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Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

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Re: Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

#331

Post by ragebol »

lmilcin wrote: post #180
MentallyRetired wrote: post #3

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.

This could have been avoided if the service was introduced slowly. Big launch days planned months in advance don't really play well with software development reality. It is difficult to built software at scale without having all those users to provide for the load. They could start with small number of people and get more by invitation. This could have been done before all scaling effort.

They launched in the Netherlands some 2 month ago, I've had no issues.

Re: Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

#332

Post by Bombthecat »

scarface74 wrote: post #277
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of makes sense. It isn't their competency. I think it's general advice to never work in a role at a company where that's not their core competency. E.g., engineers are praised at places like Google, etc. Engineers working in entertainment (e.g, Disney) or health care (e.g, Epic Systems) are not as well treated.

Disney has always been about technology. From the animatronics and the other attractions at the theme parks to the engineers at Pixar and LucasFilms. As I posted above, they own BAMTech, one of the most well respected companies in the streaming infrastructure space. Building for scale is not hard for good engineers, building for rapid, reliable scale from day one is hard. No one knows how to do it. Building for scale…

Disney even had an open source 3d engine! Don't know how that happened though!

Re: Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

#333

Post by denormalfloat »

freeflight wrote: post #282
endorphone wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Disney has tons of existing material they can just monetize" To be clear, Disney is pulling the content from existing monetizations -- including Netflix -- to try to monetize it on their own platforms. This isn't free real estate. There is a very real cost. And Netflix is going to put the money they aren't paying Disney to produce their own content and buy up other content. Disney is playing a very risky gambit here…

> Disney is playing a very risky gambit here. Disney has way deeper pockets than Netflix, they can afford to play the long game, spending their revenue on gaining market shares.

Disney is in a tough spot since they also pay dividends. Companies typically don't ever reduce their dividends, which leaves Disney unable to spend that cash on their growth.

Re: Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

#334

Post by gknoy »

cududa wrote: post #313
lotsofpulp wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are clearly engaging in user hostile behavior hoping that the number of users who cancel due to being inconvenienced is less than the number who are retained/gained by being fooled into thinking there is more than there is.

I mean I think it’s more over engineering idiocy. I was staying with my cousin for a week and Was amazed at the content Netflix recommends/ surfaces him versus me. So much cool stuff that he had, versus the relative genre stuff I get in my own account

Our smart TV lets us swap between our five (!) profiles. Each has different trackings and recommendations (other than Star Trek TNG, which apparently three of us have watched ;)) You might consider making a new profile ("cududa2" or something) and see if that has more diverse recommendations. Try adding / watching some of the ones that are novel compared to your other list, and see if that helps.

I agree, though, I'd really like to have a _full listing_ of shows.

Re: Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

#335

Post by cwkoss »

quacker wrote: post #325
cwkoss wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should pirate content that you want to consume without supporting the creators. If Disney only made derivative movies and didn't lobby to to make IP laws more strict and punitive, I would not think it was immoral to give them your money. Consumers should consider paying for IP an investment in the creator's future work. If a creator made something you enjoy, fill their pockets so they can make another great thing…

> You should pirate content that you want to consume without supporting the creators. I wonder how it is to feel so entitled that you see nothing wrong with this - to think that you deserve that content and that all the cast and crew deserve nothing in return. > the decline of film as art we've seen in the past ~3 decades. You must also have a very narrow definition of art to believe this.

Crew never gets residuals from major motion pictures.

Actor residuals are often pretty paltry if they get any, unless they are a huge name.

The people you care about have already been paid - almost always at a flat rate.

Director and writers get some residuals, typically in the 3-5% range.

Vast majority of what you're paying goes straight to the movie studios. Some of that is banked for future productions. Much of it is pocketed by execs like Harvey Weinstein.

I would love to see reform in movie financing make more of the results of a film's success end up in the pockets of creatives, but that isn't how the industry works currently.

I think there is a great opportunity for a startup in patreon's footsteps that allows an audience to 'tip' the cast and crew directly, bypassing the studios. I think the 'leaderboards' of what films/roles get the most tips would be a much better signal of quality than most film review aggregation sites or the Oscars. Would also be cool to be able to sort films by donations to specific roles, ex. set design, costuming, lighting, FX etc.

Re: Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

#336

Post by gknoy »

tedsanders wrote: post #269
8ytecoder wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know when product managers are going to realize that one size doesn't fit all. Different people use Netflix differently and usually even the same people use it differently at different times. There should be an option to switch between these modes. Netflix, for example, could easily have multiple modes. A discover based on my past preferences/popularity mode and a categorical listing mode. The problem is them…

They do have these modes, though, right? The home page is for discovery based on your past preferences/popularity. And there are TV and movie pages in which you can display shows by genre or even A-Z. Disclosure: I work at Netflix and would like to make it better for everyone who uses it.

How do we access these other modes? I've never noticed it on either the Windows app, nor my Android device -- despite spending several minutes looking for it right now, after reading your comment that they exist.

When I go to Hamburger -> Anime, or Hamburger -> TV shows, it has the same style of semi-logical groupings of categories as I see normally: Crime shows, action shows, classic shows, suggestions for me, etc -- but there seems to be no affordances to affect ordering, nor menu items that would reflect that. The settings menu is useless, as it consists only of links to the account details, privacy statement, and terms of use.

I really hope that the answer isn't "Log into our website instead of using our native app!", though perhaps the feature warrants such an experiment.

In the Android mobile app, which has recently seen some excellent improvements, I'm unable to find an alphabetical listing as well. One can select genres, and TV shows vs movies, but there are no affordances for sorting, only a wall of categories to scroll through.

Re: Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

#337

Post by rospaya »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #22
dgritsko wrote: post #7

> "Disney has estimated it will need to attract at least 60 million subscribers, putting it on a par with Netflix, in order for Disney+ to break even." How's that for a barrier to entry? I don't doubt that they will be able to hit it, but it's still a mind-bogglingly high number. I think that's part of why I'd like to see Netflix's continued success - competition is a good thing, and if they were to ever go under I d…

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 third of those subscribers are in the US, the rest is worldwide, and it took Netflix years to get the content rights for other countries.

Re: Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

#338

Post by neuronic »

MentallyRetired wrote: post #288
newfangle wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe disney has every advantage in the streaming wars so i decided to see if they have any open dev positions and i also decided to check what reviews of working there were like. Seems like Disney does not have an engineering culture and software engineers are at the bottom of the totem pole.

OP on the thread and actually I'm a former disney dev for disneyworld.com. It's a sweat shop. They had me working 100 hours a week the first 4 months I was there. They would order me food so I wouldnt have to leave my desk. Many times I slept under it. Then I had 6 months of pretty normal hours working on maintenance, then I went back on another project and they had me working 60 - 80 hours (with some 40 and some 100…

> They would order me food so I wouldnt have to leave my desk. Many times I slept under it.

Is this work culture the norm in the US? I audibly said "wtf" just now, sitting at my work desk.

Re: Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

#339

Post by jamil7 »

MentallyRetired wrote: post #3

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.

Not surprising at all, what is surprising to me is that companies still insist on doing the "Big Reveal" style launches. Why not open it up gradually in phases via a beta program or something?

Re: Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

#340

Post by Jaruzel »

Us poor UK based people wouldn't know... it's not launching here until March 2020 (As Sky still have a licence for Disney content until then). Elsewhere I've read that Disney+ has some pretty agressive anti-VPN detection, so you can't bypass the location lock-in either.

As an aside, Disney+'s main draw 'The Mandalorian' is already freely available to download if you know where to look. So, well done Disney, you've totally played into the pirates hands.

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