Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

marketwatch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 417 posts

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#51

Post by ryanianian »

sundayedition wrote: post #35

There is a lot of what I'd consider "noise" popping up on Netflix that they won't let me filter out. I don't care for most dubbed shows, and I haven't had any luck with any of the foreign imports. No way to filter them out that I'm aware of, so half of the "New shows" don't appeal to me I wouldn't give up Netflix for cable, it's more likely to be Prime only, or something with quality content that I wouldn't watch as…

Netflix is blatantly user-hostile. The UX is designed to get you to spend more time with Netflix, not to make you like it more.

Many of the shows it suggests to me are not in english, yet the UX rarely discloses this in the description or (infuriatingly auto-playing) preview. Some people don't mind reading subtitles but I detest it - they could at least tell me the show is in German before wasting my time.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#52

Post by lallysingh »

ryanianian wrote: post #51
sundayedition wrote: post #35

There is a lot of what I'd consider "noise" popping up on Netflix that they won't let me filter out. I don't care for most dubbed shows, and I haven't had any luck with any of the foreign imports. No way to filter them out that I'm aware of, so half of the "New shows" don't appeal to me I wouldn't give up Netflix for cable, it's more likely to be Prime only, or something with quality content that I wouldn't watch as…

Netflix is blatantly user-hostile. The UX is designed to get you to spend more time with Netflix, not to make you like it more. Many of the shows it suggests to me are not in english , yet the UX rarely discloses this in the description or (infuriatingly auto-playing) preview. Some people don't mind reading subtitles but I detest it - they could at least tell me the show is in German before wasting my time.

Yes! They've optimized for the wrong metric. Users should feel like it's time well spent.

After their $1MM prize years ago, they didn't even bother implementing the winning algorithm.

Then again, nobody really recommends media well. You can't mine the media directly, and people have very different preferences. It's just too many factors that you can't infer from the usage.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#53

Post by pjmorris »

ziddoap wrote: post #12
m0zg wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that there's hardly anything to watch and customers are leaving because of it, I expect the prices to go down. They need to focus, produce at least something GoT/Breaking Bad-grade, and sustain it for a few years.

> Given that there's hardly anything to watch Subjective, I find lots of things to watch and enjoy. > produce at least something GoT/Breaking Bad-grade Again, subjective. I enjoyed Breaking Bad, but did not enjoy GoT. Other people liked the vice-versa. Other people liked neither. It sounds like you want Netflix to cater specifically to your tastes. I imagine pricing restructure might happen if the exodus is extreme,…

> It sounds like you want Netflix to cater specifically to your tastes.

Given that they have the technology to stream any movie ever made to my house, and given the availability of more data about each of us than we probably even know about, is catering specifically to each of our tastes unreasonable? I mean, why do you have the things in your house that you have, if not to cater to your tastes?

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#54

Post by snr »

darepublic wrote: post #21
not_a_cop75 wrote: post #10

If people are always engaged in videos like TV and movies, they are generally less engaged in their own life - which is generally pretty unhealthy. I think people have come to realize that they don't need to watch stuff streaming all the time. They can read a book, or go outside, and even interact with real people. Several online offerings offer zilch in the way of true health benefits.

Agree with you that constant screen time doesn't make for a healthy lifestyle. Seems pretty speculative and prob too optimistic to assume people are coming to this realization and acting on it.

This.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#55

Post by effingwewt »

opencl wrote: post #46
m463 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the auto-playing of trailers There's a case to be made that this is advertising (for shows on netflix)

It is definitely advertising. Back when streaming services were new, the lack of advertising was a major selling point of streaming services vs cable but now they're stuffed full of ads and for some reason the ads are for content you've already paid for.

This is exactly what happened with cable. People were told to pay a subscription fee to avoid all the commercials of broadcast television. They got enough subscribers, and began the commercials. Years later and losing 1/3 of a show is the norm.

This is why all 30 min shows only have a 20-22 min runtime. We have all simply come full circle.

Hulu is going the same way with their commercials on my commercial free sub, and the commercials are always on content I'm paying extra for (HBO, Showtime, Starz).

I'm already setting up my Plex server. I'd rather not this be the case, but it's back to setting up scripts to grab from usenets and torrents.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#56

Post by ryanianian »

throwaway082729 wrote: post #19

There's nothing worth watching in Netflix now. I find myself spending more time on Prime Video where I can find richer content through Prime movies and subscription channels like HBO, Starz and PBS (for British murder mystery shows). Moreover, Netflix is getting its recommendations for me completely wrong. Without user reviews, I've no idea if the content is good. I'm not going to waste my time watching some random s…

You may consider a meta-streaming service like ReelGood (not affiliated just a happy user). You tell it which streaming services you have, what shows you've liked, etc and it gives you recommendations from across all your services.

I go through cycles of using it and not but every time I'm feeling too much choice-fatigue I pull up my reelgood recs and pick something from there.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#57

Post by MegaButts »

zadkey wrote: post #38

I think Netflix needs to invest in quality over quantity. I agree, its hard to find something I want to watch. There is definitely choice fatigue. If they had 1/3 as many shows but those shows were 3 times better. I am sure I would have no problem.

It sounds like you want something more akin to HBO. Ironically, HBO is trying to become like Netflix and Netflix is trying to become like HBO.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/07/at...

Surprisingly, I find myself using Hulu more than all the others combined, including Prime. Hulu's app is so horrendously bad though I consider cancelling as more than 50% of the time it won't load on the first try, and probably 20% of the time it won't load at all on my TV.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#58

Post by jackhack »

opencl wrote: post #46
m463 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the auto-playing of trailers There's a case to be made that this is advertising (for shows on netflix)

It is definitely advertising. Back when streaming services were new, the lack of advertising was a major selling point of streaming services vs cable but now they're stuffed full of ads and for some reason the ads are for content you've already paid for.

Which, ironically, is precisely what Cable TV first promised in the 1970s -- an "ad-free" experience! They could offer this unique experience because you were paying the cable company for the costs of carrying the content. Then they realized they could double-dip by charging you for the content, and sell ads too.

It shouldn't be surprising to see the same behavior patterns repeated with this new crop of wireless cable companies. I'm sure the irony is lost on them though. We become the thing we try to escape. Stare long enough into the abyss...

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#59

Post by dkarl »

crooked-v wrote: post #42
sundayedition wrote: post #35

There is a lot of what I'd consider "noise" popping up on Netflix that they won't let me filter out. I don't care for most dubbed shows, and I haven't had any luck with any of the foreign imports. No way to filter them out that I'm aware of, so half of the "New shows" don't appeal to me I wouldn't give up Netflix for cable, it's more likely to be Prime only, or something with quality content that I wouldn't watch as…

Signal-noise ratio is how I'd put it, too. There's a lot of stuff it recommends to me over and over that I have no interest in watching, like generic mockbusters and Korean soap operas.

It could really use a YouTube-style "not interested" button. It's so stubborn that it feels like it's trying to force shows on me instead of helping me find what I want to watch.

Re: Netflix CEO may have missed the real reason why US subscriber numbers plunged

#60

Post by indziektor »

sundayedition wrote: post #35

There is a lot of what I'd consider "noise" popping up on Netflix that they won't let me filter out. I don't care for most dubbed shows, and I haven't had any luck with any of the foreign imports. No way to filter them out that I'm aware of, so half of the "New shows" don't appeal to me I wouldn't give up Netflix for cable, it's more likely to be Prime only, or something with quality content that I wouldn't watch as…

Exactly. Sorry if this comes off as a rant, but contrary to the article, I've never been overwhelmed with any choice on Netflix myself, just frustrated by poor discoverability, their teasing shows they didn't even have the rights to anymore (e.g., The Expanse), and to top it off, being full of filler content that's just unwatchable for me with no obvious way to remove it or create a custom bookshelf.

I had cable growing up, but ditched it in my adult life and never looked back so far. Netflix's recommender is some blackbox that I don't ever find useful. If they added some way to channel surf like broadcast television, I assume I'd just be wasting my time wading through that.

Then there are some older shows in their catalogue that I wouldn't even have known existed unless I'd searched for them - I'd even go so far as to say purposely hidden from navigation.

Another personal pet peeve is the lack of subtitles or CCs. I suppose it's some licensing issue, but I can buy a Blu-ray or DVD here that will come with lots of languages, but on Netflix, they started adding a lot of local movies with no subtitles, and "foreign" shows or movies without any English subtitles, which are preferable for me.

Maybe it's because I've never had the pleasure of the US version, but I've only ever sporadically kept a subscription for over almost a decade now, quickly exhausting what I did find interesting. Back when brick n' mortar video stores were still a thing, I didn't feel overwhelmed by having too much decent choice there.

P.S., what's the annoying "are you still watching" prompt interrupting the current show instead of just being in between them? As if the UX wasn't annoying enough already.

Post reply on HN