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The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

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Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#281
post #109

Honestly for me I just do not know all the content Netflix has because the browsing is so bad. I wish instead of pushing shows to me best on algorithms, it would just let me browse categories and recent additions etc in a simpler way. Maybe categorised by year.

Absolutely, Netflix would be 1000 times better if they just let me sort, filter and find content based on concrete metadata. Instead, I'm forced to rely on their recommendation algorithms that purport to know what I want to watch, but for some reason keep recommending low quality content in languages I'm just not interested in. I'd be happy if I could just filter Netflix to only show me content with original audio in…

Yes! I recently went on a little trip and the AirBnB host had Netflix. This is the first time I’ve ever used Netflix. And oh my god how do people find anything with it?? I didn’t realize that you could scroll horizontally for about a day. And the categories are… useless. +1 for traditional “action” categories. And the content was mostly straight to DVD B-movies with a few “80s oldies.” I did manage to watch the new Blade Runner there so ok they did have something I could recognize.

And the TV shows were awful. Nothing I’ve never heard of. I couldn’t even find Seinfeld reruns or something normal. And after watching a random selection of them I am so glad we never wasted our money on the service. My wife picked a show (neither of us ever heard of) apparently about a narcissist woman who moves to Paris for work and it was just a low budget list of every “arrogant American visits France” trope and stereotype ever invented.

The experience was very much like visiting my devout Christian friend who has a huge bookshelf full of religious movies I’ve never heard of, and nothing “mainstream popular”. Like when you turn on Netflix you enter an alternate universe where nobody’s ever heard of The Wrath of Khan, The Godfather or Pulp Fiction.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#282

It's easier just to pirate than keep up with all these streaming services. - You get the benefit of high quality (true 4k, not stream compressed "4k") and no buffering. - Plex, Radarr, Sonarr automatically downloads and categorizes your content for you, you can just sit back and enjoy your content. - Edit: Plex et al are not the *only* ways to download content, not sure why some replies are thinking so. I too can typ…

I don't know how to phrase this nicely, but this is precisely the type of Hacker News nerd-blindness that I find amazing. It's "easier"? Is it? For young children who want to watch their kids shows and don't know what 4k means? For grandparents who want to see some k-dramas and have no clue about DRM or geo-locked? Sure, Netflix has issues and it's made some bad decisions, but let's not delude ourselves here. The gro…

Exactly. I’m a 59 year old man who knows how to pirate, but watches his content from streaming providers because it’s simpler and safer, and I don’t like to steal. I don’t think piracy is what’s killing them. It’s that there are too many streaming providers and people don’t hesitate to drop subscriptions. I tend to subscribe when there’s a deal, watch everything I want to see, then drop it and switch to another one for 6 months. And I’ll bet I’m not alone.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#283
post #60

The thing I find interesting with Netflix is how much they spend on content and what a terrible rate of return it has. Look at Apple TV+, they're absolutely TINY compared to Netflix in both library size and money spent on new production, but they have arguably more hits than Netflix. Like, since when has any drama on Netflix been as buzzy or as good as Severance on Apple TV+? When was the last time they had a comedy…

>The article makes a big deal of the binging thing, and I agree it's a terrible model compared to weekly releases. But I feel like Netflix's real problem is that they just don't make enough good stuff.

Personally speaking, I'd be happy if they simply completed the stuff they do make -instead of cancelling it prematurely.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#285

Interesting analysis. I find it interesting that so many people spend so much time watching tv in the first place. Growing up, I was one of those people but about a decade ago I lost interest in pretty much anything on television. There are certain shows that I will watch on occasion that get me hooked, but I usually struggle to find anything that is actually worth my time and end up just turning the tv off after sur…

I only use Netflix and Prime, and both feel really stale to me. It's all "content" - good to very good production values designed to fill a gap and appeal to a demographic. But very repetitive and production line, with no passion projects, nothing too arty or quirky, nothing outside of the box, no surprises. Some of it is quite watchable, but none of it is exciting or fresh. It's all some combination of stock soapy c…

> But very repetitive and production line, with no passion projects, nothing too arty or quirky, nothing outside of the box, no surprises.

I'm getting the feeling that Apple TV+ is where it's at for this type of content. Severance was particularly good.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

It doesn't matter how you rationalise it. Someone created content with the intention of it being consumed for a fee. You downloaded it, likely from someone who illegally copied/reproduced it. Maybe I didn't "steal", but I contributed to criminal activity. Sure, copyright laws can seem absurd, but if you disagree with the laws, consider the ethics. How would you feel if you have a business, I steal from you, and then…

I agree with everything you say here, and torrent a bit more than you and get things via newsnet a lot. I maintain a large media server.

The end result of my pirating is a media service that is easier to use, is higher quality and requires less effort than a streaming service (though initial costs and setup time were high).

I also pay for 3 streaming services that go unused, and this covers about half or maybe 3/4 of what I watch.

Streaming is in a dangerous place when piracy works better, looks better and is more convenient.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#287

It's easier just to pirate than keep up with all these streaming services. - You get the benefit of high quality (true 4k, not stream compressed "4k") and no buffering. - Plex, Radarr, Sonarr automatically downloads and categorizes your content for you, you can just sit back and enjoy your content. - Edit: Plex et al are not the *only* ways to download content, not sure why some replies are thinking so. I too can typ…

I don't know how to phrase this nicely, but this is precisely the type of Hacker News nerd-blindness that I find amazing. It's "easier"? Is it? For young children who want to watch their kids shows and don't know what 4k means? For grandparents who want to see some k-dramas and have no clue about DRM or geo-locked? Sure, Netflix has issues and it's made some bad decisions, but let's not delude ourselves here. The gro…

Using a pirate streaming service such as stremio is literally no more difficult than netflix.

I think you underestimate how many people pirated things before netflix existed.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#288

It's easier just to pirate than keep up with all these streaming services. - You get the benefit of high quality (true 4k, not stream compressed "4k") and no buffering. - Plex, Radarr, Sonarr automatically downloads and categorizes your content for you, you can just sit back and enjoy your content. - Edit: Plex et al are not the *only* ways to download content, not sure why some replies are thinking so. I too can typ…

I don't know how to phrase this nicely, but this is precisely the type of Hacker News nerd-blindness that I find amazing. It's "easier"? Is it? For young children who want to watch their kids shows and don't know what 4k means? For grandparents who want to see some k-dramas and have no clue about DRM or geo-locked? Sure, Netflix has issues and it's made some bad decisions, but let's not delude ourselves here. The gro…

I think it's true in the same way that Media companies feigned that everyone was pirating.

If it's just as fringe as you say, and i agree, then we shouldn't entertain the idea that media is (or was, in early 2000s before Netflix) losing that much money to pirating. As i'm sure now that people start migrating to less legal avenues for digital media we'll start seeing a resurgence of cries over lost profits due to piracy.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#289
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Steal verb 1: to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice Yes, piracy is stealing according to the dictionary, especially if done habitually. That the owner is left with a copy of the work is immaterial to the act of theft.

It's not taken. It's copied. Digital piracy is not theft. It's unauthorized copying.

It would be taking and theft if you deprived the owner of their content while copying it for yourself. Like stealing money with wire transfers.

This isn't just semantics, it's important to not conflate theft and piracy. They're almost completely different, except in both cases the offender obtains something they didn't originally possess.

"You wouldn't steal a car" is mafiaa newspeak intended to maintain control of rents.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can easily be paying for 3 streaming services for ~$60 You can easily buy and cancel what you want when you want, so that is the not cable-like development. I do not see why people should fee they are owed all the content in the world for $x. The important part is the creator/curator/seller of the content and the purchaser of the content are not held hostage by a monopoly/monopsony distributor.

> I do not see why people should fee they are owed all the content in the world for $x. People just want to pay for what they want. What is so hard about that? I don't want cable with 500 channels of no interest. I also don't want to deal with subscribe/cancel 20 services as shows come and go. Just make it simple ffs.

> What is so hard about that?

Media companies have been using the value of "content you want to watch" to subsidize "content you don't know you want to watch" for about a century now, the back catalogs are what will keep you paying but that only retains value so long as new content can be added to it.

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