<story><title>Netflix claims Fortnite is now a bigger competitor than HBO</title><url>http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/334702/Netflix_claims_Fortnite_is_now_a_bigger_competitor_than_HBO.php</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>avar</author><text>If the cost is so tiny it doesn&amp;#x27;t matter, why does Netflix have that annoying &amp;quot;Are You Still Watching &amp;#x27;&amp;lt;showname&amp;gt;&amp;#x27;?&amp;quot; pop-up that&amp;#x27;s shown after a few episode have auto-played? It&amp;#x27;s annoying when binging shows, and I always assumed it was a money-saving measure.</text></item><item><author>jedberg</author><text>Also ex-Netflix, and no, that was not ideal.  We worried about those folks because they were the ones most likely to quit and the least likely to tell others about the service.&lt;p&gt;The cost of actually delivering the video was so tiny it didn&amp;#x27;t matter.  To put it another way, you could watch for the entire month continuously and it would make no difference to the bottom line.&lt;p&gt;The videos were fixed cost licenses, not per view, so it didn&amp;#x27;t matter who watched it or for how long.  The actual cost of sending bits over the wire was trivial.</text></item><item><author>cpeterso</author><text>Wouldn&amp;#x27;t the ideal Netflix customer watch 0 hours (thus consuming none of the company&amp;#x27;s resources) while still paying their monthly subscription? :) OTOH active viewers probably refer more friends and family to become new Netflix customers.</text></item><item><author>rsweeney21</author><text>Ex-Netflix here. When I was there we had two metrics we cared about: hours watched and retention. Whenever we introduced a new feature we carefully measured it&amp;#x27;s impact on those two metrics. Ultimately, retention was the most important metric, but hours watched was a leading indicator for retention.&lt;p&gt;I always had a bit of a moral dilemma working at Netflix because my goal was to get people to spend more time watching Netflix, which I didn&amp;#x27;t really think was good for humanity.&lt;p&gt;Either way, it was nice having very clear goals. Netflix was a great company to work for.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stouset</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s in case you&amp;#x27;ve fallen asleep, so you don&amp;#x27;t suddenly wake up to find you&amp;#x27;ve &amp;quot;watched&amp;quot; three seasons of whatever show you were on. This is only displayed if there&amp;#x27;s been no input on the remote for some number of hours.</text></comment>
<story><title>Netflix claims Fortnite is now a bigger competitor than HBO</title><url>http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/334702/Netflix_claims_Fortnite_is_now_a_bigger_competitor_than_HBO.php</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>avar</author><text>If the cost is so tiny it doesn&amp;#x27;t matter, why does Netflix have that annoying &amp;quot;Are You Still Watching &amp;#x27;&amp;lt;showname&amp;gt;&amp;#x27;?&amp;quot; pop-up that&amp;#x27;s shown after a few episode have auto-played? It&amp;#x27;s annoying when binging shows, and I always assumed it was a money-saving measure.</text></item><item><author>jedberg</author><text>Also ex-Netflix, and no, that was not ideal.  We worried about those folks because they were the ones most likely to quit and the least likely to tell others about the service.&lt;p&gt;The cost of actually delivering the video was so tiny it didn&amp;#x27;t matter.  To put it another way, you could watch for the entire month continuously and it would make no difference to the bottom line.&lt;p&gt;The videos were fixed cost licenses, not per view, so it didn&amp;#x27;t matter who watched it or for how long.  The actual cost of sending bits over the wire was trivial.</text></item><item><author>cpeterso</author><text>Wouldn&amp;#x27;t the ideal Netflix customer watch 0 hours (thus consuming none of the company&amp;#x27;s resources) while still paying their monthly subscription? :) OTOH active viewers probably refer more friends and family to become new Netflix customers.</text></item><item><author>rsweeney21</author><text>Ex-Netflix here. When I was there we had two metrics we cared about: hours watched and retention. Whenever we introduced a new feature we carefully measured it&amp;#x27;s impact on those two metrics. Ultimately, retention was the most important metric, but hours watched was a leading indicator for retention.&lt;p&gt;I always had a bit of a moral dilemma working at Netflix because my goal was to get people to spend more time watching Netflix, which I didn&amp;#x27;t really think was good for humanity.&lt;p&gt;Either way, it was nice having very clear goals. Netflix was a great company to work for.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jemfinch</author><text>They have it so their watchtime metric is accurate, obviously.</text></comment>