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

111–120 of 417 posts

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

#111

Post by thatguy0900 »

bamboozled wrote: post #105
quicklyfrozen wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly a hell of a lot easier to not have to think about where to find your favorites. And once it's downloaded there are (almost) never any playback issues.

It’s laughable to me that after all the years of investment and business development in these steaming services it’s still much, much, much easier to use p2p networks to get content you want. I wonder if there would just be more profit in injecting advertisements in tv shows and distributing them openly using BitTorrent? Think of the size of the audience, yeah people will cut the ads out but a lot of people couldn’t…

I think the only thing that would work that way would be product placement. The problem would be one person cutting out ads and reuploading it, there'd be no reason to watch the original

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

#112

Post by TremendousJudge »

bamboozled wrote: post #105
quicklyfrozen wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly a hell of a lot easier to not have to think about where to find your favorites. And once it's downloaded there are (almost) never any playback issues.

It’s laughable to me that after all the years of investment and business development in these steaming services it’s still much, much, much easier to use p2p networks to get content you want. I wonder if there would just be more profit in injecting advertisements in tv shows and distributing them openly using BitTorrent? Think of the size of the audience, yeah people will cut the ads out but a lot of people couldn’t…

The fact that 15+ year old tech developed by some hobbyists (over asymmetrical networks not optimized for it mind you) provides a better service than anything modern corporations can deliver really is amazing to me.

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

#113

Post by reaperducer »

markkanof wrote: post #83
isbjorn16 wrote: post #77

My problem with Netflix isn't the slate of shows and movies it has in its catalog. It's definitely not as nice as it used to be, but there are a jillion and a half shows and movies out there. My problem is that Netflix has taken note that we watch anime a few times a week, which doubtless means we want every single band/carousel/whatever to be about anime. New Anime, Critically Acclaimed Anime, Popular Anime, Watch i…

Better than Hulu that now shows us every commercial in Spanish. No one in my household speaks Spanish. The only thing I can guess is that I know ONE TIME my daughter accidentally selected the Spanish translation of one of her cartoons.

The New York Times app shows me ads in Spanish. Don't speak Spanish. No one in my house does.

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

#115

Post by teilo »

Netflix is becoming more and more of a frustrating experience. First they removed all user reviews. Then they removed ratings. (or vice versa. Whatever.) They constantly shift things around in their UI. Even things like "My List" and "Continue Watching" will spontaneously move. They hide categories, and sub-categories, making browsing and discovery a pain. They constantly throw crap at me that I don't care about and will never care about. They auto-play previews, with audio, and there is no damn way to turn it off. Thumbs up/down seems to have no effect on this either. I thumbs down what I don't want to see, and it keeps coming back anyway.

It's almost as if there is a concerted effort at Netflix to force specific content down your throat. They don't want you going beyond what's visible on their idiotic horizontal scrollers, and they don't want you to know what people actually think about the content they are forcing on you.

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

#116

Post by TallGuyShort »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #112
bamboozled wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s laughable to me that after all the years of investment and business development in these steaming services it’s still much, much, much easier to use p2p networks to get content you want. I wonder if there would just be more profit in injecting advertisements in tv shows and distributing them openly using BitTorrent? Think of the size of the audience, yeah people will cut the ads out but a lot of people couldn’t…

The fact that 15+ year old tech developed by some hobbyists (over asymmetrical networks not optimized for it mind you) provides a better service than anything modern corporations can deliver really is amazing to me.

It's because the corporations aren't really interested in providing a better service to the viewer, they're interested in providing a better service to their advertisers. That said, the idea of embedding the advertising freely is an interesting one, and I wonder if it's been seriously considered by the networks. Probably harder to convince the cheque-writers of the value they're getting, though.

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

#117

Post by adrianmonk »

isbjorn16 wrote: post #77

My problem with Netflix isn't the slate of shows and movies it has in its catalog. It's definitely not as nice as it used to be, but there are a jillion and a half shows and movies out there. My problem is that Netflix has taken note that we watch anime a few times a week, which doubtless means we want every single band/carousel/whatever to be about anime. New Anime, Critically Acclaimed Anime, Popular Anime, Watch i…

Once upon a time, Netflix gave away $1 million to contest winners in an attempt to get the best recommendation algorithm they could ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix_Prize ).

Now the recommendations are just not that great. It's like they're not trying too hard because they are comfy in their market position.

I have never watched any anime at all (really not my thing), but Netflix keeps recommending it to me despite the fact that I haven't taken the bait once.

Also it recommends shows to me that it should know through history I've already watched every episode of. Maybe that's on purpose since people watch things again, but I still don't find it useful.

Also it leaves stuff in "Continue Watching" for like a month after I give it a thumbs down rating and remove it from "My List". That should be a strong enough signal to act on.

And it seems to recommend stuff based on stuff that I only "watched" because it auto-played. That should not be a strong enough signal to act on.

The overall point is they seem to have several obvious opportunities to be smarter with content discovery, but they're not taking them.

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

#118

Post by frankbreetz »

devoply wrote: post #80
archey1 wrote: post #75

Netflix is just getting more expensive and less interesting to me. With all of the content I like being taken off to be hosted on network exclusive streaming platforms that I refuse to pay for - I'll probably eventually just cancel Netflix as well going back to the tried and true method of just buying bluray box-sets of the content I want to watch. Or piracy. I think the critical mistake that all these megacorps are…

People hate it but it obviously works, otherwise they would not be doing it. What you need is a religion (or some other sort of huge corporation or union of people) around consuming content that everyone religiously follows that forces the corporations hands. Individually all you can do is pirate or buy.

People hated cable and they are now struggling, people are always looking for something better

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

#119

Post by low_key »

First, I'll admit that I'm still a subscriber.

For me, the biggest problem with Netflix is the user interface. The auto-playing audio and video at every corner is extremely annoying. The used car dealership feel of it is stressful, which is exactly the opposite of what I want when I'm ready to watch a show or movie.

They have some content that I like and I'll watch it when I know exactly what I want to see before I open the app. If not, then I don't go to Netflix anymore, it is just too hostile.

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

#120

Post by [deleted] »

hyencomper wrote: post #7

I think Netflix has lost touch with their consumer base, with most changes such as removal of the rating system being universally criticized. I cancelled my subscription recently as I realized that while Netflix has a lot of shows, there is a dearth of quality content and the search function is not useful. With shows like Friends and Office leaving, there is not much to draw people who like leaving it on in the backg…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN