn't a _grocer_ ; they mainly sell individually-packaged
| items."
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