Netflix’s Prices Are Rising Faster Than Cable(interneteconomist.com) |
Netflix’s Prices Are Rising Faster Than Cable(interneteconomist.com) |
Isn't netflix big enough to no longer focus on growth? Is there some mantra among tech companies that the second you stop growing, some up and coming competitor will eat your lunch?
Don't they have enough subscribers that if they offer enough quality content to retain them, their business can do well on any horizon?
I am curious if the new law that prevents companies from auto redirecting to a Swiss page with higher prices would require Netflix to let Swiss people purchase the subscription for example in the US where it costs less? The new law also forbids companies from blocking the use of Swiss credit cards on non Swiss sites.
In fact I gave up my live cable 4 years ago and haven't missed it. I only have internet now. I had a service to watch some channels over the internet but cancelled it in 2020 because of covid as there were only doomsday talkshows left. And since that time I didn't miss it at all. Don't think I'll ever go back to live TV. All the news I can get more easily on a webpage.
Having said that the level of fragmentation in video streaming services right now is ridiculous. Eventually the industry will just make piracy mainstream again.
If you think how much you are currently paying for the “content” component of your cable subscription, that’s no surprise Netflix is finding that pricing power.
With the likes of LG and Samsung even making their own channel offering available for free (at least on mid/premium TV sets), if Netflix, HBO, Disney, Apple keep raising prices, I suspect the first thing consumers are going to want to do is to stop paying for content from cable cos. (and keep all the premium subscriptions)
I get it, they are responsible for a lot of bits flying through the matrix and they need to be smart about it. But I expect quality to remain the same or get better over time, not get worse. It's not engineering at that point, it's accounting.
I normally watch one episode per day of...something. Before, this relatively low usage meant I got to watch pretty much only excellent shows and could barely keep up with them.
Now, even with this low-ish usage I'm struggling to find the next show to watch. I already have to dig deep below my standards. I can't imagine what garbage heavy users are watching.
There's this general trend towards pulp content. No imagination, proven formulas, terrible writing, shallow, woke and "safe".
However, most of the original series I watched from Netflix are cancelled now and that's why I don't like or trust their offerings, I usually don't have free time and when I want to spend it watching something I just don't want to watch something half-baked and cancelled.
Hopefully the Witcher doesn't get the same treatment but hey! history always repeats itself.
It's getting hard to justify Netflix price because they have a great UI and a few interesting shows. IMO, the best bang for your buck today is Prime Video, Disney+ and CuriosityStream, all wrapped up by JustWatch.
When they take away multi-household family support, I'll either cancel or pass the buck to someone else.
Keep in mind you can rotate streaming services. You can basically have a never ending buffet of content for $10-15 bucks a month.
IMHO, the cable model of having all (most) content in one place was nice at least.
I didn't need the simultaneous devices, so that wasn't a selling point.
Would I rather watch 4K content on my 4k TV? Probably, but I really don't feel like I'm missing out without it.
Netflix's lowest plan in India is about $2 USD/month while the per capita GDP is about $1,900. A year of Netflix costs about 1.2% of per capita GDP. If they charged a proportional amount for the US's per capita GDP of $63,500, their lowest plan would be about $67/month.
You won't get far trying to measure Indian consumers' purchasing power from the country's per capita GDP; it has never been a good measure for that. India's is the hottest market in the world after the US and China for most digital services and probably has the largest population of netizens globally (if you were to discount those behind the Chinese Great Firewall). The per-capita GDP gets brought down by a large segment of population living in abject poverty, but this segment generally does not get counted into measuring the prospective marketable population for most companies. If you were to exclude this population, Indians still are a formidable bunch of consumers.
I used to have a movie rental around the corner. For like 3USD I could rent any movie I wanted from all major publishers. Old and new.
9USD/month for a rather small selection of those is just bad. The buffet fallacy is strong with how people value all you can eat streaming vs. one of rentals.
Although I kinda agree a bit with prime-video channels. Apart from the basic service you get (if you have prime), you can get specific add-ons for more focused content.
Another note on the rental: I really don't understand why we are able to rent movies, but not TV shows. For TV, you have to buy the episode/season, and buying a 20-min TV episode costs same or more than renting a 2 hour movie. I guess I'll just get it 'somewhere else' if it's not available on my platforms and I really want it
kind of a reverse of the old "nintendo seal of quality", the "netflix seal of analytics-based-tv-by-committee"
One more price hike this year and I'm out.
Their own content is shit for the most part.
Don't need it.
Yes, I wouldn’t like ads, but cable’s revenue model is subscription plus ads, so I’m curious why Netflix thinks their optimal revenue model would be any different?
The total absence of ads in any of their tiers has alone been a good reason for me to support and watch them.
https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/22/netflix-is-still-saying-no...
HN has a small subset of individuals who are extremely vocal about being ad-free... like many things, they may be vocal but represent a very small group.
But the prices keep ballooning while the catalog keeps shrinking to the point that Netflix HD is now more expensive than HBO Max. Like WTF? For the record, the UI/UX of HBO Max is decidedly worse than HBO Now was (IMHO).
I support Netflix's strategy of having to make original content as the popularity of streaming caused every content owner to launch their own shitty "me too" streaming platform. Most of these won't survive (eg CBS All Access -> Paramount+).
But Netflix has proven once again you can't solve a problem by simply throwing tons of money at it. HBO is good at producing original content because it has a long history of doing so and has built up a culture to do just that. But Netflix acts like they're just throwing money around (eg [1]). Some of their content is good (eg Ozark). A lot of it is mediocre and samey. Even some of the good stuff gets killed prematurely.
So once Netflix was an "always have". Now it's something I'll sign up for 1-2 months a year to catch up on old content. I'm not paying for 6 different streaming services continually. The only service in my "always have" bucket now is Prime Video simply because Amazon Prime is too useful not to have it.
What I think Netflix should've done is concentrated in building regional content and then dubbing that to other languages and regions. They've had some success with that (eg Money Heist, 3%) but nowhere as much as they could have (IMHO). This should help avoid creating samey content.
But here's how you know this isn't a high-priority strategy: for some reason all the voice acting on dubbed content is beyond terrible. This goes beyond Netflix. Like Netflix has some other dubbed Spanish TV series (I forget the name) and there are common voice actors with Money Heist. And they're bad. Years ago I saw German-dubbed Friends and I couldn't get past how bad the dubbing was.
Why is this? Is this a small industry rife with nepotism? Or is it just something no one cares about?
Anyway, I'm not surprised Netflix is struggling to retain subscribers in the US and Canada. It's simply too expensive and there is now fierce competition.
[1]: https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/gilmore-girls-paid-...
I canceled Netflix years ago on the heels of a previous absurd price hike. Somehow I still am able to watch all the shows I want. Weird!
Things like Squid Games are manufactured hits and not the kind of content one wants on the reg.
I'm sure you are employed also, so how about I say 'hey I'll take and use your output, but I won't pay you for it' ? You'll be fine with that, right?
Pirating TV/Films that you can legally watch in your country is immoral, and left unchecked will lead to the overall decline in quality shows.
However... pirating a show (that you've been watching for a few years legally already) because for some dumb reason it's now no longer available in your country (I'm looking at you, Paramount+) is different thing entirely!
Video streaming services, games-on-demand like Game Pass or PlayStation Now, or even launcher storefronts like Steam are providing a valuable and _convenient_ service. They are all middlemen. But when their value decreases to the point where it becomes _more convenient_ to seek alternatives, then it’s these middlemen who get what they deserve in the sense of market economics. It is widely accepted and even celebrated in the U.S. that corporations behave amorally in our so called “Free Market” so don’t give me a sob story about how some poor Netflix exec can only afford to resyndicate Mexican telenovelas because of me and what an immoral dude I am. What goes around comes around.
When the streaming service blocks certain subtitle/audio languages (that they do have available if you have an account with them but in a different region) and they DONT allow you to watch their content in a 3rd party player (so I can actually get those subs/audio channels), they ASK for people to pirate the content.
I would subscribe back to them instantly the moment they simply provide their content over an API so I can use things like plex or kodi to watch their content.
Too bad their fantastic DVD catalog dwindles every year. Soon it will be reduced to not much bigger than their streaming catalog.
I am looking forward to completing the list to restore choice (ha ha), but I can tell you there are "genres" (dislike that term) of films that I would not have otherwise even known to explore before.
Adults in the house, we are quite picky but if we love it then we will keep watching:
Netflix @£9.99: 2 tv shows, 4-5 films
Apple TV+ @£4.99: 3 tv shows, 2 films
Disney Plus @£7.99: 1 tv show, Loads of movies
Amazon Prime @£7.99: 3 tv shows, quite a few films, plus "free" shipping!
Netflix: They watch quite quite allot but we don't give them free access even to the kids profile (*see note)
Apple TV+: Only 1 tv show, but haven't really explored.
Disney Plus: All of it, I think they have "completed" it!...
Amazon Prime: None
Point is, Netflix know from their retention metrics that you only need a couple of shows that a customer loves to keep them subscribed. Add in some content to amuse their kids and it's a done deal.
*Note: Netflix seems to still show image for adult shows in search results in the kids profile even if not available when clicked on, some of this images can be quite aggressive. Hence not giving the kids free access
Hulu and Amazon Prime are mostly irrelevant to me. I'll probably axe the Hulu sub.
HBO has a few things I like. Disney+ targets the kids/family/lighter theme demographic tightly.
I think that the general provider landscape is a bit overdone; some consolidation would be welcomed by consumers, and any competitor that falls behind in offerings will crash exponentially.
Probably needs a recent client as well. One of our tablets couldn’t upgrade, believe it was because it was on Android 4.x or something.
Combined with how frustrating their library is to explore, at least on desktop, I'm really having trouble justifying a Netflix subscription.
Endless horizontal scrolling which repeatedly presents the same movies/TV shows on sequential pages, extremely limited information before you click on a show and various other quirks in their UI add up to an extremely frustrating experience, to the point when I'm strongly considering going back to piracy.
They made the switch from physical, mail-order rental to digital streaming when the average connection supported a streaming model.
But as soon as they switched from owning content (DVDs) to leasing it (limited time streaming rights), they saw the countdown until the content owners would eventually have an equivalent platform offering.
That's what kicked off the Netflix originals spend, and continues to drive their content creation spend today.
Netflix is 100% sober that (1) they need enough already-owned back-catalog to stay competitive & (2) they will never be in a stronger future financial position than they are today.
So it's literally "accumulate content or die."
And I'm not crediting them with foresight. It was abundantly clear to everyone that eventually the content owners would see {cost of developing platform} < {content value being pocketed by Netflix}.
It was only a question of how long it would take the legacy companies to random stumble into a viable offering.
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The more timely question is "What is Netflix's edge, once they've finished becoming a traditional content producer?"
Because from the last few years of hits and misses, they don't seem particularly better than HBO or Amazon Studios at picking winners.
In short they may be spending a ton on content, but so does all the others and while I do pay for Netflix, I continually wonder if I should just cancel.
Could it be that Netflix has seen that they can't compete in a crowded market with "the big boys" (though their bank share might disagree) and they're making the prudent, global market move? (I'm totally speculating and genuinely looking for an answer. Global enterprise is so far from my field)
EDIT: grammar
Disney is even more content limited and better for kids. Apple never got it right, cant see them fixing it now. And Amazon stuffed it between their mixed model where half the stuff you want to watch has extra fees + generally limited inclusive content, though the prime membership might buy that back. Both Disney and Amazon will fix the back catalogue with money I would guess, something Netflix should have done more aggressively before the competitors arrived.
While Netflix content is on the decline, there is a huge inertia in the best existing catalogue + 200million subscribers. It does surprise they haven't flooded extra content on the price increase as that is a good way to justify to users. Nothing worse than feeling there's a lack of content + pay increase.
My guess is Netflix keeps building the moat with content creation/ownership and we'll see mergers start kicking in as groups with back catalogues like HBO & NBC realise gaining/holding subscribers on smaller catalogues is hard and there more value in selling than renting. Who forks out more money at this point will probably win. Wild card is sport, that can be attractive and sticky if someone merges that in.
Their play here might just be waiting for Paramount+ and Peacock to throw in the towel and license their catalogs.
Amazon Prime Germany has been showing me adverts, that they have soccer/football games (not sure what league or if there is an extra cost associated as I don’t watch sports), so they are at least in some regions already there.
I hear rumors alot of content that should be in their portfolio has streaming rights tied up in Hulu atm which doesnt help them.
That's what independent movie studios used to do like Miramax, It gave us Pulp Fiction, There Will Be Blood, No country for old men, and dozens of gems. Even Miramax failed in their quest.
Anyway, Netflix has produced solid movies regardless of what you think, well rated by critics and public. Not all or most of them, but no way worse than competitors studios.
Now I have HBO for south park and then my family got into some of the DC shows. I'm cancelling after this season. Then turning it back on when Titans or young justice comes back.
I want to make a script that suspends all my subscriptions every day, or cancels every month if youre not allowed to suspend. Then automatically signs me back up when I want to watch something. The main problem is you would need a reliable way to see every service's catalog without an active account.
Also it's about the easiest task for a marketing team to email you to resubscribe when a new season of a show you watched comes out
I disagree with this claim. Their problem is that they enjoy losing money - a fetish if you will - in an attempt to draw and cater to a very particular and very young crowd. Its like they forgot that somewhat mature people over 35 actually do exist and are usually the ones paying for the service.
Its a pity because with all that talent and resources - they should be well above everyone else of they werent so damn focused on everything but good storytelling. I've seen stick figures on youtube tell better stories than Netflix.
I have a few streaming services and rarely ever am I watching old content (the key stuff I've already consumed). I subscribe to services for their new content, not their old catalog. Maybe I'm the exception and not the norm of the typical subscriber.
I blame the lack of investment in target shows and focus on broad short lived and quickly canceled shows to the decline. I understand their business model catering to short attention spans but it puts me off a large swath of their content. Unless it's a movie or mini series with full conclusion, I tend to skip right over the content anymore no matter how interesting the story may seem to be. The last thing I want is to get drawn in and invested in a story only to have wasted my time and have the remainder canceled. Entertainment is part of it but many people want a beginning to end story of some sort. If you want to cater to short attention spans, good luck competing with YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok content.
New content gets infinitely more views.
I admire how the company has evolved over the years. It's cool that they distribute (and sometimes fund) movies made by excellent directors (Coens, Scorsese, Sorrentino). It does seem like a precarious business model: they have to keep picking or making winners but so far they're doing well.
Have they? Have they really? As far as I can tell, nothing that Netflix has ever done in-house has ever come close to the best of the cable channels. Like, The Witcher is fine, but Game of Thrones it is not, neither in quality nor buzz/cultural significance. House of Cards is no Succession and Ozark is no Breaking Bad. Nothing they have could even come close to comparing to stuff like The Sopranos or The Wire in terms of cultural impact. The closest they've ever come, in my opinion, is probably with Making a Murderer, and they've spent the last couple of years churning out pale imitations that make Netflix look like "True Crime TV".
You're paraphrasing that quote from the Netflix CEO that goes like "We want to become HBO faster than HBO can become us". To me, HBO has won that race handily.
I don't think the data is proving this out at all. Streaming will probably be a winner-take-most market and Netflix is on track to remain the leader.
We'll see what total 2021 subscriber growth was on Thursday, but estimates for Q4 are still around a net addition of 8 million subscribers. Compare this with Disney Plus growth in the same period of 2 million subscribers and I think the results are quite favorable.
If you pay attention to the details, such as in earnings calls, executives have reported that average subscriber watch time has only been increasing over the past few quarters. (Also see refs such as: https://backlinko.com/netflix-users#time-spent-with-netflix)
Keeping in mind that Covid has slowed production of content, in 2021 Netflix still managed to create the two most watched movies _ever_ on the platform (Red Notice, Don't Look Up). There are follow-up seasons launching for at least three of their strongest series, including Witcher (released tail end of 2021), Bridgerton, and Stranger Things. Plus the regular spikes of culturally relevant content such as Squid Games, Cheer, etc. which now happen fairly often.
> is destroying the business model that made them so appealing in the first place
I'm not sure how you are inferring that the business model has been destroyed here. It's certainly evolving over time but the promise has always been 'pay us a monthly subscription and we'll give you lots of things to watch'. I don't see how that has changed meaningfully or negatively.
Netflix has had naysayers at every stage of its growth. The landscape is always changing but I believe the critical idea is that Netflix leads in streaming and this has only strengthened over time. Total subscribers, revenue per user, and watch hours per account are all drifting up, and I fail to see how that represents a downward slope.
By what metrics that they didn't slice just to be able to say this?
The business model was never about being really underpriced, that was just a way to acquire customers.
[1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/as-netflix-growth-slows-st...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/19/business/netflix-earnings...
The only sub I permanently keep is YoutubePremium.
In the beginning of their foray into original content it felt like everything was good or at least interesting even if it wasn’t for me. Now it feels like they have a new original every week, but less that I find compelling or even watchable. A lot of it is lowest common denometer trash content. They risk being associated with that. I once associated them with high quality content even if it was low budget. Now I associate them with shows that feel like were concepted and written by a user acquisition algorithm.
At some point they decided Netflix is for every human on earth and to be for everyone you have to have content that can be digested by everyone, but to do that you make a pretty bland product without much taste.
I definitely don’t disagree with this, but here’s a question for people: if Netflix used their original content budget to instead procure existing content like they originally did, would this save them? This is obviously complicated with everyone creating their own streaming service to charge for their own content, but I’d certainly be happier with Netflix if I had a much better selection of other stuff and not “Netflix Originals”.
Right now I use prime more often and I bounce around with various add-one’s. Right now using Paramount Plus.
And the voice-overs on Netflix are down right annoying. I wish I could hide content with voice overs. The translations are terribly comedic as they try to match the mouth movements somewhat. It’s terrible. I’m tired of sifting through them.
To me the problem is the content. They now seem to produce shows for particular niches that are never my niche. Some of these extremely expensive shows are laughably low quality on all fronts: story, acting, stylistic choices, cinematography/direction... everything.
Take the new Cowboy Bebop: it's obviously not made for fans of the original. Is it made for new fans? For adults? For children? I couldn't tell.
Half the tentpole movies of the 80s, 90s and early 2000s were my niche, so it's not as though I'm a difficult audience.
If Netflix produce shows with particular political or cultural slants, they need to make sure there's an audience of people who watches shows for their politics & cultural slants, rather than for being, er, good.
I watch shows with compelling stories and solid characters. I'm not interested in race, gender, sexual orientation, identity, etc, except inasmuch as it makes for interesting stories and adds to a character's personality or motivations.
There's an audience of people on Twitter who defend/malign Netflix shows, and people on Youtube who make/consume video essays about them, but is anybody in that group actively watching that original content with joy and getting more value from their Netflix subscription than they got the previous year?
I wish I were, but I'm not.
It was completely unsustainable at $8.99/mo or whatever it was back in 2013-15. The price of the brick went up each time renewal discussions happened, and the rights holders were planning to set up their own networks anyway.
What I didn't anticipate was how fast Netflix would dump AAA content and replace it with a deluge of B and C grade TV shows. The halo effect that "Netflix Original" used to have thanks to shows like House of Cards is long gone. Browse through the listings past the Top 10 shows and it looks like a 3rd rate cable tv channel showing nothing but straight to DVD movies.
Unfortunately, with the content being so vast and “throw it at the wall” I’ve found it’s recommendation engine is becoming far, far worse.
The Lost Daughter is exactly the sort of Indie Film Navel Gazing Trash (TM) that I want to watch on my iPad in bed. I only found out about the movie from a Reddit post. It did not once hit the hero banner on any of my devices, much less surface in a recommendation category further down. I’ve thumbs up’ed several movies of similar style, content, and even actors (Olivia Colman ALONE should surface it in my recommendations considering how many things she’s in were thumbs-upped.)
There’s also the weird place that the whole “My List” feature sits. Sometimes their A/B testing (or something) completely removes it from my home screen. All I get is “Keep Watching” and then recommendations. However, adding a show to your list seems to suck you immediately into a black hole of just that thing. It completely overrides the recommendation engine until you go out of your way to watch something else.
I dunno, I just keep finding my interactions with Netflix baffling and with the price continuing to rise harder and harder to justify outside of picking up for a month at time when my “Things to watch on Netflix” list hits a show and two movies worth.
For example, Netflix DE has subtitles but the Netflix UK won't have the same German subtitles available. Disney+ is doing this better by offering the nearly all subtitles nearly all the time. I can understand that dubbed audio might not be available on other country Netflix' but the subtitles?
Sometimes I am too tired to listen to English and prefer to read subtitles :)
Something about Netflix produced shows seem too crafted by marketing types. It's like a committee comes up with a list of attributes for a show that are just the right amount of woke, edgy, trendy, and demographic evenness. The result is a simulacrum of a TV show, like it is in an uncanny valley. It looks and smells like good content but it just isn't.
It’s like YouTube will the ad spam. YouTube wiped out every competitor who played ads or tried to monetize. Now that it stands on their corpses with a monopoly, they are pushing subscriptions and ads extremely hard, sometimes 3 ads in a 15 min video now
If this is meant to describe Netflix, it’s categorically incorrect.
10 years ago, Netflix was a library of third party content. Today, their top content consists of Netflix’s own produced shows.
The nature of their business has changed. You may appreciate their content or think all their originals are horrible. Regardless, it’s unreasonable in my mind that after 10 years in an evolving business, prices would stay the same.
> One day these services that aim to replace cable will be basically identical to cable but more expensive, or else there will be a bunch of walled gardens
Again - cable services were merely an intermediary. The business model shifted where you pay the content house directly and watch shows without ads. I don’t see any direct comparison here.
IMO assuming Netflix doubles down on original content which seems to be the assumed direction, they have two strategies. Strategy one is to produce/distribute content that is developed outside the US where production is much cheaper and existing production companies have less of an advantage. Partnering with local, smaller production outfits is probably a good strategy.
Strategy two is to use their tech advantage to lower the cost of content production. I'm quite surprised that we haven't seen Netflix create a Holodeck-esque production method. The Mandalorian (Disney+/Holodeck) and The Witcher Season 1(Netflix) have somewhat similar production costs per episode at ~$15M and ~$10M respectively but The Mandalorian had significantly more and better CG then The Witcher so clearly the Holodeck method has a lot of benefits and cost savings.
That said Squid Game only had a total budget of ~$21M, although a lot lighter on CG, strategy one offers a more cost savings.
I am honestly sad for how the market ended up, even if yeah, for sure now there is more competition... But I don't want to subscribe to multiple services, it makes it all inconvenient compared to just grabbing a torrent
But pulling the rug from underneath your users and removing movies and TV series they have built a relationship to just serves to piss off the very people you expect to pay for your service -- I understand it's a "complicated" IP problem (really, it's just too many greedy parties), but this will end in one result: more piracy.
Cancelling shows, pulling content to replace it with ... nothing (sometimes they pull content to force users to watch the new netflix original reboot), providing only a subset of available subtitles/audiotracks based on the region of your account ...
Really, today it's actually A LOT easier to pirate content and have tools to automatically fetch missing subtitles then to follow netflix content before it is sent to the void.
You're saying that like Netflix has any choice in the matter. Yes, it's in part a problem of greed in the abstract sense, but it's not like Netflix has any incentive to pull shows off its catalog, or any way to stand up to the likes of Disney.
Netflix's position on cancelling shows on a whim is also extremely frustrating. It's also completely bizarre to me that they (or really any streaming service) don't seem to be willing to even try to create any quality sitcoms despite paying fortunes to license all the good ones from the past 20 years and these clearly having massive value from a re-watchability perspective on a platform compared to a watch it once drama series.
Also I don't understand why the user interface particularly on AppleTV particularly around new shows is basically straight up hostile to the user. Just show me a damn feed for new content (this is one of the most insane trends in tech lately of refusal to have a time series feed of content (Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, etc). Netflix will show under "New" stuff that came out months and months ago and at the same time a new season will come out of a show they know i've watched previous seasons of and it won't even be the first thing on my feed.
Now in December for the first time in ages they actually had some good content to buy back some goodwill after being so bad for nearly all of the pandemic and what do they do... immediately jack up prices. Insanity.
The extrapolation in the chart is laughable.
Not defending netflix, but this article is an insult to the reader.
even with Netflix’s recent price increase,
the company’s standard plan is still only
about half the price of a typical basic
cable plan and arguably offers more value
with no advertising and a lot of original
content that doesn't appear on TV.Again I really think this business model is stretching for them. I would rather to subscribe on a full catalog of all classic movies and Documentaries before the year 2000 and I can subscribe that for many years.
It won't work for me because I loathe binge watching.
I usually also buy a single month on Disney+ and watch the handful of good movies and shows that came out since my last subscription.
I cancelled when they thought that rebooting Masters of the Universe, turning it into feminist propaganda, and then having Kevin Smith lie about the content, was a good idea. I don't give money to companies who actively trash the things I like for woke points.
If you were starting a company like Netflix, you would best realize this is essential beforehand.
When I go to the Netflix app, I have a simple value proposition – pay money for viewing, in any country across the world if it's a Netflix original, and without any add-on crap. The only thing they did wrong was autoplaying previews, and I hope whoever was responsible for that has been fired, or at least demoted.
Competitor streaming services refuse to implement this basic, simple model of content consumption for some reason. They seem determined to be Yahoo! in comparison to Netflix's Google-like simplicity. Here are some examples of my usage, with a bit of light ranting about pain points thrown in.
[Amazon Video]: Makes me think about whether to rent or buy from them, or whether buy a Showtime "add-on" (yay, more subscriptions within this subscription!). Also, a lot of the content is moving to some sort of ad-supported "IMDb TV". Good luck with that, I'm out. Lots of content restrictions when outside the US (admittedly a niche use case). Oh, and they have autoplay on some content that I can't figure out how to turn off.
[HBO Max]: Makes (or used to make) me log in through my cable provider. Huh, why is this streaming service asking me about my internet provider? I cut my cable package a year ago, and haven't gotten around to re-subscribing to HBO Max; I don't really miss any of the shows enough.
[Hulu]: Close to the Netflix experience, except it makes me think about ad-supported v/s ad-free versions. I don't want to feel bad about losing money for not watching ads. Also, doesn't work outside the US (admittedly a niche use case).
[Disney+]: Not much of a pull if you don't have kids, but if you do, I imagine that this is closest to the early-2000s Netflix experience, but for kids.
[Peacock]: More ad-supported nonsense, plus my cable provider is trying to push a "free" subscription to it in exchange for installing one of their weird devices on my network. No thank you, and please be more mindful of the environment before contributing to e-waste in landfills with your horrible devices. I would do it if I wanted to re-watch The Office, but I managed to finish it before it was leaving, guess what, Netflix.
[Apple TV]: I...don't understand why people give Netflix a hard time about surviving on original content when the only good things about this streaming service are Ted Lasso and maybe Foundation. Watched those on a free subscription, hard pass for everything else. Is this the best that the most valuable company on Earth can manage about media?
Though obviously that has a lot of logistical issues, like how you could get all these competing companies onboard with something that takes so much control out of their hands. And also the fact that watch time isn't a great metric for who deserves the most money. It wouldn't be surprising if low-quality, factory produced children's content would start making the most money since parents would just throw on some kid's show and let it babysit for most of the day. That's basically what happened on YouTube, with the weird auto-generated algorithm/SEO-optimised children's content.
That was so weird. Like if I'd read that in a sci-fi book back in the 90's I'd have derided it as a ridiculous idea.
And yet it actually happened.
Because the hit rate for sitcoms is infinitesimal, and it's still cheaper to buy Friends than it is to commission two hundred new shows 199 of which sink without trace.
The Office and Parks and Rec struck creative gold under strict network constraints. Easy to produce, affordable ensemble cast, relatable content. Then, as they found their footing, they could expand upon this soulful base and have more elaborate sets, celebrity guests, broad plot arcs, etc.
By contrast, Netflix shows are unconstrained, working from the other end. They are trying to spend endless money to emulate these predecessor shows in the late stage when they were massively successful, rather than when they were uncertain and fledgling.
I think Space Force is a good example of this. All the right pieces to make a hugely successful show, high budget VFX, setpieces etc, but no soul.
Netflix IMO tries to make shows that are very zeitgeist-y, instead of evergreen, like Friends and The Office. I think that will come back to bite them in the future because I don't see anybody wanting to license one-offs like Tiger King or Squid Game for syndication down the line.
Meanwhile, decades-old shows like Law and Order, Frasier and Two and a Half Men are still making bank because they have tons of episodes and are generalist enough to be popular across pretty much any cable network globally.
Instead they licensed the content outright giving the studios the incentive to compete, now everyone has the technology to deliver streaming video and Netflix is competing on content where there have been tons of incumbents for 100 years.
They have the issue of releasing some really good shows but only add new seasons after several years of doing nothing with the IP.
Bear with me a bit: one of the largest complaints I hear from people is the fragmentation, that is, if you have a particular section of content, you need a particular subscription. Many people are fine with "whatever is on these N services I have" but others are not. They want a particular film or show.
Blockbuster is gone, but for one store in Oregon. Redbox has managed to skim off the top of any rentals. Family Video has apparently pivoted to selling discs at some very reasonable-looking prices. This leaves Netflix as the sole group that could work on distributing the "long tail" of movies that are not in the cream skimmed off by Redbox.
I have never used it myself, but I have heard secondhand that Netflix has been neglecting this segment, letting the waiting lists for desired movies become longer and longer. It may simply be inherently unprofitable. However, if it is only relatively unprofitable, they may turn this around and refresh the service. One of the bigger problems with it is that the discs all eventually die, so something that only had a few thousand copies made will eventually just vanish, as mishandling kills one disc after another.
It's interesting to think about it. I will admit that I am one of those "I want to see this, not 'whatever is available,' but this particular thing!" viewers, but perhaps my segment of the population is so small as to just not be worth it.
Many competitors, like Disney (Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+), Amazon (Amazon Prime Video), WarnerMedia (HBO), Apple (Apple TV+), ... can fund streaming wars (=exchange profits for market share) with their cash flow from other sources for long time if needed.
If you count every streaming service as separate, Disney has already more market share than Netflix in the US.
In the next five years, we should expecting the number of streaming players to consolidate dramatically probably to the top 3, whoever they might be.
The thing is that Netflix has established itself as a staple and most no one is going to cancel it unless they are just hurting. Netflix knows that and has hiked prices to show it has market power. It's like Amazon Prime, I honestly don't order enough from Amazon to justify that expense each year but when I do use it, it's convient.
Also, they are global. Are HBO, Disney+, Paramount, Peacock the same? (I leave Hulu off as it seems to limp along? Not sure).
First, Netflix' games have the same issue as Apple Arcade: the majority are ad-riddled trash. And Apple Arcade has App Store tie-in.
Second, the global numbers are likely to keep Netflix afloat (the same way they seem to for Facebook), but stateside numbers are abysmal compared to emerging services [0]: Netflix boasts 74.02 million subscribers in U.S. and Canada, and HBO Max has 45.2 million domestic (give or take 5 million). Within a year of launch, HBO Max has captured 2/3 the subscription size of Netflix! (Globally, it is barely doing double the numbers of Disney+.) The other competition has proven itself viable in a fraction of the time, and are using their built-in infrastructure to continue to compete. Netflix no longer has any differentiating factor, except that their US adult-targeted content is usually lower quality.
0. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/10/disney-netflix-and-other-str...
Either of those would make me happy cause then it'd presumably be a bundled service... maybe $15 for hulu, netflix, and disney+. or slightly higher prime membership but much better content+interface. (Hopefully prime would move all their free stuff for prime members just to the netflix apps/ui/etc.
There is no possibility to create a 'moat' in showbiz. Technology (distribution over internet) was once, but now that has become a commodity.
Like instead of “netflix is garbage its oversaturated” it seems like they greenlight stuff in batches where some quality content is released all around the same time
Just an observation
While we have abundance of platforms with fresh english content, that is not true for our own language.
I know what you mean - but is that Hollywood, or is it us becoming grown-ups?
I mean, it's possible all movies are aimed at the tastes of teenagers, and the reason Terminator 2 and Robocop and Die Hard seemed like great movies is because I saw them when I was a teenager.
The innumerable superhero movies we have nowerdays may seem like a snoozefest in comparison - but maybe that's just because I'm no longer a teenager.
Hell, I got tired of adults making nonstop jokes and references to watching Die Hard as a Christmas movie on Facebook just a month ago.
Here's what I would consider a better list:
https://screenrant.com/80s-action-movies-notoriously-bad-goo...
Or, a decade+ long multiverse only has so much ground it can tread that's fresh.
The main issue for Netflix has been losing their back catalog, as the content owners started offering their own streaming services. Netflix could produce a few good shows each year, but not as main as they're trying to. It's just that few people would pay for that, without the vast back catalog.
There's still much to watch, but finding the good stuff is becoming increasingly hard. A better recommendation engine might fix some of the issues, but in the long run I think Netflix is becoming a niche player.
or the idea you can grow forever.
It wasn't even 'original' in that it was a UK series years earlier. I understand they made changes, and, IIRC, milked it for a lot more than the UK series. But that wasn't... "original". Good original series though. There's likely more good UK stuff Netflix could mine.
I hear you, but the first season of the US House of Cards comprised the action of all three series of the UK version. It's hard to say that the Netflix version was not original considering it went on considerably longer.
This is the same for every studio out there — well-loved shows like The Office, Brooklyn 99, Parks & Rec, etc. are getting taken back by their owners. Dozens of new streaming services are appearing.
In reality, there’s not much Netflix can do about it besides double down on original content.
I think an ideal future for consumers would be federated media platforms, where all content is available in any number of media platforms, and the amount you pay is passed back to the content owners based on what you watch. But I doubt that will ever happen under current IP laws.
In capitalism, profit wins. Right now, streaming services are essentially pure profit and make money because content owners have exclusive access to their own content — who would pay for Disney+ if all of their content was available elsewhere?
It really sucks for consumers.
On the other had, consumers have now grown accustomed to really favorable deals on content. All media must be free. Everything must be rolled into one low, low price. We used to happily buy 1-4 CD(s) a week. I'm pretty sure I've spent more on CD(s) in a single transaction than on an entire year of spotify... and that was as a kid with no money.
We used to buy DVD(s) all the time. You'd spend $200-500 a year on several streaming services. I feel like I spent that just on DVD(s) as gifts for christmas every year. People don't want to pay a cent for news or subscription media. This used to be a major expenditure.
It used to be that a good chunk of your money was spent on media. You have to have entertainment to make your life better, so you pay whatever you have to. In the past there was far less competition, and consumers were getting some really bad deals. Now I think consumers are often out of wack with their expectations.
Why on earth should the government implement price fixing to limit what people make on intellectual property? Why do you think $10-20/mo is the fair price for ALL THE CONTENT IN THE WORLD, vs. the $50-100 you'd have to pay (and a cable package would be like $100-300)... In the 90s we'd pay over $100/mo for like 5 CD(s), and cable prices were insane.
This stuff isn't cheap, easy, or risk free to produce either. I've been as critical of producers as anyone, but people often lose sight of this.
I really wish they'd gone through with the original Hulu plan of being co-owned by the major networks and stream all their content.
A lot of cool technology, no doubt. Unless they start writing scripts, directing, acting, editing it might not help.
It’s a bit like if a hospital had a really cool IT department, highest paid engineers, latest database tech and hardware. But it’s not enough, as their surgeons are not as good as ones from the older hospital across town.
The Netflix tech lead, if it matters much at all at this point, is perpetually shrinking. There's only so much that shuffling what-to-watch-next algorithms on the Titanic deck will do for you. Disney has an epic amount of money to throw at anything they want to, so do Apple and Amazon. Netflix stands zero chance of keeping a magic lead via a couple thousand very highly paid engineers; there is only so much those engineers can do to make a difference, only so much to optimize in that product, and they can do absolutely nothing to bolster the biggest value proposition: content wins out.
I've been a Netflix subscriber for a very long time. I can't name anything they make that I care about or have watched recently. I can't name a single mega show I permanently associate with them (like I might the Sopranos with HBO etc). I agree with most everyone else in this thread, Netflix is first on the chopping block, because their content sucks. A streaming product has to be exceptionally bad to lose in the market if you have superior content (with a reasonable price); the largely tech superior streaming product that Netflix has had isn't going to be enough to beat their competition unless their content is stellar too.
They're a studio with a streaming platform.
Netflix PE ratio is 47x.
Paramount is 8x.
Universal is 12x.
Why do you think they've been investing so heavily in their own content?
In streaming subscriptions you can very much fail from bad tech, but better tech won't make any difference over good enough.
But engineers are not product managers tho. I think this is exactly what they were doing.
I get that it's a UX thing because most people aren't interested in Swahili subtitles, but it would be nice to have an option to expand the list since I know they have the data.
Subtitles are absolutely limited by region by the studios as part of stopping people VPNing around to access titles that haven't been paid for in that region.
Netflix content that is available in .nl and .br (I'm in .nl, my wife speaks pt-br) only have a couple of subtitles (english, german, sometimes dutch) and the same content in .br has totally different set of subtitles.
appletv+ and disney+ and amazon prime simply offer all available subs. So it's not a UI issue, simply have a look at how they do it.
And then they wonder why people pirate and use opensubtitles/legendas.tv ? Should be really really easy for them to fix.
Prime is worse. I actually watched the movie The Courier with English subtitles on and the subtitles disappeared for all of the Russian dialogue.
TBH it's a bit strange to pay the premium for an OLED but then not be willing to pay for the highest bitrate. The fact that it's called 4K and it's technically in 4K is a bit misleading. Plus having Dolby Vision will make a huge difference when watching on an OLED.
Anecdotally, having interviewed for Disney Streaming, they seemed extremely interested in the tech side.
* I watched the new Dune on it, a bunch of other new movies are there
* most (all?) the Cartoon network stuff like Rick and Morty is there
* all the HBO content is there, Jon Oliver, GoT, etc.
* it passed the Matrix test. (1. I want to watch the original Matrix. 2. I searched for the Matrix and clicked the result. 3. It streamed the Matrix to me.)
* that crazy Ridley Scott series with those shrieking harpies that fly around asploding the hell out of atheists
* HBO has a track record of producing high-quality content on subscription model. If they win the streaming wars they are the least likely to do annoying ad-support bullshit dark patterns (like those ads shoved in the middle of a fucking scene on some ad-supported services now)
Edit: reworded so I only use the adjective "fucking" once when referring to ad-based streaming services
This Matrix test is a great one, I'm going to apply it to a bunch of services and see what I get.
I think I might just have a bit of a hangover from how many times HBO Max logged me out and made me log back in via some contorted system with my cable provider that has caused me inertia with renewing it. Also, now that I think back, another problem that caused me to avoid it a bit was that the HBO Max app sometimes just seemed to freeze up on my Roku in the middle of navigating through shows. Certainly possible they have improved the app over the last year, and will respect my time more if I pay them $15 + taxes per month directly instead of through a shitty cable subscription.
In any case, I freely concede that HBO Max probably does have a higher-quality backlog of content overall – my main point is that a simpler interface can actually make up for lack of content in some cases.
> * that crazy Ridley Scott series with those shrieking harpies that fly around asploding the hell out of atheists
Raised by Wolves? I think the creepy sci-fi vibe of Scott's stuff is just not my thing – everything in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant both just made me uncomfortable instead of interested, even though they had visuals that were technically impressive. The trailer for that series seemed similar when I watched it.
> Edit: reworded so I only use the adjective "fucking" once when referring to ad-based streaming services
I think you were right the first time. Ad-based services these days always remind me of the 15 Million Merits Black Mirror episode.
I've got some other services too, so I'll see how they cope with me being in a totally different country to the one I subscribed in initially.
If you still have a valid payment option in the original country, you can stay subscribed. But if you move to europe, and you want a south-american netflix account, have fun trying to get it paid.
Also, subtitles and audio tracks dont always stay in the list they were in the origin country (shows that have brazilian audio and subs when you are in brasil dont always have those while you are in europe. I am in this boat)
I think we get some Hulu shows on Disney Plus under the Star banner.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/14/entertainment/only-murders-in...
> Netflix spent approximately $17 billion on content in 2021 and ended the year with an estimated 222 million subscribers, a cost per subscriber of $76.60 (keep in mind that Netflix has other costs like sales, marketing, facilities, and labor just like any other company). Under the new subscription pricing model, 41% of the annualized price of the standard plan will go towards covering Netflix’s content costs, down from 47% before the price hike.
As far as keeping up with the channels catalog, I meant I would want to build a discovery/search interface with data from every service so I could seamless signup/resume when I want to watch something.
[1] njpwworld.com which is the streaming service for a japanese pro wrestling company, will cancel your subscription the moment you cancel, no matter how much time you have already paid for. So if you sign up and immediately cancel you would be charged for a month, but never get access to it.
“Gremlins 2 is our most watched movie _ever_”*
* featuring a monster made entirely out of vegetables
I also did not pin this on Netflix, though I did say users -- it is in the rights holders' interests that their content gains popularity so they can sell merchandise, and produce more content. They are pulling the rug out from underneath that audience too.
Admittedly, I'm not automatically entitled to all the things they release but still feels wrong and wanted to vote with my wallet.
The Mandalorian was an amazing series though!
Keep in mind, it's not like it's Netflix alerted me to a problem. I've used the LG built-in app, so they know what TV I have. I just had shows with crappy scenes for a long time.
My money would be on Netflix. They’ve done it at least twice already; it’s in their DNA.
I'm not saying that they are, but now that streaming seems to be basically solved (it has become a commodity) this is the quality that will likely make the winners.
To quote my wife though “I would pay for Apple TV+ just for Ted Lasso”. That says allot about how people look at these services.
Apple are treating their tv service the way they do their whole product range, small number of products but done very well.
Subscribe for 6 months = 50% annual discount
Subscribe for 4 months = 67% annual discount
Subscribe for 2 months = 83% annual discount
etc. And that looks great!
But producing the content costs the same regardless. So as more people do this, a vicious cycle will set in. Prices must increase to cover production costs with shorter subscription periods. Rising prices cause more people to shift to cycling through shorter subscriptions. Which further drives prices higher.
Basically you end up with the a la carte cable nightmare where you pay the same amount to for access to only one channel at a time. The only real way to stop this is to switch to longer term discounts and early termination fees or bundles.
Honestly I don't know why I'm still paying.
Being Walmart doesn't work in a digital space, because you can't starve the business out from the physical neighborhood around you to prevent competition.
And once people get it in their heads that "All movies on Netflix are trash" or "All stuff on Amazon is trash," you have a much bigger problem.
But once the ad to content ratio gets bad (and we're getting there), people just move elsewhere.
I agree with you there. I find the interface for HBO Max really frustrating.
Also, discoverability is a problem. On Netflix if I do a search for something, I can usually feel ahead of time "in my bones" when the search won't return a result. I think this is because Netflix does a decent job of advertising its niche of content. However, on HBO Max I was actually surprised that Tenet was available on there. I still don't have a good sense of exactly how deep their catalog is.
That said, it doesn't matter much because HBO's crappy app is the only way to watch their content so I put up with it.
That entirely depends on the company. In my experience, the higher the quality of engineers a company hires, the more influence those engineers have.
I get big "direct-to-dvd" vibes with most other stuff they put on. And nobody talks about these films, which for me is a big indicator that it's not worth watching.
I'll admit Netflix spends a lot of money, but they spend it safely; they try to min/max their content, try to fit ever box / category.
That was Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer of Netflix in 2013, so they 'realized' at least a decade ago.
They've really pivoted amazingly from dvds to streaming other folks content to creating their own in the last 20ish years.
We have Netflix (via T-Mobile), Hulu, Prime, HBO, Disney+ and Apple TV. Some of these (Disney/Hulu) are from family or friends. WE only pay for Prime (probably the lowest quality of all of these) and Apple TV (because of Apple One subscription).
HBO and Apple TV and Disney+ have the best quality content IMO. Netflix is kind of around there sometimes but a lot of just pure garbage (Looking at you Cowboy Bebop). Hulu isn't bad. Comparable to Netflix but less content. Prime is just bad for the most part. If Wal-Mart had launched it instead it's about what I'd expect it to be.
What actual content do they have?
I've seen a Beastie boys doc, Ted Lasso and The morning show * edited from Newsroom when my error was pointed out.
That's a month's worth of content. What else do they have to justify continuing a subscription?
Disney has more content with just the Simpson's episodes alone. Add on top of that the entire Marvel catalog, the entire Starwars Catalog and the entire Pixar catalog.
Isn't this basically just asking why doesn't Ted Lasso appeal to you? I think the biggest problem is Apple doesn't have much of a catalog.
Looking forward to trying out For All Mankind, See, Macbeth, and Invasion; the first two seem especially well liked by friends.
Bounced off Physical and Dickinson, but that had nothing to do with the quality of the shows; they're well made and have excellent acting.
The wide variety of stories and genres are lacking, but I think the quality of the average Apple TV+ show is quite a bit higher than the average Netflix show, on par with most of HBO.
I agree they don’t have much of a catalog, but they also don’t charge much and give the service away bundled with new devices. It’ll take some time to build up content. No big deal.
If I had to pick 1...probably HBO because their movie rotation generally has great classics.
That being said, I think as they expand, it's going to get pretty good.
I get it that people said it about movies and tv before, but these Netflix movies aren't even movies, they are subhuman Hallmark Channel level crap.
I'm not an expert on panel technology, but I think because LCDs have a backlight, the issue isn't as pronounced there. It just kinda washes out.
My best guess is their choice of codec and compression settings predate OLED availability and they don't want to re-encode and just expect people to upgrade to their 4K plan. I've never had their 4K plan, so I can't say whether that truly addresses the problem.
But nowadays you can configure additional visible languages yourself on the language settings page (checkboxes under "Programmes & Films Languages") without changing the UI language: https://www.netflix.com/LanguagePreferences
But that seems weird to me - just show the more relevant languages first, then, so they don't need too many button presses.
If I were Netflix I'd probably divest the technology side of the business (which is arguably the best in the market) and sell that "software product" as a white label streaming platform to the myriad of media houses across the world trying to get into streaming.
Netflix consistently made their UX worse, they started far beyond Prime Video, nowadays, it’s a tossup. I canceled Netflix for that reason alone.
Netflix has a ton of content so 'average' is going to differ based on your algorithm. But in the last year I can think of... The Crown, You, Cobra Kai, The Queen's Gambit, Bridgerton, Squid Games, Arcane all being massive successes. There are probably more I'm forgetting because they pump them out month after month.
> on par with most of HBO.
Maybe on par with HBO Max Originals...
(Of course in the books there is some mention of how the math looked. Just a fuckton of equations on a wall :D)
Even the descriptions in the post grudgingly admit that many of these bad movies 1) did well at the box office and 2) developed a cult following:
> Cobra failed with critics and was a disappointment. It's one of the worst movies of the 80s. However, turns out the fans loved it. It soon gained a massive cult following. It follows a basic action movie formula that failed to impress. Sylvester Stallone wrote the film but had issues with the studio. However, It did well at the box office. On the other hand, the violence and story failed to connect with fans at the time. Of course, things can always change. Cobra managed to find a whole new fan base. It's now a cult classic.
They are probably still a bit better than prime (showing shows both in keep watching and other categories, but in the other categories it’s specific seasons ignoring your last watched status; sometimes shuffling subtitle state or language for fun), but all those issues were not a thing a few years ago.
The UX of Apple TV+(which is a terrible name) is nothing but bait and switch. After my first week of using my free subscription I completely gave up on trying to browse on the app.
90% of the content I would click on would then ask me for 5 to twenty dollars to pay for it, which is ultimately just a rental until Apple decides they aren't interested in running a streaming service anymore. There's no indication it's pay until you're already excited to watch a show and click on it.
There are good shows on there now, but I only ever bother to open the app when I see an article listing best shows on streaming services and happen to see an Apple one. Sitting down to relax and just opening the app brings about nothing but frustration.
The only thing that makes it worth dealing with is the excellent content. Oh, and the fact that I can generally download something quickly to watch on a plane after boarding but before takeoff, since T-Mobile throttles Netflix, but apparently not AppleTV.
I won't say every, but most games that aren't designed as pay-once are just elaborate dopamine slot machines, with no winners. The exceptions are few.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(British_TV_series)
Breaking Bad isn't an HBO show. So I assume we're just asking, "has Netflix produced any world-class content". The answer to that is yes.
The jewel in their crown, their "Game of Thrones", is clearly Stranger Things. It's undeniably successful, each new season a cultural event. I'd put Stranger Things up against any HBO show for relevance and impact. (Perhaps not for artistic excellence; but, The Wire is the best show that's ever been on television, and it's far from the most watched).
Add to that Black Mirror, Bojack Horseman, Sex Ed, the annual Flanagan miniseries (Hill House, Bly Manor, Midnight Mass), Master of None, and Big Mouth.
They're doing about as well as any premium cable channel ever has. Doesn't, of course, mean you like their content! But I have about as much faith in Netflix coming up with a new prestige show than I do in HBO, most of whose recent stuff has left me pretty cold.
Honestly, Game of Thrones notwithstanding, I'm not sure that there's a lot on HBO I consider must see level content either although some is quite good.
I'd probably consider them about a wash for content.
Considering they have a lot more flexibility than your average network, I’m surprised Netflix hasn’t made movies or mini-seasons to wrap up stories more common. That would be a huge improvement over what they’ve done with a lot of their original content that didn’t quite make the cut.
Game of Thrones had far more consistent cultural impact across all seasons (although they managed to nuke its legacy completely with the horrible last season).
Another thing that's easy to sleep on is that Netflix is much, much better connected to its audience than HBO is to its own. Netflix makes a lot of content that I couldn't be less interested in, but that's probably a strong positive indicator for them; I obsess over The Wire, Deadwood, and Community, and am thus pretty clearly a niche audience. For years, HBO did a good job of serving people like me, to their detriment.
Tiger King & Squid Game were both pretty impactful.
Netflix seems overly reliant on small scale KPIs at the expense of the overall experience. Of course it's possible that they know exactly what they're doing and I'm just far away from their target consumer.
Firefly fan forever.
I didn't get to see Buffy until it was on Netflix and I enjoyed it as much as I would have when it was new, I think. Granted the computers and cellphones are obviously dated (but if you think of it as a period show, it is fine) and it is a bit grating how everybody is always fully covered during/after sex, but the stories are as great as they were back then.
I remember a local movie (1) that became, almost over night, the most watched movie in Quebec's history with more than 21M viewer. Quebec population is ~8M.
(1) https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-first-netflix...
Almost all of my home screen in Netflix is foreign language shows because that’s what’s good on Netflix.
Yeah, same here. I've watched an obscene amount of kdramas and they are adding new ones all the time.
That's something I love about Netflix. Watching German, Russian, Spanish, Danish TV shows is really cool for change
Do you watch anything particular in Russian or Danish?
Russian: I loved Road To Calvary and To The Lake, and watched some of Better Than Us and liked it.
German: One of my favorite shows of all time is Babylon Berlin :)
Norwegian: Ragnarok is kinda interesting.
Egyptian: Paranormal is good, and only 5 episodes long.
Spanish: Cathedral of the Sea is interesting, and I loved Ministry of Time - although this one vanished from all online streamings :/
Swedish: The Restaurant is available on Sundance/Star or some other channels. Like Downton Abbey. Just watched a couple episodes, but it was nice
French: Lupin and Les Revenants (The Returned) - although I think the second is not on Netflix now, but somewhere else. Watched it many years ago
Belgium: not fantastic, but Thieves of the Wood is just one season long and enjoyable.
Italian: I liked Curon, although it didn't seem to please too many people, I think?
On my list: Trapped, which is Icelandic.
Cheat: Hinterland - it's made in both English and Welsh
> , but those parts cut out, usually leaving a grindy mess with no shortcuts (paid or otherwise).
(I also have no knowledge or interest in LoL.)
[0] -- https://www.wired.co.uk/article/netflix-originals-cancelled-...
>Of course it's possible that they know exactly what they're doing and I'm just far away from their target consumer.
Maybe. So long as a show doesn't get canceled at a completely unnatural point, I'm actually fine with just a couple seasons a lot of the time--especially with the historical network model of 20 episodes per season or so. And, conversely, by the time a show hits 4 or 5 seasons I'm done with it even if it's still pretty solid. I'm just tired of it.
There are a bunch of network shows I liked that stayed pretty good but I just stopped watching them at some point.
nope, not available in my country and it is clear from their list too: https://help.disneyplus.com/csp?id=csp_article_content&sys_k...
https://www.bestvpnfordisneyplus.com/blogs/when-is-disney-pl...
https://help.disneyplus.com/csp?id=csp_article_content&sys_k...
That's incorrect.
>Disney Plus Malaysia officially launched on 1st June 2021, making streaming Disney+ movies and series more accessible and worth the purchase in Malaysia. After Indonesia and Singapore, Malaysia has become the third South East Asian country to get Disney+ as Disney Plus Hotstar in collaboration with Astro Malaysia.
It is also available in Thailand, but Philippines is only announced to be coming soon.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Netflix_original_progr...
I suppose there was a sieve that their guests went through but it is still fascinating to see the parade of suburban Los-angelites: housewives, people with strong ethnic ties to the "old country" that had yet to be melted into the pot that was 1950's America. Who knew door to door salesman really was a typical working class occupation?
And yes, I’ve gone into the settings to turn that feature off, and it doesn’t entirely work. It does reduce the auto-play somewhat, but not entirely.
I’ll fucking delete my Netflix account and the Netflix app from our AppleTV device, if that shit gets any worse.
Not sure what you mean by not entirely? I've got both 'autoplay next episode' and 'autoplay previews' turned off and don't think I see it anywhere anymore, which dramatically improved the experience.
Peacock uses a white glow around the preview picture as their selection indicator. No border. Just a faint glow.
HBO Max has no way of navigating to a show page from your most recently viewed carousel. You have to find or search the show separately.
It's death by a thousand cuts, but jesus... use your competitor's app. See what UX works and what doesn't. I can't imagine any of the little stuff is actually patented.
Amazon Prime awkwardly splits their shows into individual seasons ('series' in UK) in such a way that it's difficult to ascertain how much of the show you'll actually be able to watch on Prime. Other seasons may be available to rent, purchase, watch on one of their partner subscription services, and/or watch for free on their IMDb TV ad-supported service, all of which is haphazardly jumbled together in their main window in no particular order.
It should always take you to a show page, from there you should have options to continue or see info or go to episodes, etc...
Meanwhile on Hulu, I recently watched episode 1 of Over the Garden Wall and instead of continuing on the the next episode, it autoplayed the episode of a completely different series.
They're in a really sorry state UX-wise.
Hit play then as soon as it starts hit back, you’ll be at the show.
My guess is most remotes or TVs don’t support long press or other alt-clicks so they just implement the main thing people would want in that carousel. Even on AppleTV or other platforms that have long press.
I had to hardcode a kill app shortcut just for them.
For all other android tv apps that I have been using so far, the back button works normally, exiting the app at the topmost layer. However, repeated clicks of the back button in netflix UI just re-triggers the menu - part of their dark patterns to make it harder to quit the app...
Netflix could have done what Prime video does
Prime Video: "Do you want to exit the app? (Yes/No)", then done
Netflix: scroll all the way down the menu options: Home, Play something, New & Popular, TV Shows, Movies, My List, Get Help, Exit Netflix (click), 8 clicks in total before you can exit.
So it takes orders of magnitude more clicks, and more time out of my life, every time I try to exit the Netflix app. Considering that exiting an app is something I do all the time, it is not great
And yes, we have the highest level of Hulu+ that is supposed to avoid most ads.
The thing that irks me w/ Hulu -- we have kids sleeping and it'll be soft for the actual show, then the ad comes in and it's like 5 decibals louder. and we have to physically just mute the commercials... it's the most annoying thing ever!
As a bonus this actually encourages them to work hard for your views.
Yes, you can say they just focus on family content. But that is kind of the point. They identified their market and cater to them really well. Who is the market for Netflix?
Their curse is that they can find untapped markets, but then the content owners can invest surprisingly well into clawing back that market.
I would estimate the Netflix target market is basically the non-family under-35s. It's actually closer to my tastes in general. Netflix also has a better real international selection IMO.
There's no clear differentiator between any of the above outside of (1) UX and (2) content. They all are a means of schlepping video to my screen. They are all almost perfectly commodity in my opinion.
$13.99 for Disney+, Hulu (with ads), and ESPN+. $19.99 if you want the Hulu with no ads.
Too bad Netflix doesn't have a sports deal for live content.
I’d be really happy if I could delete all sports from all video sources I have available to me, or at least just hide them so that I don’t have to look at any of that crap.
If I do, my kids will've gone from educational video about the rain forest to sponsored video to toy videos to slime to fart jokes to music videos of bikini-clad bimbos to steamy romance videos to ...
Anyway it's just too much work to curate youtube for a child, IMO.
For example, my kiddo found a bunch of inappropriately steamy fan fiction for her favorite cartoons narrated on youtube... and she demonstrated that she knew it was inappropriate because she started hiding her screen from us.
But he always prefers YouTube and when he's using YouTube, he mostly watches 3-5 minutes of something before getting enticed by another thumbnail.
At times when he's had free reign to YT, it really seems to drastically affect his general attention, patience, temperament and even ability to sleep (he wakes up super early asking for his tablet).
Once we cut it off hard, he goes back to normal.
We don't really believe in complete abstinence of those sorts of things (I think it will just make him even more sensitive to those algorithms in the future) but being aware of the effect, reducing YT and prioritizing actual movies/series has made a noticeable difference.
YT Kids most popular channels are streamed play sessions and toy reviews with superhuman production values and unrealistic depictions of what the toys can do. Once a child has watched an episode of LOL doll play along (for example), YouTube algorithm will recommend LOL doll collection videos, which associate completist collecting with peer group social acceptance. Free to play video game spots were even worse, directly focusing on alluring introduction of the game’s addiction economy.
I gave my children access to YouTube kids for some of the excellent educational content reasoning that it would be a relatively safe experience. Within a month their homepage and all recommendations (and I do mean 100%) were sponsored 5-15 minute long toy commercials. Their interest in animals, nature, science, and dinosaur programming remained strong but disappeared entirely from view outside of keyword search.
All YT and Google apps are now removed from the devices they use. I allow unsupervised use of PBS Kids, PBS in general, Nat Geo, Disney Plus and Netflix Kids (with time limits) but YouTube is filtered from my kids devices at the router. They are not allowed Google accounts; all YouTube content access is done via keyword search with a parent selecting the material and remaining in the room during viewing.
There are programs on YouTube that can’t be replicated anywhere else. But the recommendation engine is distilled corruption and dismay.
But in general I really hate video sites too so I don't use it much at all. Too many harebrained "influencers" now trying to sell stuff
I can sit with my kid and watch a couple episodes of a show I've never heard of (Like Bluey) and say, "Yep, this is a definite thumbs up. You can watch Bluey when you have screen time" And I trust that when an episode ends, another episode of Bluey is what will show up.
For a youtube channel, I have to watch the entire video and I can say, "Yep, you can watch this exact video. Make sure autoplay is off."
I have no clue what video would play next. I have no clue what product the youtuber will try to shill in the middle of the video, etc.
Seems like the problem can be solved with a crowdsourced list of family-friendly videos (on GitHub?) managed by trusted collaborators and then a simple page that embeds only these videos?
Over time I assume it should work given enough people contributing. It's not like the content needs to be kept continuously up to date either (unless old videos disappear faster than new ones are added).
The worst part is that recommendations aren't in line with the content level of what you are viewing.
Here in the uk we have the joy that is CBeebies and CBBC, so have iPlayer (and all the other kids BBC apps) on iPads for the kids.
The only other one we let them have free reign on is Disney+, I’m sure this will change for the older one soon.
It's fine on a laptop or desktop where you can run an ad blocker. It's not fine when you're trying to let kiddo watch YouTube on an actual TV screen.
- Lorry trucks (semis/big rigs) driving on the road/motorway
- The tube/trains/subways coming in and out of stations
- Large excavators digging in quarries and loading dump trucks
The videos are usually pretty slow paced and calm, and we're happy to let him watch in small blocks (5-10 mins max) from time to time. He's shown no interest in typical cartoons, kids shows, etc. I'd love to cut off YT completely, but are there other places to get this type of content for him?
I remember one thread in particular where someone told me that you could find some very strange stuff just by typing a period in the search box (autocomplete does the rest, NSFW if that’s not obvious), and that school age Kids tend to figure this out or share this “trick” amongst themselves. So to each their own, but I’m not a parent yet so I abstain from having any strong opinions for the moment.
There’s an audience for everything but I am not the audience for everything.
IMO it's completely unsuitable for unsupervised children under, say, 13.
I split my Amazon Prime with my neighbor so she can get free shipping. She doesn't care about the TV part, and to me, it's not worth much either.
Yeah I noped tf out pretty quick too. This isn't even the first time I've seen crazy shit about YT - these parents are 100% right not to let their kids on unsupervised. Weird how it's not news more often tbh.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...