There’s been a recent commotion about a new service called Shomi, an online streaming service offered to shaw and rogers customers. Huffington Post posted an article discussing the high possibility and likelihood of Shomi being a strong competitor for Netflix. I believe Shomi will always live in the shadow of Netflix for many reasons. Shomi’s monthly fee is $8.99 which due to a new change, is Netflix’s new monthly fee as well for new members however, current members will continue to pay the original $7.99 fee for the next two years, meaning they are less likely to switch. The Huffington Post article suggested that in order to increase their variety of shows a consumer would pay for an account for both services, I would argue that’s not true. One thing the article failed to mention is the fact that many people especially young people have started downloading virtual private networks such as Hola to gain access to Netflix from every country, immensely expanding the amount of shows they have access to. There are a few shows mentioned that Shomi has on it’s service that Canadaian Netflix does not, however I know many of those shows are accessible in other country’s Netflix. Finally Shomi is only available to Rogers and Netflix customers, shrinking it’s customer segment quite a lot in contrast to Netflix. Shomi therefore has no points of difference and lacks in many ways where Netflix doesn’t, allowing me to believe Shomi will never make it.

Picture source

Netflix and Shomi label. Digital image. Http://www.640toronto.com/2014/11/04/38924/. N.p., n.d. Web.