Netflix's Bigger Problem

I closed my Netflix (NFLX) position today. Way too late. The only good thing is that I bought it when it wasn't on anybody "buy" list, well below $50. Sure, I should've sold it long time ago. Well, rear sight is always 20/20.

Yes, last quarter report was the trigger. Actually, one little thing in the report: it seems to me that Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, wants Netflix to be like HBO. Well, HBO is a part of Time Warner (TWC), and if you look at long term chart, it's not a good investment, to put it mildly. If Netflix wants to be HBO, I don't want to invest in it.

There are a lot of comments. People are rightly questioning latest moves, cost of streaming content, attempts of content providers to charge more and/or strangle Netflix as a competition to cable TV. Everybody is missing one thing: there is almost no content. I cancelled my Netflix DVD subscription not because of price increase, but because couldn't find anything on DVD I wanted to watch. I went through US and foreign classics, some new movies in 2009 and 2010. There are probably 3 movies released in 2011 I want to watch. I watched one in the theater. For 2 remaining I can use pay-per-view on Dish Network, much cheaper than keep Netflix subscription. I don't care about multiple remakes and remakes of remakes. I hate most of the comics based movies. Vampires and zombies are not even funny anymore. There is nothing else out there. I have the impression that content providers are reducing costs by dumbing down their production. Well, they are losing me as a customer.

Somebody might say that my taste is not mainstream, that only fringe watches, for example, Woody Allen movies, that most people want to see transformers and vampires and zombies. Maybe. But I know for sure that there are a lot of people with diverse tastes which are (were) Netflix customers. And many of them have the same problem: there is nothing to watch.

Full disclosure: I don't have any positions in NFLX or TWC.