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Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#551

Post by Dylan16807 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #543
Dylan16807 wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember what the opposite side of the coin is. This isn't a consequence of the virus. This is offsetting the other first world problem of slightly slow internet. There's no greater cause being served here.

This is not "other first world problem", it's an unprecedented situation in which a good chunk of the world's population needs to be kept at home for extended periods of time. Preserving morale is important for preserving social distancing, which is important for dealing with the pandemic. Not to mention, everyone who isn't on Netflix now is probably videoconferencing. Which also elevates this problem to "important f…

You can do plenty of morale-preserving things on a slightly janky connection. And being worried about some visual stutter on your teleconference is solidly in the unimportant problem pile.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#552

Post by avh02 »

hrktb wrote: post #544
ralusek wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you think it's okay for us to be slightly understanding and forgiving that there are some individuals and companies that aren't simply capable of flawlessly and immediately adjusting to major changes in their realities at the drop of a hat? I'm sure their usage is through the roof, and they probably didn't predict a pandemic with quarantines into their infrastructure improvements modeled around predictable usag…

The ISPs have been under that pressure for decades and dragged their feet because they had monopolies to protect them. Getting pity for them when the proverbial fecal matter hits the fan is a big ask IMO. On Netflix’s side, they sure are in a hard place, I’d wish govs. would foot part of the bill, as it’s directly helping people stay at home.

I think it's times like this where the government should just sigh and once this is over, come back to have a very stern conversation with ISPs.

Unfortunately internet is critical infrastructure, and kicking and screaming "this is bull" doesn't help alleviate traffic.

I'm in Europe, I'm kind of "wtf?" about this, but I get it. I'd rather have lower quality netflix than a broken internet where I can't work from home and have to figure out how I earn my paycheck.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#553

Post by avh02 »

martin_a wrote: post #549
acd10j wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will free up critical bandwidth that will enable more work from home and remote teleconferencing. We can’t increase available bandwidth overnight. It is better to suffer slightly decreased internet speed compared to lots of dropped packets if Internet pipes are clogged.

It's not like ISPs could have build and extended their bandwidth over the last years, for example with the 40 €/month my father pays for < 16 MBit internet connection.

counter-anecdote: i pay 40 euros for 200 Mbit

edit:misspelling

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#554

Post by joppy »

newbie578 wrote: post #524

This is pure bullshit. If Netflix won't commit to it's part of the deal (FULL HD and 4K) then why should I commit to my part (13.99 monthly)? You cannot decide by yourself to lower the quality of your services and keep the price same. Sometimes I wish I had enough money and time to seek "legal retribution" from these type of situations. I would love for this case to make it to the European Court in Strasbourg. "The v…

During a pandemic which has forced a huge number of people to stay at home and is currently crashing the economy and costing hundreds of lives per day, it could help to be a little more sympathetic to measures like this. They might not be perfect, because everyone is having to react so quickly to what is going on, but we can appreciate that this is not a normal event and the vast majority of companies have never planned for it (random ISPs, for example). If this article [1] from Netflix is to be believed, 4K uses five times the bandwidth of HD, and is surely an easy target for something that can be traded off while not affecting people's moral wellbeing too much.

Suffering a video quality decrease would seem a small price to pay for not causing further problems, and perhaps once this is all over, or at least we've stopped flying by the seats of our pants, we can see if people should receive refunds of a few dollars a month.

[1] https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#556

Post by IAmEveryone »

newbie578 wrote: post #524

This is pure bullshit. If Netflix won't commit to it's part of the deal (FULL HD and 4K) then why should I commit to my part (13.99 monthly)? You cannot decide by yourself to lower the quality of your services and keep the price same. Sometimes I wish I had enough money and time to seek "legal retribution" from these type of situations. I would love for this case to make it to the European Court in Strasbourg. "The v…

> I would love for this case to make it to the European Court in Strasbourg.

Strasbourg is the European Court of Human Rights. Complaining to them about a lack of detail in your Netflix stream during a pandemic will probably not give you the results you want.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#557

Post by tpmx »

skrebbel wrote: post #528
newbie578 wrote: post #524

This is pure bullshit. If Netflix won't commit to it's part of the deal (FULL HD and 4K) then why should I commit to my part (13.99 monthly)? You cannot decide by yourself to lower the quality of your services and keep the price same. Sometimes I wish I had enough money and time to seek "legal retribution" from these type of situations. I would love for this case to make it to the European Court in Strasbourg. "The v…

So.. click the downgrade button?

Click the "cancel subscription" button. Unfortunately none of them take effect immediately.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#558

Post by lentil_soup »

martin_a wrote: post #549
acd10j wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will free up critical bandwidth that will enable more work from home and remote teleconferencing. We can’t increase available bandwidth overnight. It is better to suffer slightly decreased internet speed compared to lots of dropped packets if Internet pipes are clogged.

It's not like ISPs could have build and extended their bandwidth over the last years, for example with the 40 €/month my father pays for < 16 MBit internet connection.

Where is that? I think internet quality varies quite a lot within the EU, urban vs rural, etc so we can'treally generalise. I pay less than 40eur for a 600mbit connection.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#559

Post by geniium »

rococode wrote: post #246

I've been having major internet issues lately (Seattle area), have had 4 techs come try to figure it out. Yesterday's tech finally correctly diagnosed the problem as happening before the connection reaches our home but was unsure of the cause. He called his supervisor to investigate, and they found that the capacity for our neighborhood's node was nearly at 100%, while ideally it should always be under 80%. Fortunate…

Thanks for mentioning PingPlotter, I'll try it out to monitor our connexion.
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