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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

#161

Post by CWuestefeld »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #110
roboguy12 wrote: post #85

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.

It's not really equivalent. He paid for the product, but then the store wouldn't let him take it home with him. His end solution probably wasn't legal, but to me it feels morally just.

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

#162

Post by lorenzhs »

Y-bar wrote: post #117
msabalau wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

License dealings are often per-country, and there are different exclusive deals in different countries which prevent anyone else from offering some film or show on their streaming platform. There's a lot of legal overhead per country, unfortunately.

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

#163

Post by nathan_long »

dmalvarado wrote: post #76

My younger colleagues at work simply can't believe that I still have a DVD plan with Netflix. I'm not that old! In response, I can't believe THEY are satisfied with what's available on streaming. Netflix isn't interested in paying royalties for blockbuster films. In house content makes so much more sense.

Ditto. I have a DVD Netflix plan, and streaming, and Amazon Prime.

Yes, it's ridiculous that in 2016, I'm still regularly getting bits via snail mail. DVDs are sometimes scratched, and my player often forces me to watch previews. It's terrible.

Except for the selection. Try this: go to http://www.imdb.com/chart/top, then start searching for those on https://dvd.netflix.com/. I tried a few, and they were all there.

I don't have crazy weird esoteric tastes, but I like to be able to say "hey, I heard that Movie X was good" and be able to add it to my playlist. I can pretty much always do that with the DVD service. I can pretty much never do that with streaming services. It's like, "oh, they have a sequel and a spinoff, but not the original."

I'm about 98% sure that the difference in selection is because of Hollywood being jerks about licensing, so I don't blame Netflix or Amazon. But as long as there's such a vast difference in selection, I'm going to keep renting DVDs.

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

#164

Post by lostcolony »

givinguflac wrote: post #128
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #110

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.

This isn't forgetting a wallet when you get to the store. This is going to the store, buying the product, and then having the product just magically evaporate once you get half way home. Then you go back to the store, ask for help with your disappearing product, and be told they can't help you. Your analogy is terrible.

And then rather than deal with the store again, you go borrow the copy your friend has that never spontaneously evaporated.

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

#165

Post by kodt »

hamax wrote: post #135
roboguy12 wrote: post #85

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. Why didn't you just stream Amazon or Play Movies from the computer since you plugged it in anyways? How was stealing it more convenient?

He already paid for it on Google Play, so then paying for it again on Amazon probably seemed like a slap in the face.

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

#166

Post by zanny »

karyon wrote: post #133
ekianjo wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I've made that argument myself, but agree that the current video streaming situation is just dumb. Could you explain me why that analogy is wrong? I understand there is no damage done as in, they don't have less money than they had before, but they still have less money than they would have if i bought/rented the video.

Because you go into a store and take something that store on longer has against its will. Copyright infringement is just someone else willingly duplicating data that you want, while the entity that holds a state granted monopoly to duplication (not necessarily creator) has not authorized the transfer.

One is robbery of scarce resources, one is a legal framework around imposing scarcity on something that is not naturally scarce.

You can steal a movie - in the traditional sense of the word - by breaking into MGM / Disney / Universal's internal network and copying the movie out from their own internal servers. This does happen, where scene releases of unreleased movies happen, often done by employees with access to get access to these films prematurely. That is the only situation remotely comparable to the shoplifting scenario, because in the normal piracy scenario nobody is not voluntarily participating (the original buyer of the movie who then shared it did a voluntary transaction, then violated the distribution terms given them when distributing it to others voluntarily).

Violating a contract and violence are on entirely different planes of ethics.

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

#167

Post by colmvp »

billmalarky wrote: post #134
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #110

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.

Devils Advocate: The alternative of "not consuming" digital products is less valuable to creators than "consuming for free." Allow me to reference a very famous Bill Gates quote on Chinese piracy of software: "And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." There are more ways to monetize…

I don't know. I think there is a difference between applications and platforms like Adobe Software and Windows which often get pirated but at times hugely cost prohibitive to new entrants (e.g. students, young people) vs pirating movies/shows. I'm persistently left unconvinced by moral arguments on show/movie piracy, especially in an age where there's no shortage of new content being created, be it on YouTube, your local bookstore, or your RSS feed. I still have a huge backlog of podcasts/books to catch up, let alone movies I still haven't seen.

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

#168

Post by thrownblown »

epistasis wrote: post #111
roboguy12 wrote: post #85

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…

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…

I have bought a lot of content (yo gabba gabba!) from Google play.

I often watch it on YouTube under "purchases"

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

#169

Post by cidibe »

flycaliguy wrote: post #20

Surely I'm not the only person who isn't interested in watching IMDB's favourite content. Give me the 6 outta 10s, that's my bread and butter. I'd rather be surprised and discover a personal favourite or have something on the TV that I won't be expected to dissect with the nerds at work.

The movies in the 7's are more consistently appealing to me than the top 250. Some movies just become "great" so everyone gives them 10's or are more receptive to love them I think. There are some movies I love in the top 250 but also a lot of movies just get buoyed up from their "greatness." Just glancing at the top 10 I honestly didn't like Pulp Fiction at all and didn't feel the Godfathers were special. I almost always like a movie in the 7's that has a lot of votes.

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

#170

Post by unethical_ban »

hamax wrote: post #135
roboguy12 wrote: post #85

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. Why didn't you just stream Amazon or Play Movies from the computer since you plugged it in anyways? How was stealing it more convenient?

Is it stealing if he already paid for it, but didn't get it?
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