Can’t we all just get along? Netflix CEO Reed Hastings says HBO Now a “great value”

Netflix held its quarterly earnings call yesterday, and the market certainly took favorably to the 4.9M user increase. As Netflix continues to expand globally, this number is certainly expected to exponentially increase as well. Rumors of Netflix eyeballing a major move into China will certainly be a boon for business, even if perhaps a major challenge.

But when HBO announced a standalone streaming service, ‘Now’ many pundits decried how Netflix was only going to end up facing more competition. Despite all this, however, Hastings calmly spoke rather highly of HBO Now, calling it a “great value” and that he had already been paying cable providers more for access to the premium channel.

Hastings played this one quite brilliantly though, using it as an opportunity to address Netflix’s lower price point, expanding on the great value comment by referring back to that if HBO Now is a steal at $15, then Netflix must be an even better deal at $9.

We’ll leave that debate up to you, as writers at Exstreamist can’t even agree on this one, but the true fact remains: video on demand is certainly leading the pack as traditional cable distribution will likely stumble in the future. Consumers won’t be forced to choose between their favorite services, but will instead be able to subscribe to their favorites and pay only what they want.

Regardless, while I’m sure Netflix and HBO aren’t friendly, it doesn’t seem like they’re going for the jugular quite yet, at least not while they have a major common enemy.