From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV
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Re: From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV
#2Doubtful this is a majority use case, but I tend to search for things to watch based on those who made the works I enjoy, rather than genre or franchise. Streaming service algos are useless at being used the way I want, I have to rely on third party websites like imdb and JustWatch to reliably find something to watch and where it is.
Re: From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV
#3Doubtful this is a majority use case, but I tend to search for things to watch based on those who made the works I enjoy, rather than genre or franchise. Streaming service algos are useless at being used the way I want, I have to rely on third party websites like imdb and JustWatch to reliably find something to watch and where it is.
There was a video rental place in NYC sorted by genre and director.
Re: From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV
#4> Good luck watching the credits on Netflix—they automatically skip to serve up a new episode.
Lol, you've never seen them play five minutes of credits in thirty seconds after a movie or show ends on basic cable?
Re: From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV
#5> Good luck watching the credits on Netflix—they automatically skip to serve up a new episode. Lol, you've never seen them play five minutes of credits in thirty seconds after a movie or show ends on basic cable?
Has Mr. Diaz never met anyone outside Hollywood? People don't pay for streaming services to watch credits.
Re: From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV
#6> Good luck watching the credits on Netflix—they automatically skip to serve up a new episode. Lol, you've never seen them play five minutes of credits in thirty seconds after a movie or show ends on basic cable?
Has Mr. Diaz never met anyone outside Hollywood? People don't pay for streaming services to watch credits.
There are some shows like Veep that actually have great content during the credits. I couldn’t stand watching that show using HBO max because I missed so many jokes.
Re: From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV
#7In general, separating data from UI would solve many problems across many domains.
Paying should be for the right to access video content alone, with many UI providers to choose from. Would increase competition within the market greatly. Centralized (or decentralized) database of all video content, with UI vendors caching from that for perf reasons.
UI would have to compete on its own merits rather than relying on data lock-in. Better products in the end.
Re: From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV
#8In general, separating data from UI would solve many problems across many domains. Paying should be for the right to access video content alone, with many UI providers to choose from. Would increase competition within the market greatly. Centralized (or decentralized) database of all video content, with UI vendors caching from that for perf reasons. UI would have to compete on its own merits rather than relying on da…
While I’d love that, unfortunately the business and unit economics can differ wildly. Some shows may be cheaper to acquire if there’s promotion in the interface (due to tie-ins or newer content like sequels in cinemas), subscribers may churn more regularly if not shown specific things, making marketing less effective and therefore more expensive.
It’s like how a TV with no smart features would have to cost more, because there’s no post-sales revenue. We’d love them. But they’d have to cost more, so most people wouldn’t buy them.
Re: From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV
#9In general, separating data from UI would solve many problems across many domains. Paying should be for the right to access video content alone, with many UI providers to choose from. Would increase competition within the market greatly. Centralized (or decentralized) database of all video content, with UI vendors caching from that for perf reasons. UI would have to compete on its own merits rather than relying on da…
While I’d love that, unfortunately the business and unit economics can differ wildly. Some shows may be cheaper to acquire if there’s promotion in the interface (due to tie-ins or newer content like sequels in cinemas), subscribers may churn more regularly if not shown specific things, making marketing less effective and therefore more expensive. It’s like how a TV with no smart features would have to cost more, beca…
> Some shows may be cheaper to acquire if there’s promotion in the interface
Something I would gladly pay to live without.
Re: From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I’d love that, unfortunately the business and unit economics can differ wildly. Some shows may be cheaper to acquire if there’s promotion in the interface (due to tie-ins or newer content like sequels in cinemas), subscribers may churn more regularly if not shown specific things, making marketing less effective and therefore more expensive. It’s like how a TV with no smart features would have to cost more, beca…
> Some shows may be cheaper to acquire if there’s promotion in the interface Something I would gladly pay to live without.
A Netflix subscription is ~$20. How much would you pay for that without the promotion/etc?
It might need to be $40/m to be profitable on the marketing. Now add in the extra resources to sell direct content access, price for the fact that the market is vanishingly small, and it could easily be 10x the price. Would you pay $500/m? Now it's so expensive you're way more likely to churn, and actually they need to make back money much quicker to sustain it. Would you pay $2000/m for Netflix? What sort of experience and support would you expect for $2000/m, now Netflix needs a new sales and support org, and it costs a huge amount to keep them around. Would you pay $5k/m for Netflix?
Obviously these numbers are all entirely made up, but Netflix is built on a large subscriber base and very low touch sales and support, with expensive engineering amortised across hundreds of millions of users. All that works in the opposite way, so I don't think these numbers are the wrong ballpark.
There aren't many people who would pay $5k/m for effectively the same service as they can get for $20/m.
In this way it's all quite different to my TV example. There you're paying $500 for a $700 TV because they'll make $300 from you on average. Just not including the smart TV functionality might only cost a little more, and then the TV might sell for $1k and a fair number of people would buy it.