Cloud Efficiency at Netflix

Post by danpalmer » Thu, Jan 02, 2025, 10:55 AM UTC

matt-p wrote: post #19

danpalmer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix's over-segmentation is the reason I ultimately stopped subscribing. You have to pay substantially more to get any of many screens, no ads, or 4K. As a single user who wants 4K, I then feel like I'm paying for something I don't need when the plan has many screens. None of the other big players like Amazon, YouTube, or Apple do this, all provide 4K to all subscribers and as far as I know only really segment by…

I suspect almost everyone shares a netflix account with thier household and statistically there's few single person households. So this is life, everything is setup for the average even things like bin collections will assume multiple people in your house.

Post by ruszki » Thu, Jan 02, 2025, 11:03 AM UTC

buran77 wrote: post #16

arianvanp wrote: post #13

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The answer is piracy. There are no content providers that are confident enough in their DRM to send 4k streams to devices that are in control of their owners instead of cooperations. PCs are the scariest thing ever and they will do everything in their power to kill them. Pirate content and be free Or buy an apple tv and hook it up to your monitor.

Pirate sites obtain the high quality material as soon as it's launched anyway, so this kind of "protection" just adds friction for the paying user.

Post by tlarkworthy » Thu, Jan 02, 2025, 11:33 AM UTC

philipwhiuk wrote: post #15

> One crucial way in which we do this is through the democratization of highly curated data sources that sunshine usage and cost patterns across Netflix’s services and teams. No engineer has ever said this. I miss when engineering blogs were actual engineering. This blog post has been through so much management waffle rewording it no longer adds much to the conversation.

Post by formerly_proven » Thu, Jan 02, 2025, 11:35 AM UTC

Kye wrote: post #24

danpalmer wrote: post #21

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I shared Netflix with my family (parents, sister, brother) for 2 years and think I ran into the 2 screen limit twice. 4 screens seems just entirely unnecessary to me. That said, if Netflix decided 4K was the segmentation for the higher plan and gave 4 screens to the lower plan, that wouldn't suit me personally, but I would prefer the pricing. Honestly the screens concept seems outdated with their anti-password sharin…

The more typical use case involves background TV running in multiple rooms. Much of what Netflix licenses and produces is made for this. Recently: "Casual Viewing – Why Netflix looks like that" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42529756 It's easy to blow past four with a screen, not necessarily a TV, going in every room.

Post by Aachen » Thu, Jan 02, 2025, 11:45 AM UTC

trollied wrote: post #20

mentalgear wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, users paying for Netflix, are not supposed to be subject to unasked quality downsampling just because you watch from a non-TV device. This sort of optimization might be fine with small laptop screens, but not 5k Computer screens, and I don't know if Netflix does it on purpose or just put `if not TV => send lowerRes` in their code (simplified of course).

Which is just crazy, considering lots of the $15 HDMI switchers on Amazon actually strip HDCP, and you can then use a capture card to record whatever you want from a 4k supporting device. I guess they're just preventing the easiest methods.