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Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

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Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#111
post #28

It sucks that Netflix is pushing their own content as a solution. Don't get me wrong, some of their own content is great, but I don't want to subscribe to 10 different streaming services that all have their own original content, I want to subscribe to one. Netflix--and others, like Amazon Prime--are becoming less and less worthwhile, and piracy is becoming more and more convenient again.

Last weekend my wife and I wanted to watch the movie Goat. It was pretty recently in theaters, so we didn't expect it to be on Netflix. We searched HBO Now, Hulu, Starz, and all of the other video streaming services that we have (and pay money for!). We found two options - rent it on Google Play Movies, or rent it through Amazon Prime. Now, we wanted to Chromecast it, and Amazon (to the best of my knowledge) does not…

There are two issues here, the fragmentation of the services, and poorly implemented services.

I have really really tried to use Google Play for video because it seems to work on the broadest array of devices, but the service itself is a second rate experience. Too many clicks, laggy unresponsive UI, silly JS driven pages that require reloading in order to start working again...

I too really want to do things the way that supports content producers, but the middlemen are doing such a poor job that it's difficult to get my money to them.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#112
post #28

It sucks that Netflix is pushing their own content as a solution. Don't get me wrong, some of their own content is great, but I don't want to subscribe to 10 different streaming services that all have their own original content, I want to subscribe to one. Netflix--and others, like Amazon Prime--are becoming less and less worthwhile, and piracy is becoming more and more convenient again.

Last weekend my wife and I wanted to watch the movie Goat. It was pretty recently in theaters, so we didn't expect it to be on Netflix. We searched HBO Now, Hulu, Starz, and all of the other video streaming services that we have (and pay money for!). We found two options - rent it on Google Play Movies, or rent it through Amazon Prime. Now, we wanted to Chromecast it, and Amazon (to the best of my knowledge) does not…

[deleted]

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Netflix--and others, like Amazon Prime--are becoming less and less worthwhile, and piracy is becoming more and more convenient again. Lawyers are the primary reason why Netflix is becoming less convenient, and by pure coincidence, lawyers will benefit from an increase in piracy. Money talks.

So why doesn't this happen in the music industry? And a few exclusives here and there doesn't count. Spotify / Apple / Amazon / Tidal / Deezer have 99.9% of the same content with a few high profile albums that are only found on one or another service.

Good question. Could be that Apple is more hardware bound and music distributors would need to be quite heavily compensated in order be exclusive apple and miss out on all those people with android phones.

It could also be that people are more willing to make platform purchasing decisions when it comes to video and game exclusivity but not music. This would lead to lower interest to buy exclusivity by the platforms, and thus having full market coverage is more economical for publisher.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#114
post #108

I always appreciate that Hulu has its Criterion collection section. And I very recently signed up for Seeso for $4 a month because I was craving some Monty Python's Flying Circus. I don't plan on keeping it long term, maybe just a month, to get it out of my system. And then I still end up digging through shitty cheap roku channels occasionally to find stuff. Mostly just schlock, but I saw, for example, niche titles l…

Vudu.com, which has been giving out free credits every week via T-Mobile, also has a pretty good chunk of the AFI top 100.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last weekend my wife and I wanted to watch the movie Goat. It was pretty recently in theaters, so we didn't expect it to be on Netflix. We searched HBO Now, Hulu, Starz, and all of the other video streaming services that we have (and pay money for!). We found two options - rent it on Google Play Movies, or rent it through Amazon Prime. Now, we wanted to Chromecast it, and Amazon (to the best of my knowledge) does not…

> We really, really tried to do it the legal way and pay money for the content we wanted to watch, but it was far too complicated to even find a place to watch it, let alone actually successfully watch it. Hey @Google, @Amazon, @etc., you have UX designers (tons of them). If this problem isn't fixed soon, more will do the same.

Robotguy12 did not describe a UI problem. First there was a licensing problem, then there was a technical playback problem. The movie was nominally legally available, but it might as well not have been, for how hard it was to find and then playback.

The technical problem is relatively easily fixed and probably just an isolated local issue. The licensing problem is a bigger one. For rentals, you have the problem of having to create accounts for all the places it may be, assuming you've even got the searching chops to do it (presumably one gets tired of just trying all of them by hand), and for subscription services you have the even larger problem of accumulating a $10/month service here, $10/month service there until you're talking about real money.

That reminds me, I need to turn off my Hulu service. (Seriously, not just for rhetorical point. Literally gonna go do that next thing. Edit: Yup, just did it.) We're not using it in the current season.

(Edit: Incidentally, Hulu really cut itself off here. Because so many of the shows, even with the paid subscription, only have the last 5 episodes of the most recent season, and then aggressively disappear once the season is over, I have no reason to stick around if I'm not watching anything that's on right now. There's actually two shows that I did not watch as they came out, but might have left on my subscription for if they were still available, but now they're gone from the service like they never existed, so.... cancelled. See ya next season, maybe.)

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last weekend my wife and I wanted to watch the movie Goat. It was pretty recently in theaters, so we didn't expect it to be on Netflix. We searched HBO Now, Hulu, Starz, and all of the other video streaming services that we have (and pay money for!). We found two options - rent it on Google Play Movies, or rent it through Amazon Prime. Now, we wanted to Chromecast it, and Amazon (to the best of my knowledge) does not…

Yeah I'm not sympathetic. The alternative to finding (and failing to find) a service to watch the show could possibly be - not watching it? The conclusion 'naturally we then had to steal it' isn't entirely justified. Shoplifting is easy and convenient too. Next time you forget your wallet at the corner store. Just sayin.

The analogy between shoplifting and copyright infrigement gets really, really old.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#117
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it most likely is some sort of licensing issue which prevents the same content. But Netflix isn't paying for Cinema Paradiso, or Braveheart, or Zootopia, or … in Sweden. In fact the Swedish library is less than half the size of the US library[1]. Yet Swedish consumers pay just as much as US consumers. There is a large discrepancy in the value given for customers' money here which Netflix does not address…

And, no doubt, there is a fixed overhead of dealing with with Swedish customers that is spread out over far fewer consumers than in the US.

What kind of overhead, specifically, would that be?

Swedes speak to the same english-only customer service representatives as US customers do. And CDN cost should scale mostly linearly with the size of the customer base.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#118
post #28

It sucks that Netflix is pushing their own content as a solution. Don't get me wrong, some of their own content is great, but I don't want to subscribe to 10 different streaming services that all have their own original content, I want to subscribe to one. Netflix--and others, like Amazon Prime--are becoming less and less worthwhile, and piracy is becoming more and more convenient again.

Last weekend my wife and I wanted to watch the movie Goat. It was pretty recently in theaters, so we didn't expect it to be on Netflix. We searched HBO Now, Hulu, Starz, and all of the other video streaming services that we have (and pay money for!). We found two options - rent it on Google Play Movies, or rent it through Amazon Prime. Now, we wanted to Chromecast it, and Amazon (to the best of my knowledge) does not…

> Now, we wanted to Chromecast it, and Amazon (to the best of my knowledge) does not allow you to do that, presumably because they want you to buy their Fire TV instead.

It works on a phone or tablet if you cast the whole screen. Might work on a laptop the same way.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'm not sympathetic. The alternative to finding (and failing to find) a service to watch the show could possibly be - not watching it? The conclusion 'naturally we then had to steal it' isn't entirely justified. Shoplifting is easy and convenient too. Next time you forget your wallet at the corner store. Just sayin.

The analogy between shoplifting and copyright infrigement gets really, really old.

I know; I have to keep bringing it up because people keep pretending they're owed entertainment. This entitled generation is just disappointing.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last weekend my wife and I wanted to watch the movie Goat. It was pretty recently in theaters, so we didn't expect it to be on Netflix. We searched HBO Now, Hulu, Starz, and all of the other video streaming services that we have (and pay money for!). We found two options - rent it on Google Play Movies, or rent it through Amazon Prime. Now, we wanted to Chromecast it, and Amazon (to the best of my knowledge) does not…

Yeah I'm not sympathetic. The alternative to finding (and failing to find) a service to watch the show could possibly be - not watching it? The conclusion 'naturally we then had to steal it' isn't entirely justified. Shoplifting is easy and convenient too. Next time you forget your wallet at the corner store. Just sayin.

That's really not an accurate comparison:

1) they actually did pay to rent it.

2) the content owners don't lose more money weather it's "stollen" or just not watched at all. (In fact, it's better in some ways since these people will tell their friends about it now who may also watch it)

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