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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

#201

Post by t4nkd »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #156
andybak wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason the comparison is objectionable is because 'theft' is not the same as 'failing to pay a fee'. Theft implies a non-duplicatable object has passed from the possession of one entity to the possession of another thus depriving the first entity of any use or advantage from it. While we might disagree on the moral shading of copyright infringement can we agree that piracy and theft are different things?

...and there's the convenient, highly abstract argument. When wanting free stuff, no mental gymnastic is too hard. I'm a pragmatist. I see folks wanting to avoid disappointment (can't see favorite show) suddenly becoming theoretical philosophers. Like a 12-year-old deciding their older brother's belongings really belong to everybody, because socialism or whatever.

But it's not interesting to you that the gross majority of people, even people who lean to your opinion, are constructing abstractions in order to reason about the problem?

If you consider yourself a pragmatist, you should also consider that you have under analyzed the issue at hand and that trying to generalize digital media with anecdotes of exchange for goods or services in meat space is inappropriate.

Your position sounds more rooted in laziness than pragmatism, at this rate.

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

#202

Post by JoeAltmaier »

sgeisenh wrote: post #148
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.

Piracy and larceny are entirely different crimes. Nobody "stole" anything, in this particular situation. In order for something to be "stolen", the victim must lose something that they already had. You might try to argue that streaming services lost a sale, but they never had the sale and they make the process so arduous that they would never get the sale. To be clear, I am not promoting piracy, it does pose ethical…

The 'book value' of items in the corner market is negligible. The real value is in having that soda available, cold and ready for you. And in marketing that fact.

So in a very real sense, stealing the soda and stealing the movie are hardly any different?

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

#203

Post by pvg »

wyldfire wrote: post #4

Netflix is clearly making heavy investments in what we've tended to call "Television" programming. It's often deep dramas that are very engrossing, much more so than TV offered a decade or two ago. Netflix likely sees higher returns here. Movies are quickly becoming the "short story" of the cinematic world, IMO (though those countless sequels and prequels are an exception). When done well they have a strict beginning…

I think you have this backwards. Netflix's original programming is trying to emulate the best of TV programming of the last decade or two.

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

#204

Post by Jtsummers »

fixermark wrote: post #131
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.

FWIW, sometimes when I forget my wallet at the corner store, the clerk will just let me take the stick of gum because he knows I'm good for it later. There's a lot of reasons that analogies between mom and pop face-to-face businesses and massively-middleman'd intermediary transactions break down; this is just one of them.

> the clerk will just let me take the stick of gum because he knows I'm good for it later.

So you're still going to pay for it. That's not the same as the story here, where they paid for it, got a refund, then got it for "free". They aren't intending to go to the content creators and hand them $5 for it later.

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

#205

Post by pforpineapple »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #10
arkitaip wrote: post #2

I can understand that the media companies don't want to cooperate with Netflix by denying them access to their IP but it's sad that they haven't been able to launch a real alternative to Netflix during all these years.

Sure they have. Torrents are popular and effective. They work great. The studios clearly prefer we use them; their repeated decisions leaving them as the sole functional choice show that.

"The studios clearly prefer we use them" : what do you mean ?

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

#206

Post by executesorder66 »

Diederich wrote: post #179
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…

Right. Being the 'chaotic good' person that I am, my family stopped trying to view entertainment content the normal legal way many years ago. I've been using a torrent friendly VPS in eastern Europe for quite a few years now to avoid any complications. That, plus a little web service that presents youtube videos without commercials, gives us pretty reliable access to most anything we ever want to watch. The downside…

> plus a little web service that presents youtube videos without commercials

Why not just use an adblocker like uBlock Origin?

If you don't want to see ads, I assume you use an adblocker anyway, so you might as well use one that doesn't suck.

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

#207

Post by drzaiusapelord »

roboguy12 wrote: post #85
SCdF wrote: 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…

That's funny as my wife and I have probably streamed hundreds of items with our Chromecast from various sources including the Play Store and have never had the slightest issue. We do have quality issues with Netflix sometimes, but its pretty rare and seems to be related to choppy wifi connections due to interference (since moving to 5ghz wifi we haven't had issues - which may be coincidental). Online services have issues sometimes. I think we need to accept life will have the occasional inconvenience. I bought a $35,000+ car that had engine trouble one year in and had to arrange with the warranty people at the dealer about replacing the engine. A $3 movie not playing isn't remotely comparable with that, but we accept that cars need work sometimes, so why the double-standard for IT systems? You just gotta accept that life is not perfect and not to over-react or toss out the baby with the bathwater.

I think you're playing up an edge case and frankly that seems disingenuous to me. It seems like every pro-pirate person has some shaggy dog story that "validates" their pirating. I also take issue with how 'easy' it is to pirate. Sure, if its for a current hot item and everyone is seeding it, but once the fanboys go away the seeders are mostly gone and now you're waiting hours (or even days!) to pirate something. Worse, you may expect a lawsuit from the copyright holders as torrents expose your real IP address unless you're using an offshore VPN or VPS which also adds a another layer of inconvenience and monthly billing.

Currently, we have two FireTV boxes and two Chromecasts for our two TV's and they're borderline magical. We have so much content on tap that "just works" that the argument of "its better to pirate" is pretty unconvincing to people without a political agenda. I also want to be part of a system that pays investors and producers of said content for moral and practical reasons. We don't need a Sega Dreamcast-like situation where the pirates kill platforms, hurt competition, and create disincentives to innovate, distribute, and create.

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

#208

Post by forgetsusername »

SCdF wrote: 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.

>It sucks that Netflix is pushing their own content as a solution.

What choice do you have when you don't own the infrastructure or content?

Let's face it, the barrier to entry to creating streaming app is low. Granted, Netflix is awesome in this department (they have to be), but I don't see how the future isn't in creating and distributing the content you own yourself.

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

#209

Post by gordon_freeman »

UnfalseDesign wrote: post #194
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…

> It wasn't a problem with our Wifi, since Netflix/Youtube and other services worked just fine, it was a problem with Google Play streaming to the Chromecast. Movies you buy/rent in Google Play Movies are actually available in YouTube as well. There's a section in YouTube called "Purchases." I've used this to stream Google Play Movies purchases on my Fire TV. I would imagine the same would work for an Apple TV since…

That is the best and straightforward workaround. Thanks for letting us know that we can rent on Play and watch it on YouTube. I just didn't know that's possible.

If you want to rent the movie or show on Amazon Video but are avoiding using that option just because it doesn't work on chromecast then here is what you can do : 1. Install Amazon video app on phone. Here's link for Android : https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/splash/sd/t/appstore

2. Cast your Android screen (mirror) to chromecast via OS's cast option.

3. Go to Amazon Video app and play show. Do a full screen view.

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

#210

Post by forrestthewoods »

SCdF wrote: 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.

Nah. It's never Beene easier in the history of time to legally acquire content.

I bet iTunes has 250 of IMDBs top 250 available for rent. Piracy isn't more convenient. It's just cheaper.

It turns out that $10/month isn't enough to pay for every movie and TV show ever made. Who knew?

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