Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV

fastcompany.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 41 posts

Re: From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV

#21

Post by throwawaysnxcv2 »

tyingq wrote: post #20

I'm confused why Amazon Prime is the only streaming service with something like X-Ray. I know Amazon owns IMDB, but at the very least, you should be able to see a cast/character list in all the services...even if it's not contextual to the specific scene.

My guess is potential licensing issues and/or cost reductions. I assume someone has done a competitor analysis and decided that the lack of such a feature will not cause significant churn and is not worth the time and effort (legal, financial, development time etc.).

Re: From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV

#22

Post by tyingq »

throwawaysnxcv2 wrote: post #21
tyingq wrote: post #20

I'm confused why Amazon Prime is the only streaming service with something like X-Ray. I know Amazon owns IMDB, but at the very least, you should be able to see a cast/character list in all the services...even if it's not contextual to the specific scene.

My guess is potential licensing issues and/or cost reductions. I assume someone has done a competitor analysis and decided that the lack of such a feature will not cause significant churn and is not worth the time and effort (legal, financial, development time etc.).

I was assuming when you gain rights to a TV show or movie, that it comes with basic metadata and rights to publish that. Maybe not?

Re: From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV

#23

Post by throwawaysnxcv2 »

tyingq wrote: post #22
throwawaysnxcv2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is potential licensing issues and/or cost reductions. I assume someone has done a competitor analysis and decided that the lack of such a feature will not cause significant churn and is not worth the time and effort (legal, financial, development time etc.).

I was assuming when you gain rights to a TV show or movie, that it comes with basic metadata and rights to publish that. Maybe not?

I'm not familiar with how licensing works at that level, but I know there are a lot of licensing deals involved regarding music in the series and subtitles for example. It wouldn't surprise me if also meta data such as the movie cover and credits may need to be licensed separately for some markets.

Re: From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV

#24

Post by zamnos »

tyingq wrote: post #22
throwawaysnxcv2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is potential licensing issues and/or cost reductions. I assume someone has done a competitor analysis and decided that the lack of such a feature will not cause significant churn and is not worth the time and effort (legal, financial, development time etc.).

I was assuming when you gain rights to a TV show or movie, that it comes with basic metadata and rights to publish that. Maybe not?

I mean, you don't even automatically get rights to music used in the show, I wouldn't assume the rights to metadata are automatically granted.

Re: From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV

#25

Post by throwawaysnxcv2 »

lapcat wrote: post #16

My pet peeve: I have only one profile on play.hbomax.com, but every time I open the page I get the screen that asks "Who Is Watching?" with a single option. I'm thinking of writing a web browser extension just to click that automatically.

If I was a cynical product owner who was responsible for the multiple profiles feature, I would probably fight to keep that extra click to remind users of the functionality. Otherwise it may affect the metrics.

BTW: My pet peeve is that it's not possible to mark an episode as "seen". They should at least allow it for those who use multiple profiles. If a family has profiles, but sometimes watch the same content together, it kind of locks you into using that profile forever for that show. It makes it harder to catch up on missing episodes on other profiles, and also messes up the interface in general.

Re: From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV

#26

Post by jjk166 »

zamnos wrote: post #24
tyingq wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was assuming when you gain rights to a TV show or movie, that it comes with basic metadata and rights to publish that. Maybe not?

I mean, you don't even automatically get rights to music used in the show , I wouldn't assume the rights to metadata are automatically granted.

Music is a creative work and people may legitimately want to consume it independently. Cast lists (and data in general) don't have copyright protection and serves little purpose except to augment the original file - both the means and the motivation aren't there.

Re: From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV

#27

Post by DANmode »

MaxikCZ wrote: post #9
danpalmer wrote: post #8

Earlier 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.

How else will I know which movies to avoid because they're passionless trash?

Re: From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV

#28

Post by throwawaysnxcv2 »

jjk166 wrote: post #26
zamnos wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you don't even automatically get rights to music used in the show , I wouldn't assume the rights to metadata are automatically granted.

Music is a creative work and people may legitimately want to consume it independently. Cast lists (and data in general) don't have copyright protection and serves little purpose except to augment the original file - both the means and the motivation aren't there.

Even if cast lists don't have copyright, they still need to source the data from somewhere. If I was responsible for this at Netflix, I would prefer to buy that data from a good quality source instead of scraping the data from external websites or running OCR on the credits screen.

Re: From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV

#29

Post by bgirard »

musicale wrote: post #11

Netflix's UI is a shell game to trick you into thinking they have more programs than they actually do.

I find it very frustrating that the 'continue watching'/'watch again' sections are often in a different spot. And my last show will be in one or the other section depending on if my last viewing included the last episode.

Re: From Netflix to HBO, the terrible design of streaming is ruining TV

#30

Post by smt88 »

efields wrote: post #19

If it was that bad it wouldn’t be in 87% of households. I don’t think any of the services offer award winning UX, but the difficulties stated in the article are overblown. Nor is it “ruining TV” … the proof is that they keep making TV (well, Until the writers strike…)

> If it was that bad it wouldn’t be in 87% of households.

The alternatives are live TV, which is infinitely worse, or nothing at all.

Install base is not an indicator of quality when all the competitors are bad.

Post reply on HN