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The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

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Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#611

Post by bombcar »

carride wrote: post #246
nradov wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back when Netflix had DVDs the recommendation algorithm worked pretty well, at least for me. It's gotten gradually worse over the years. Or perhaps they no longer have much good content, so no recommendation algorithm would work well? Either way I guess it's time to cancel my subscription.

Dvd Netflix[0] is still sending movies to your house (in USA). Many movies which are not available in any streaming service. They got worse with new releases since 2020, but for many famous movies of the past this is a decent service. [0] https://dvd.netflix.com/

It works pretty well but for anything big name I can get it used on Amazon for cheap, and anything new is in Redbox.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#612

Post by acd10j »

I think one of the main reasons for netflix troubles is competition catching up. With such a huge historical library Disney is killing Netflix at one extreme, and HBO max and prime on another. There is nothing unique that netflix offers. Occasionally few good shows but no lasting property.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#613

Post by tomerv »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #608
hardwaregeek wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The group of people who are comfortable pirating media and find it "easier" than Netflix is at least an order of magnitude smaller than Netflix's user base. This view is very US-centric. In most of the "rest of the world", netflix either doesn't exist or has a very very limited show list (even here, in a relatively developed EU country), and piracy literally is the only way to get a lot of the very popular shows. A…

Indeed, pirating is very much an all-or-nothing solution. Torrenting your first movie might be difficult, but the second time it's easy as pie.

In many ways, pirating is like any subscription service: signing on is a difficult decision (whether financially or technically), but once you're there and all caught up with the UI, using it again is the default move for watching your next show/movie.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#614

Post by stack_framer »

sudden_dystopia wrote: post #22

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…

This is exactly how I feel. Even after years of this, I'm still amazed at how much is available, and how little of it I actually want to watch.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#615

Post by graaben »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #609
danans wrote: post #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 f…

I think the demise of Netflix has been greatly overstated (although growth is slowing down) The biggest change last quarter is that Netflix went from having 700,000 customers in Russia down to 0. In other words, they actually had a net gain of 500,000 subscribers in the parts of the world where they still operate.

I believe they are forecasting a loss of another 2mm subscribers in Q2.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#616

Post by [deleted] »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #268
cercatrova wrote: post #101

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…

[deleted]

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#618

Post by Krasnol »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #268
cercatrova wrote: post #101

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…

Sure it is a magnitude smaller but it was even smaller a few years ago and streaming pages where you don't have to download a movie first are quite common and popular within the non-technical audience and they become even more popular.

I'm sure the industry will come up with new ways to intrude on the internet again to stop this before they get together to make another platform which would allow the audience to download everything in one place.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#619

Post by sonicggg »

rhino369 wrote: post #323
hardwaregeek wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 di…

Not a money problem. I have a Netflix subscription, and yet end up going to pirate websites more and more often these days. I'll probably just cancel my Netflix subscription.

It's so frustrating to see that 90%of the shows I want to see are unavailable on Netflix. Video streaming is just so fragmented right now. And they try to compensate with a bunch of low quality Netflix original shows.

Why can't they just replicate what has been done in audio streaming? Spotify is what Netflix should have been. It's been years I no longer need to pirate music.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#620

Post by b112 »

mattferderer wrote: post #569
ozzythecat wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cancelled because it’s not worth the time investment. Good shows are not only difficult to find, but Netflix will release a season or two and unreasonably no longer continue on, without closing out the story. They try to cater to a mass audience and use a large net, but then due to capital costs or whatever reasons, they force their customer to feel stupid for getting invested into a show in the first place. I miss…

This is underrated. I recall hearing a discussion on the extreme desire humans have to hear a story's ending, even when they aren't that interested in the story. There is simply a need to know how it ends. I've caught myself to often watching something I think is a waste of time but needing to know how it ends. This is as much of a weakness as the reciprocity rule. Netflix burned me to many times on this. It's bad ta…

There is a series with a sentient entity, living in a star. I think by Pohl.

Anyhow, he passed before writing the next book, and it literally bugs me at least once or twice a year, and yet I read it 20? 25? years ago.

So yes, at least here endings matter.

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