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I don't think anyone on hackernews would be surprised by this. The scale they have to operate at is absolutely insane. To scale flawlessly on day 1 is a big ask of any development team.
But these guys knew the kind of volume they would have on Day 1, and have the resources to get it right, and the brand value to protect. It’s not like a startup that grows like crazy.
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Netflix has ~160 million subscribers. So, they're saying they need to be a third of the size of Netflix to break even. Since "break even" isn't all that interesting to investors, for it to be profitably worthwhile, I'd imagine they need to essentially become as big as Netflix. It seems unclear how feasible that may be. The only thing keeping me wanting to use Netflix is quality content, which has been in decline rece…
A key thing drawing me from Netflix to Disney+ is that the latter is willing to actually just give me lists A-Z of all available shows and movies. I'm sure there have to be others who feel the same way.
Though as other commenters note, making the interface nicer for the user is, apparently, contrary to their interests, or they'd stop doing the exact opposite so much.
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Disney also operates Hulu.
I thought they were a partial investor/owner, not an operator.
And of course, they are so obsessed with DRM, that it doesn't work on Linux. What else to expect from Disney.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A key thing drawing me from Netflix to Disney+ is that the latter is willing to actually just give me lists A-Z of all available shows and movies. I'm sure there have to be others who feel the same way.
Yeah, what is it with Netflix and making it impossible to find something to watch anymore? It's like you open it up and not only do all the lists change and it's not easy to find things, but they also run around changing the cover images of the series you've been watching so you don't even recognize it at first and you're hunting around to find it again.
Netflix faces the same challenge that Facebook does with the news feed in that they're trying to combine two functions into the one interface that the users are familiar with.
Anyone has idea on their tech stack ? Are they using cloud?
I don't think anyone on hackernews would be surprised by this. The scale they have to operate at is absolutely insane. To scale flawlessly on day 1 is a big ask of any development team.
I can't think of a launch of this scale that has gone smoothly. Modern console releases, AAA games with online multiplayer, Pokemon Go, healthcare.gov... all cases where organizations literally have billions in cash. It does not matter how much money you have or how great your engineering team is - you can't go scale 0 to 100 on launch day.
And of course, they are so obsessed with DRM, that it doesn't work on Linux. What else to expect from Disney.
It's probably because Widevine on Linux doesn't support VMP. But even Amazon Prime Video streams in SD on Linux, better than nothing but still a bad experience for users.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Netflix has ~160 million subscribers. So, they're saying they need to be a third of the size of Netflix to break even. Since "break even" isn't all that interesting to investors, for it to be profitably worthwhile, I'd imagine they need to essentially become as big as Netflix. It seems unclear how feasible that may be. The only thing keeping me wanting to use Netflix is quality content, which has been in decline rece…
On the engineering compensation factor, I interviewed with BAMTech (the successor to MLB [Major League Baseball] Advanced Media and the underlying video streaming platform for Disney) a few years ago. Their comp was considerably lower than Netflix. I got the impression they expected you to be willing to work for less because you were working on something related to MLB.
This part I don't get. The intersection of people who love MLB but are the best talent you're looking for, may not be aligned. If you want great engineers, you shouldn't care whether or not they particularly like MLB. It's a weird hiring funnel. Not all projects demand the best talent, but if Disney Plus wants 60 million subscribers, they should be poaching Netflix, or at least hiring that level of talent.