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Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

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Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#241
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, it's a classic capitalism vs. communism argument. Economically: Many channels will die, which would lower production costs, which in a competitive market lowers consumer costs. More importantly, channels will actually need to fight for consumers. Which means they are not going to soft ball ultra cheap reality TV that most of their core demographic hate. cough syfy

Huh? If you don't like reality TV then you aren't syfy's core demographic (or just about any channel's, really). Basically every channel has moved in that direction because people keep proving they will watch it .

Reality TV is cheap. In a highly fragmented and bundled market it can work. Yet, HBO and other premium services avoid it presumably because willing to watch is different from willing to pay for.

PS: Cheap TV can be compelling. Personally I really liked the primitive technology youtube channel which has 788,764 subscribers and is really cheap to produce 1 guy without any spoken lines. Twitch can also be extremely compelling. However, that's not paying subscribers.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#242
post #28

It sucks that Netflix is pushing their own content as a solution. Don't get me wrong, some of their own content is great, but I don't want to subscribe to 10 different streaming services that all have their own original content, I want to subscribe to one. Netflix--and others, like Amazon Prime--are becoming less and less worthwhile, and piracy is becoming more and more convenient again.

Last weekend my wife and I wanted to watch the movie Goat. It was pretty recently in theaters, so we didn't expect it to be on Netflix. We searched HBO Now, Hulu, Starz, and all of the other video streaming services that we have (and pay money for!). We found two options - rent it on Google Play Movies, or rent it through Amazon Prime. Now, we wanted to Chromecast it, and Amazon (to the best of my knowledge) does not…

Does make me wonder if that evil bastard genius Steve Jobs was still alive, if he would be able to fix this situation.

I actually think Apple is still doing OK on the technology front, and the Apple TV UI seems to have the right ideas.

But actually negotiating the content licenses is something calling for the full power of the Reality Distortion Field. Like how Jobs was able to convince the music industry to provide all their content because it would be available "just on Macs", or to get AT&T to give full control of the iPhone to Apple, in exchange for an exclusive over Verizon.

What would be the negotiating play to trick (I mean, convince its in their best interest) video content owners to make all their intellectual property available from a single excellent UI?

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#243
post #28

It sucks that Netflix is pushing their own content as a solution. Don't get me wrong, some of their own content is great, but I don't want to subscribe to 10 different streaming services that all have their own original content, I want to subscribe to one. Netflix--and others, like Amazon Prime--are becoming less and less worthwhile, and piracy is becoming more and more convenient again.

I think the Netflix content is fantastic - more than enough to pay their pretty cheap monthly streaming price for. And in addition, they have a massive catalog of other content. Who cares how many IMDB top 250 they have. It's similar to an HBO but half the price.

We pay $20/month or so for Netflix and Hulu, plus Amazon comes with prime which I pay for more for the shipping than the streaming. This isn't a lot - compare that to what cable costs. The situation today is better than ever - a bunch of cheap ala cart services that together still add up to way less than cable.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#244
post #138
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robotguy12 did not describe a UI problem. First there was a licensing problem, then there was a technical playback problem. The movie was nominally legally available, but it might as well not have been, for how hard it was to find and then playback. The technical problem is relatively easily fixed and probably just an isolated local issue. The licensing problem is a bigger one. For rentals, you have the problem of ha…

Parent said "UX" not "UI" problem. UX broadly encompasses all aspects of the experience, not just the UI. Sucky licensing hiccups, buffering, etc. all lead to poor UX.

Fair enough.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'm not sympathetic. The alternative to finding (and failing to find) a service to watch the show could possibly be - not watching it? The conclusion 'naturally we then had to steal it' isn't entirely justified. Shoplifting is easy and convenient too. Next time you forget your wallet at the corner store. Just sayin.

Your reference to shoplifting is so knee jerk and tired it fails to even apply to this instance If you read it again you'll see the person paid for the product and then the product they paid for was kept from them Same thing happened to me, I tried to rent a film on touyube but the stream consistently erred after 2s of low quality viewing.. what really bugged me was I could watch any trending video on the free servic…

It really seems to me that the knee-jerk reaction here is the one against the shoplifting analogy. All analogies are approximations; you're meant to focus on the similarities instead of the differences. If you're choosing to focus on the differences, than you're choosing to misunderstand. Why would you do that?

p.s. If you read it again, you'll see that the person asked for a refund. It's somewhat unclear at this point whether that refund was granted, but my interpretation is that they did.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#246
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because after having such a terrible experience they went with one that, should things go wrong, doesn't entail spending 35 minutes on the phone with support for them to get a refund?

He didn't spend 35 minutes getting a refund. He spent 35 minutes trying to resolve the problem.

...and it didn't work. I get frustrated after having to spend ten minutes talking to a customer rep. Half an hour of an evening wasted trying to resolve something that shouldn't be an issue in the first place would leave me seething and agitated.

Now, there are certainly some out there who would soldier on despite all these inconveniences and still go through the trouble of finding another legal avenue (OP did say he spent another hour searching for it), but if your business plan relies on people taking the legal route just because it's the "right" thing to do, experience be damned, well, you'll have piracy at levels that you do now.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#247
post #15

And of these 31 remaining almost half are missing in the Swedish Netflix: 5. Back to the Future 6. Gladiator 7. Sunset Boulevard 8. Cinema Paradiso 9. Django Unchained 12. Reservoir Dogs 13. Braveheart 17. Amadeus 21. Trainspotting 24. There Will Be Blood 25. Spotlight 26. The Princess Bride 27. Zootopia 29. Jaws 31. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl And yet Netflix want the same monthly cost for…

> And yet Netflix want the same monthly cost for less of a service. Why?

You lucky bastard. In Norway, the same applies but we probably have to pay double of what they do in the US (100 nok).

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It wasn't a problem with our Wifi, since Netflix/Youtube and other services worked just fine, it was a problem with Google Play streaming to the Chromecast. Movies you buy/rent in Google Play Movies are actually available in YouTube as well. There's a section in YouTube called "Purchases." I've used this to stream Google Play Movies purchases on my Fire TV. I would imagine the same would work for an Apple TV since…

That is the best and straightforward workaround. Thanks for letting us know that we can rent on Play and watch it on YouTube. I just didn't know that's possible. If you want to rent the movie or show on Amazon Video but are avoiding using that option just because it doesn't work on chromecast then here is what you can do : 1. Install Amazon video app on phone. Here's link for Android : https://www.amazon.com/gp/video…

Don't you have to leave your phone's screen on the entire time to use screen casting?

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#249
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because after having such a terrible experience they went with one that, should things go wrong, doesn't entail spending 35 minutes on the phone with support for them to get a refund?

He didn't spend 35 minutes getting a refund. He spent 35 minutes trying to resolve the problem.

Spent 35 minutes trying to find a resolution and didn't get one. So they should expect to pay money AND time to watch content legally?

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not yet banned (Hospitals still use them, as do all major corps). I found the following post as late as Dec 2015 but nothing later than that.[1] [1] http://www.iphoneincanada.ca/news/liberal-government-may-blo...

This is _insane_ if it actually happens .. a move I want to compare to China, except here it's the government bending to the will of a corporation, not the other way around! Dumb stuff is proposed all the time in US proposals[1,2] but with great effort they get rejected (not all, sadly). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_S... [2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/net-neutrality

At some point one may wonder where the line goes between large corporations and governments.
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