What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription • Hacker News Board

Re: What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

#51

Post by DiskoHexyl » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 9:13 AM UTC

Finally jumped ship to a Jellyfin based home server and couldn't be happier.

The ui is surprisingly good and polished (especially for the users who don't have to manage the library), video quality is amazing (with bd source files, who would have thought, but even DVD is often better than what modern streaming provides), and I can cache the movies on my phone when needed.

It works in ANY browser under ANY os, doesn't have ads, doesn't track me, and has all the content that I could ever desire (and wouldn't be able to find in any one service. In some cases, IN ANY service).

I can have any combination of a subtitle language and a voiceover.

Overall cost was only 500 for a used m1 air and a 16TB external storage.

Re: What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

#52

Post by anal_reactor » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 9:14 AM UTC

silisili wrote: post #11

It's weird. When Netflix came about, I was excited to dump all the bespoke pirating stuff that it replaced. I didn't mind paying for content, in fact, I was glad to. Fast forward a while, and now Netflix seems to be an undiscoverable mess of old and foreign content while charging twice as much. Each IP owner felt it necessary to make their own way worse clone, and still, after paying more than a hundred a month, ther…

First you attract customers by offering (potentially unsustainably) good deals. Then you become the default option. Then you extract money from customers by enshittifying your service. Most famous digital services follow this path.

Re: What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

#53

Post by gwd » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 9:14 AM UTC

silisili wrote: post #11

It's weird. When Netflix came about, I was excited to dump all the bespoke pirating stuff that it replaced. I didn't mind paying for content, in fact, I was glad to. Fast forward a while, and now Netflix seems to be an undiscoverable mess of old and foreign content while charging twice as much. Each IP owner felt it necessary to make their own way worse clone, and still, after paying more than a hundred a month, ther…

There's a sort of joke in academia, about the "least publishable unit" for a paper: Since "how many papers produced" is much easier to measure than "impact on a field", one way to try to game the system is to figure out the smallest amount of research that can be called "one paper", and publish just that, to maximize the papers / research effort ratio.

What we're seeing now is the same thing for streaming services. Sure, you'd pay £20 for a subscription to watch 75% of all available content. But it turns out most people would pay £40 for two subscriptions, each of which would show you 35% [EDIT and even people who won't, will still pay one £20 subscription for 35% of the content]; and quite a few people would pay £100 for five subscriptions, each of which will show you 12%. The beancounters are busy experimenting to find the "least bundle-able unit", to maximize extraction.

EDIT: And as someone else has pointed out, this is not something that any Netflix -- or any potential replacement -- can unilaterally do something about. In fact it's a "tragedy of the commons" situation: If MGM and Universal Studios and Paramount and WB all license their content to Netflix (under the £20 umbrella), and Disney doesn't, then Disney gets to keep a massive amount of money for themselves, while the other rights-owners have to divide up the rest. It only takes one or two "defectors" to basically force everyone to do the same thing.

Re: What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

#54

Post by yason » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 9:15 AM UTC

blackdivine wrote: post #18

Can anyone give me an honest review of Kagi? When AI can summarize the web results and search for me, I have stopped using Google.

I tried it because I was less and less happy with Google and the various free alternatives never quite hit it. With them, I'd have to go back to Google every now and then to get better results. I thought I'll try Kagi for a month or two and see.

With Kagi, I think I've gone back to Google a couple of times in the early period. Then not once, since last winter. On browsers where I'm not logged onto Kagi I've gone from Google to my primary browser with Kagi multiple times. I can't really tell if Kagi is good or bad, objectively, but in relative terms it's very good. Most importantly, it's quite invisible, doesn't have irritating things to fight with, and the first two pagefuls aren't sponsored ads. It's tool-like and it certainly gives the feel of 2000's Google Search.

I don't know if I'm a fan but I still also have no reason to stop using Kagi. I like the simple concept. And I think paying for search is a good proposition because it turns the odds to my favour: the company can succeed by making me happy instead of using me to make advertisers happy.

Re: What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

#55

Post by bji9jhff » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 9:18 AM UTC

silisili wrote: post #11

It's weird. When Netflix came about, I was excited to dump all the bespoke pirating stuff that it replaced. I didn't mind paying for content, in fact, I was glad to. Fast forward a while, and now Netflix seems to be an undiscoverable mess of old and foreign content while charging twice as much. Each IP owner felt it necessary to make their own way worse clone, and still, after paying more than a hundred a month, ther…

Being put in contact with foreign contents? Disgusting! /s

More seriously, before Netflix I never knew how high-quality and fun was stuffs from all around the world. I watched great series from South Korea, Turkey, Jordan, Spain,France, Luxembourg, Germany, Scandinavian countries and South America. I also watched quite enjoyable movies from Nigeria. I probably forgot a few places too. Do Netflix has issues? Plenty. Their originals are often blands and cancelled. They taught me to seek mini-series and completed series instead of ongoing series. The wrestling they air is shit. But the availability of foreign contents is the coolest feature they have.

Re: What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

#56

Post by xioxox » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 9:19 AM UTC

bambax wrote: post #49

blackdivine wrote: post #18

Can anyone give me an honest review of Kagi? When AI can summarize the web results and search for me, I have stopped using Google.

I still don't understand why Google gets such a bad rep. I think it's fine. And about AI "summarizing" web results: while sometimes useful, you absolutely need to check the source. AI can make stuff up, and it can also summarize wrong (when the source does exist).

With google I can't find things I know exist. For example, it doesn't find several of my github repositories with unique names that have been there for years. With old google you could drill down a couple of pages of results, but they're not there now. It also prefers worse sources for materials, for example some blog which poorly explains some API, rather than the original documentation.

Re: What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

#57

Post by yason » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 9:22 AM UTC

user34283 wrote: post #14

In the past I used to pay for Netflix, Spotify, and even YT Premium. However, they keep raising prices every year. In the past Netflix 4K cost like $22 and with family sharing it was about $5 - totally acceptable. Now they cracked down on family sharing in different households and charge $37. No way. Spotify: they increased prices again last month to $20 USD for the individual subscription. I bought a 12 month Colomb…

YouTube has the best content that you absolutely can't and won't find in commercial productions, and exactly because they aren't producing anything, they're just a platform. I think the sub-$10 premium without music was in the right price range but even at $20+ it proposes much, much more value than your random streaming service.

However, what they're not clear about is how the Premium fees actually land on the YT channels which is an irksome point. Premium views generate more income than unpaid views, that much I know. But I don't know if my subscription fees will benefit only the channels I watch or whether I my subscription is helping the big, popular shows that I never watch.

Re: What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

#58

Post by jlengrand » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 9:23 AM UTC

silisili wrote: post #11

It's weird. When Netflix came about, I was excited to dump all the bespoke pirating stuff that it replaced. I didn't mind paying for content, in fact, I was glad to. Fast forward a while, and now Netflix seems to be an undiscoverable mess of old and foreign content while charging twice as much. Each IP owner felt it necessary to make their own way worse clone, and still, after paying more than a hundred a month, ther…

And worse, when you search they KNOW what you want to watch and will show you EVERYTHING they have that is NOT what you want. Infuriating, I reverted back to the old ways a year back and haven't regretted it.

Same with Spotify, who has a solid catalog that I was happy to pay for. Now I pay double, for podcasts, shows, and now even freaking videos that I have never wanted or asked for and have no choice to not take.

And now they also the audacity to show me ads on PAID PLANS.

They don't deserve our money, customer focus is long gone.

Re: What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

#59

Post by bogdan » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 9:23 AM UTC

qmr wrote: post #27

zkmon wrote: post #13

The only time I had a Netflix subscription was in 1999, for a couple of years, when they were mailing DVDs. Can't remember how much it costed. Never got any streaming subscriptions. I get annoyed with the Netflix button on my TV remote. It wastes a minute when press it by mistake.

It would take you all of five minutes to modify your remote so it can never be pressed again.

Without destroying the button? and consistently on every type of remote out there that has a netflix button? How?

Re: What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription

#60

Post by dotancohen » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 9:29 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #17

silisili wrote: post #11

It's weird. When Netflix came about, I was excited to dump all the bespoke pirating stuff that it replaced. I didn't mind paying for content, in fact, I was glad to. Fast forward a while, and now Netflix seems to be an undiscoverable mess of old and foreign content while charging twice as much. Each IP owner felt it necessary to make their own way worse clone, and still, after paying more than a hundred a month, ther…

> how they ruined the opportunity presented netflix didn't really ruin it themselves (at least, not completely) - the owner of the licensed content did, by wanting a bigger cut of the pie. Disney, for example, didn't feel they're paid enough, and so stopped licensing the content out to netflix and instead created a competing service. I think this is a regulatory issue, because each piece of content is an effective is…

  > The state needs to make some changes to how content is licensed to prevent monopoly.

Why? Nobody _needs_ Mickey Mouse. If the price for Mickey Mouse is too high, just don't buy it.

Now you could argue that some (much) older works are part of culture, and being exposed to that culture is necessary to function in society. But that then becomes an issue of how long copyright is necessary or reasonable. New works most certainly should be allowed to be monopolized by their creators - even if that means that some potential consumers are priced out of experiencing them.

You don't need to see every Disney movie. In fact, not seeing some of them will raise the bar to make better movies and will cause competition to emerge.