Netflix Executive Wants Bitcoin as Global Currency, Considers It Cost-Effective

[Chronobank]

At the Citi Internet, Media & Telecommunications conference, Netflix chief financial officer David Wells expressed his optimism towards Bitcoin, and how it is shaping to become the global currency of most major industries.

According to Market Realist, a prominent investment research establishment which covered the event, Wells stated:

“It sure would be nice to have Bitcoin in terms of a global currency that you could use globally.”

Why Netflix is Interested in Bitcoin

As MR researcher Shirley Pelts explained in a 5-part series entitled “Tools in Netflix's Wheelhouse to Meet International Challenges,” Netflix is actively looking into Bitcoin payments due to increasing cases of fraud and criminal activity revolving around gift and prepaid card payments.

In contrast to many streaming and digital content distribution networks, Netflix has provided both its users and content creators with a wide range of payment options, outside the traditional field of banking and credit card payments.

For instance, users from underbanked countries such as Argentina and India or users under the age of 18 that illegible for bank and credit card applications can purchase a variety of gift cards from physical locations such as gasoline stations and convenience stores to pay for Netflix services.

In June 2015, Libran Research & Consulting and prepaid commerce solution provider CashStar, co-released a study entitled “Gift Cards Through the Eyes of Consumer,” to analyze the ecosystem and industry surrounding gift card distribution.

In its research, the two firms stated that gift card sales surpassed the $129 bln margin in 2015, emphasizing its rapid growth compared to other conventional payment tools including credit and debit card services.

However, like many other financial tools, a rapid increase in growth also relates to an increasing number of fraud cases, due to the emergence of hackers and criminals trying to bypass the system.

Security veteran and cryptography expert, Tony Martin-Vegue wrote in a study that bypassing gift card security and essentially double spending its balance is not a difficult operation and can be completed with fairly shallow knowledge of security.

“This type of fraud is fairly low-level and does not result in a huge loss to the merchant, but is quite a shock to the customer when the recipient of a gift card tries to redeem it and finds that the balance is zero,” cutives/risk-management/gift-card-fraud-how-its-committed-and-why-its-so-lucrative/]stated Martin-Vegue.

As a response, the Netflix financial team and CFO David Wells are looking into Bitcoin, which can be considered as a more practical and cost-efficient alternative to gift cards.

https[Suspicious link removed]cutive-wants-bitcoin-as-global-currency-considers-it-cost-effective

[amacar2]

Seems like netflix soon gonna start accepting bitcoin which will be really nice news for all of us actually to the users from countries where paypal like payment processors are restricted as well as don't have any working international visa/mastercard debit cards. Streaming of netflix should be expanded to meet users from all around the world and allowing bitcoin can be one way for netflix to achieve this worldwide coverage.

Isn't this old news? and netflix haven't started accepting bitcoin yet. 

[yayayo]

It makes a lot of sense for Netflix business model to accept Bitcoin, because it has the potential to streamline their payment channels. Since Netflix delivers a digital service worldwide, Bitcoin is a natural match. With Bitcoin it becomes a lot easier to accept payments worldwide without having to care about the various capital restrictions in emerging countries, where Netflix's streaming is in high demand. It is also a win from a user perspective, because once users are into Bitcoin, sending payments is more seamless than first acquiring gift card.

The same way Netflix is challenging traditional TV, Bitcoin is challenging traditional banking. Given their huge user base, Netflix accepting Bitcoin will clearly be a great leap towards mainstream BTC acceptance.

ya.ya.yo!

[Carlton Banks]

This could be big. Not only do Netflix and Bitcoin obviously suit one another, but this could represent major in-roads into "closing the loop" of Bitcoin being treated by businesses as a currency instead of as a hot potato. I say this because a Hollywood film distributor (Lionsgate) announced they would begin accepting Bitcoin last year, and people like Netflix are the customers of people like Lionsgate. Hodling....

[gentlemand]

Isn't this old news? and netflix haven't started accepting bitcoin yet. 

That's what I thought too. I seem to remember this being mentioned a relatively long time ago.

Like so many other businesses, Netflix relies on people not being bothered enough to cancel their subscription. If I had to manually do it every month I'd certainly think twice. I wonder how they plan to get around that little bit of psychology.

[btccashacc]

Well this is might be the good news for the community, if netflix would accept bitcoin, so bad netflix has been blocked by my internet provider, the issue is about the permit but with bitcoin and vpn i think i could use their service again, hoping netflix would start accept bitcoin soon.

[biggus dickus]

Isn't this old news? and netflix haven't started accepting bitcoin yet.  

That's what I thought too. I seem to remember this being mentioned a relatively long time ago.

Netflix "opened the possibility of accepting Bitcoin payments" on January 6th, but I couldn't find an option to pay with them on the Netflix website yet.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/netflix-opens-to-bitcoin

On January 6th, during the Citi 2016 Internet, Media & Telecommunications Conference, Netflix CFO David Wells opened the possibility for Netflix to accept Bitcoin payments.

Like so many other businesses, Netflix relies on people not being bothered enough to cancel their subscription. If I had to manually do it every month I'd certainly think twice. I wonder how they plan to get around that little bit of psychology.

Netflix would probably use the same prepay system for Bitcoin that it has for gift cards. It deducts the monthly charge from a gift card balance each month, and I assume stops providing films to anyone with an empty balance. For Bitcoin it could ask for payment once a month, then stop providing films to anyone who doesn't pay.

Although Netflix relies on people not being bothered enough to cancel their debit card subscription it seems to terminate gift card subscriptions when a gift card stops paying.

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/24928?catId=en%2F130

Netflix Gift Cards in Asia-Pacific

You can use Netflix Gift Cards to prepay for a Netflix subscription or to give as a gift to friends, family, teachers, and more. These gift cards are available at most major retailers in the following Asia-Pacific countries:

Australia and Japan.
You can purchase a Netflix Gift Card at many retail locations, and apply the gift card to your new or existing Netflix account. We will deduct the appropriate amount from your gift card balance based on the plan you've chosen. If you're new to Netflix and haven't had an account before, you will receive a free month of service, in addition to the amount of the gift card. After the free month, we will start to deduct the monthly charge for your plan from your gift card balance.

[Kprawn]

If they are so keen on Bitcoin, why then have they not started to accept Bitcoin yet? The regulatory framework and "currency" status are

holding them back. They could have opened it up through payment processors, but they did not. What is still holding them back? The

only reason I can think of, is Bitcoin's bad reputation. { Media induced lies } 

[calkob]

yeah but once the pressure comes on from the program makers which will eventually happen we may see netflix back down from this stance.  it would not surprise me if this happened in the next 8 months.

[springgers]

So... What is this?
Fear of the SNGULARDTV or something like that?

If you don't change with the world, someone can take your place...

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I don't currently subscribe to them, but I've kinda been wanting to for a while now.  I would be happy if they started taking bitcoin, but I can't say I'd use it for sure.  Fiat works just as well if not better,  but I might spend bitcoin just to show support.

[Carlton Banks]

Ok, this might be a problem.

Do companies like Netflix have any obligations to obey television broadcast regulations? Or, put another way, do these net based TV services voluntarily conform to broadcast rules about proving the age of their subscribers, just to show good faith in case they get criminally investigated?

Debit/credit cards are not always available to those below a certain age, so that makes a pretty decent de facto proof of age. I'm just imagining what might happen if a young teenager with authoritarian parents discovered they'd been using Bitcoin to access Netflix when they were told it was forbidden. Netflix don't need that problem.

[yayayo]

Ok, this might be a problem.

Do companies like Netflix have any obligations to obey television broadcast regulations? Or, put another way, do these net based TV services voluntarily conform to broadcast rules about proving the age of their subscribers, just to show good faith in case they get criminally investigated?

Debit/credit cards are not always available to those below a certain age, so that makes a pretty decent de facto proof of age. I'm just imagining what might happen if a young teenager with authoritarian parents discovered they'd been using Bitcoin to access Netflix when they were told it was forbidden. Netflix don't need that problem.

I'd say this might only be a problem in the US or the EU, who are babysitting their citizen with all kinds of consumer protection rules. In the rest of the world, governments will not care much about it. And even if there are laws and the willingness to enforce them, they won't be easily enforceable, because Netflix doesn't reside there.

Besides that other possibilities to verify the age of viewers exist. It's always possible to separately require some kind of age verification. Currently, gift cards do not offer a reliable proof of age either - they can be easily sold to minors in the secondary market. So if Netflix would face strict proof of age requirements they would have been required to introduce age checks already.

And even if you proof that the payee is an adult, it's still possible that the viewers are minors. So any age verification requirements are pretty much pointless.

ya.ya.yo!

[Kprawn]

Ok, this might be a problem.

Do companies like Netflix have any obligations to obey television broadcast regulations? Or, put another way, do these net based TV services voluntarily conform to broadcast rules about proving the age of their subscribers, just to show good faith in case they get criminally investigated?

Debit/credit cards are not always available to those below a certain age, so that makes a pretty decent de facto proof of age. I'm just imagining what might happen if a young teenager with authoritarian parents discovered they'd been using Bitcoin to access Netflix when they were told it was forbidden. Netflix don't need that problem.

I'd say this might only be a problem in the US or the EU, who are babysitting their citizen with all kinds of consumer protection rules. In the rest of the world, governments will not care much about it. And even if there are laws and the willingness to enforce them, they won't be easily enforceable, because Netflix doesn't reside there.

Besides that other possibilities to verify the age of viewers exist. It's always possible to separately require some kind of age verification. Currently, gift cards do not offer a reliable proof of age either - they can be easily sold to minors in the secondary market. So if Netflix would face strict proof of age requirements they would have been required to introduce age checks already.

And even if you proof that the payee is an adult, it's still possible that the viewers are minors. So any age verification requirements are pretty much pointless.

ya.ya.yo!

Agree to disagree... Legislation like this are there to protect, but people still bypass these restrictions. Kids use their parents credit cards

and some parents do not give a shit. { Regulation do not stop bad parents, it just slows them down } We were all young at one stage and

we found ways to bend the system. In my country the legal age to use alcohol is 18, but kids still drink and even use drugs at parties. The

regulation makes it illegal and punishable, so it is only a deterrent not a permanent solution.   

[odolvlobo]

Keep in mind that this is a CoinTelegraph article. I don't pay much attention to CoinTelegraph because most of what they produce is just speculation and embellishment.

[requester]

it's another good news for bitcoin user because when there will be mass adoption and more user in bitcoin then only its price will go up and we will start using bitcoin in Satoshi unit and then majority of the website will accept bitcoin and we can use bitcoin much more then present..

[wxa7115]

Until Netflix begins to accept payment with bitcoin we must be careful and take this with a grain of salt, since implementation of bitcoin in a subscription service does not seem that straightforward to me.

[pereira4]

It will be cool to have Netflix on our side since they are huge and very mainstream, but we will not be ready to take those services until we have the lightning network so I hope that developers hurry up and make a good job with this to start making Bitcoin as mainstream as possible, even tho I don't see how it will become mainstream until governments ban cash so e have a real incentive to use Bitcoin in the developed work.

[Chin Cheng]

Why would the netflix executives wants bitcoin as a global currency since netfilx is a US based business model and you cannot subscribe to netflix without a US based VPN if you are not from the US,so i dont understand the logic behind it .

[rekinthis]

Seems like netflix soon gonna start accepting bitcoin which will be really nice news for all of us actually to the users from countries where paypal like payment processors are restricted as well as don't have any working international visa/mastercard debit cards. Streaming of netflix should be expanded to meet users from all around the world and allowing bitcoin can be one way for netflix to achieve this worldwide coverage.

Isn't this old news? and netflix haven't started accepting bitcoin yet. 

Well yes they haven't, i am sure they still think about that. It took long time for steam to accept bitcoins so that's nothing strange that netflix takes some time to start accepting them