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Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

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Re: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

#31
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plex is a really easy way to stream video files from your computer to a chromecast, and I can use my phone as a remote. It works just as well as googe play and better than my current amazon workflow.(Which I can only play from the computer because they won't allow streaming to chromecast)

You are not accounting for the important part of sourcing the pirated movies and running a Plex server though? That's what 99% of the people who only want to consume will be struggling with, not the playback client.

Most people have a friend who's technical enough to follow the plex installation instructions or install utorrent.

Re: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

#32

Of all the streaming services, Netflix is the one I’m most likely to cancel soon. The quality of Netflix original content is dismal. They have jumped the shark. Used to invest in serious drama, now it’s all lowest common denominator crap hidden behind a huge marketing budget to capture zeitgeisty hype. I just watched the first episode of When They See Us today: total crap. Ridiculous over-acting, awful writing that f…

> used to invest in serious drama, now it’s all lowest common denominator crap

Given that it's Netflix we're talking about here, I find this extremely depressing as it likely means the studios were right; people don't want nuanced thoughtful drama, they want mediocre predictable sitcoms and cop dramas.

Re: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“This is inconvenient and expensive which gives me the unilateral right to steal your intellectual property”. It’s an interesting take, that you get to steal anything you like if it isn’t priced and sold how you want.

its more likely that they already have a piracy workflow and the inconvenience isn't enough to disrupt that workflow, unlike their experience with Netflix / Plex with the Chromecast.

How is that different from the comment you're replying to?

"...and sold how you want"

Re: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

#34

Of all the streaming services, Netflix is the one I’m most likely to cancel soon. The quality of Netflix original content is dismal. They have jumped the shark. Used to invest in serious drama, now it’s all lowest common denominator crap hidden behind a huge marketing budget to capture zeitgeisty hype. I just watched the first episode of When They See Us today: total crap. Ridiculous over-acting, awful writing that f…

> used to invest in serious drama, now it’s all lowest common denominator crap Given that it's Netflix we're talking about here, I find this extremely depressing as it likely means the studios were right; people don't want nuanced thoughtful drama, they want mediocre predictable sitcoms and cop dramas.

HBO seems to still be producing very good dramas. Prime has had one or two offbeat gems recently. I think there’s still a strong market for it, but Netflix is clearly pursuing something else.

Re: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

#35
post #17

For me it's a simple equation that has as much to do with time and hassle as it has to do with money. I'm not going to juggle five different monthly subscriptions. I'll pay Netflix for their decent original content and all my old favorites like Star Trek. I'll buy a month of Hbo every couple years to catch up with them. I'm not going to pay $200 for a cable subscription and I'm not going to pay for Netflix and YouTub…

>I'll just go back to piracy like I did before Netflix existed. It amazes me they seem to be completely oblivious that this will be the the result. A percentage of someone else's revenue is still a bigger number than a percentage of nothing...

I suspect they're gambling that once people have sampled the "don't get off the couch" convenience of streaming, piracy won't be an appetizing alternative. I did always think that piracy was more about convenience than price for people who aren't broke college students.

Re: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

#36
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one who doesn’t threaten piracy when I don’t get exactly what I want for the price I want? Is it really that unusual to not take things that you shouldn’t? I mean if Hulu doesn’t have a movie I want to watch I’ll just watch something else, I won’t go take it because I feel entitled.

> I mean if Hulu doesn’t have a movie I want to watch I’ll just watch something else Would anyone loose anything if instead of something else you ended up pirating the movie that you wanted to watch?

The owner of the content you didn't stream would lose out on the (presumably tiny) fee from Hulu.

Re: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

#37
post #22

I don't think piracy will come back as streaming becomes more segregated, people generally will go with the legitimate market over illegal means as long as the fiction is under a certain level. Most Americans would rather pay an extra $15 a month for streaming that to pirate content and go through the "hassle" of getting that pirated content on their TV. How many non-tech people do you know who can mirror a PC or lap…

Multiply that by about 10 subscription services each? Each at 7-11$ a month. I see a supernova

Re: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

#38
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not accounting for the important part of sourcing the pirated movies and running a Plex server though? That's what 99% of the people who only want to consume will be struggling with, not the playback client.

Most people have a friend who's technical enough to follow the plex installation instructions or install utorrent.

These technical friends may exist, but I'd guess most of the people would rather pay 15$ / month to some provider than bothering their friend to set them up with a Plex server, maintaining it, figuring out what file to download ("What is this 1080p, 720p?), waiting for downloads to be done, clear out old torrents so they have disk space again.

These are all things that are fun to "us" technical people and I don't mind doing them for myself but if you have to choose between relying on someone else to keep your setup running or just paying someone and have a hands off solution most people will do that. Don't forget that this is very biased community here, it makes comments like this sound a bit like the dropbox vs a pile of shell scripts post.

Re: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

#39
post #22

I don't think piracy will come back as streaming becomes more segregated, people generally will go with the legitimate market over illegal means as long as the fiction is under a certain level. Most Americans would rather pay an extra $15 a month for streaming that to pirate content and go through the "hassle" of getting that pirated content on their TV. How many non-tech people do you know who can mirror a PC or lap…

Multiply that by about 10 subscription services each? Each at 7-11$ a month. I see a supernova

Didn't people also spent large amounts on one cable provider with different packages? Now it's just a bunch of different providers essentially.

Re: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

#40
Piracy is alive and kicking in a lot of countries still, as I'm sure some of you know. Netflix is probably partially at fault for this.

When I travel to different countries and pull up Netflix, I see shows available in that country that aren't available in another. It's annoying.

Of course, a VPN takes care of this (to an extent).

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