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The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

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Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#321
Serious question. Why is Netflix software engineering comp so high? Is it a small team working on all technical problems? It seems that every other content provider built a decent enough streaming service and from anecdotal experience they offer between 60-70% in TC of what Netflix offers.

Is Netflix on more devices? Does Netflix have technology that make content distribution more efficient compared to other streaming services? Is it the location of the team, CA? I am genuinely interested.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#322
I doubt most of the subscription loss is attributable to reasons that most HN types go on about (the rants about wokeness, not enough scifi, carousel UI, pirating etc...).

What's probably going on is after after a few years of pandemic isolation and Netflix binging, the arrival of pandemic triggered inflation, and overall higher employment rates, people just have less interest, time, and money to binge watch longer form content. Many are probably consuming shorter form content (like TikTok), or enjoying more time in public.

We economize by scrutinizing our spending of both money and time. When we feel we have less of both of those, streaming services are an obvious "nice to have" for a lot of people that can be cut from their lives with minimal feeling of loss, especially since it can be substituted with fulfilling time spent with other people.

Also, if you're paying an extra $150 a month for energy utilities and gasoline, it kind of makes sense that you might cancel a streaming service that you watch once or twice a week.

These days the time I spent on streaming services during the pandemic is more likely than ever to be spent having a beer on a neighbor's porch (with them of course!).

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#323

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…

It's not easier. I've got a BS in EE and am old enough to have downloaded episodes of the TV show 24 over 56k using early BitTorrent. I've successfully set up plex (which requires an in house server/spare pc), sonarr, radarr, usenet, etc. I'm probably the 99% percentile in ability to pirate. And its not easier than netflix.

90% of people I know probably couldn't set this up. And the other 10% would spend more time dicking around with the set up than they would using netflix or the other services.

GabeN is not correct. Piracy is a money problem. Free is very enticing.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#324
post #274
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also tons of benefits to just walking out of the grocery store without paying. No queues, no small talk with the checkout person and you save cash too.

A better way to look at it is if you went to the store and took pictures of the food and shared those pics with friends. You want me to buy the apple before taking a picture?

A picture wouldn't feed anyone, so this example is heavily flawed.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#325
post #274
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also tons of benefits to just walking out of the grocery store without paying. No queues, no small talk with the checkout person and you save cash too.

A better way to look at it is if you went to the store and took pictures of the food and shared those pics with friends. You want me to buy the apple before taking a picture?

The apples haven’t got any better lately, and they now have a DRM coating which prevents your photos working. The coating is a continual irritation to apple eaters. There is also a terms of service for apple eaters to sign.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#326

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.

The recommendation system crash is coming. Name a recommendation system that shouldn't be replaced with simple rules based on obvious and transparent metrics like popularity and ratings, or by organizing things into categories. Less fancy ML nonsense, more working hard to gather high quality simple metrics.

Netflix had a great recommendation system for their DVD catalog 15 years ago without any ML hocuspocus. The problem now is that their content is mostly mediocre and user driven ratings can't be used effectively to identify similar cohorts. That's why they got rid of the stars.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#327
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. It's also stealing. And doesn't provide any money for future shows that you might enjoy. Don't get me wrong, I've done it for some things that I wanted to watch, but wasn't willing to pay for. But let's not pretend that everyone torrenting is a reasonable solution.

There were a few years were I literally stopped all torrenting. Netflix and Amazon had everything I wanted. Sure, there were a few things that didn't exist, but I was too lazy to go after that minor amount of content. I was fully legal and paying for everything. I was fine with it. Then, the great splintering happened. I currently pay for 5 services, but that doesn't cover even 1/2 of what I want to watch. All the co…

Why don't you just not partake in the content? You really don't need to spend all that time watching shows. If you don't like the terms under which it is offered, just find something else to do.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#328
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were a few years were I literally stopped all torrenting. Netflix and Amazon had everything I wanted. Sure, there were a few things that didn't exist, but I was too lazy to go after that minor amount of content. I was fully legal and paying for everything. I was fine with it. Then, the great splintering happened. I currently pay for 5 services, but that doesn't cover even 1/2 of what I want to watch. All the co…

In my case, it's where they wrapped up the long-tail movies. Want to watch Airplane!....$3 rental. Spaceballs? $3 rental Cannonball Run? $3 I am not going to pay to rent stuff I used to be able to encounter for free by surfing channels...well, on top of my dish/cable bill

Amazon and Youtube (and maybe other streaming services) also offer some of the movies for free with advertising. So the model hasn’t changed much from going to rent a movie at the store for a few bucks or watching it on cable tv, except you’re not paying for cable now.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#329

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…

yes it is.

I come from country where intellectual property was treated as a western joke.

Children younger than 10 learned how to pirate - by themselves, without knowing even English. A lot of people still can do that, and it's quite easy to find out how.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#330
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But technically that's stealing. I still feel a pang of guilt if I do it so I just use the free streaming services.

technically it's "copyright infringement", not "stealing"

it's very much stealing from the residual based income of the workforce required to make your entertainment.
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