261–270 of 289 posts
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May I humbly suggest that VHS is superior to DVD for young children, because you can manually censor naughty bits out of “too adult” movies by scratching the magnetic coating off the tape
Plus, VHS players are better for holding sandwiches.
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Why would you subcribe to repeat content? Your argument doesn't follow at all.
Kids want to watch the same movie 937473829 times. In a row. That’s why GP said they were subscribed. I know several new-ish parents in the same boat with Disney+, specifically.
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Apple has changed the game in so many ways. This is definitely one of them.
Were any of the services hard to cancel before Apple? I didn't think so. Maybe Amazon Prime (which is more than just a streaming service). For the rest, I don't recall any dark patterns or required phone calls to some sort of "retention specialist". Just go to the website and click cancel. If anything, it was Netflix that led the way on this, and set the example that the others followed. Am I missing something?
It’s not only the ease of subscribing, or canceling, but the ease of seeing all of your subscriptions and managing them all without doing any work to set up that view.
Basically there was a finite amount of content and a lot of it appeared on Netflix. Then 4+ services launched and a near fixed amount of content was divided by 4. Then they doubled the price. So now for a worse discovery experience you are effectively paying 8x the price.
The thing for me is that the media companies that thought they could just launch their own streaming services and keep all the money for themselves completely devalued the engineering of Netflix. It was "FAANG" for a reason. Viscerally, Netflix doesn't feel like it belongs alongside Google, but it did, because it was good. How does Disney fail to make money off Star Wars? Because they decided to build a shitty tech c…
Is anyone here paying for any of the smaller indie streaming services? And feeling like that's a better value? If I didn't have kids I would skip Netflix, Disney and HBO. Quality has really taken a dive.
Kanopy. Get a library card and register at Kanopy for free.
I remembered Kanopy and signed in for the first time in months, did a quick search, instantly found the movie, used 1 of my 10 monthly credits to check it out, watched it and that was that.
Kanopy is a great resource for light consumption of media.
Basically there was a finite amount of content and a lot of it appeared on Netflix. Then 4+ services launched and a near fixed amount of content was divided by 4. Then they doubled the price. So now for a worse discovery experience you are effectively paying 8x the price.
Does anyone has experience with cancelling and switching services periodically so that you can access all the content, but not at the same time?
I do have Amazon Prime though, so some of the subscriptions are to channels on that. I'll drop it for sure when they put ads on everything.
I'm sure this is an unpopular opinion, but I have very little sympathy for writers. The work today is on average horrible, derivative and opposite of inspired. I'm at the point where I'm almost ready for AI to take over. It's just that rare gem that hits now and then that gives me pause, but frankly, I can't remember the last time I watched a movie that actually moved me.
Writers can put out amazing things, but I frequently have the sensation of "waiting for the movie to start" 25-50 minutes into the movie, kind of like watching Napoleon Dynamite but with no dance scene.
Every movie script doesn't have to follow Campbell's Hero's Journey, but studios and writers need to make sure that not only are we, the viewers, along for the ride but that we are invested in the characters.
We don't invest in characters because they happen to match physical traits with us.
We don't invest in characters because their living conditions are similar to our own.
We don't invest in characters for anything visible on the movie screen.
We invest in characters because they have a compelling narrative.
I don't care if the overweight kid with a good sense of humor is accepted by his classmates and seamlessly integrated into his peer group.
I care if he is a good person that does good things and that he overcomes adversity to get the girl despite others being against him.
I don't care if the non-white girl shows how bad ass and fearless she is with impeccable style while she moves to her own beat.
I care that she has a goal that makes sense and what steps she takes to achieve it.
To make us care about the characters, make us care about what they are doing with the circumstances they find themselves in.
You're the granddaughter of a dead ghostbuster. Great. Wonderful. Whatever.
Why am I watching a movie about you?
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The thing for me is that the media companies that thought they could just launch their own streaming services and keep all the money for themselves completely devalued the engineering of Netflix. It was "FAANG" for a reason. Viscerally, Netflix doesn't feel like it belongs alongside Google, but it did, because it was good. How does Disney fail to make money off Star Wars? Because they decided to build a shitty tech c…
I can’t square your comment with the fact that my experience of the other big name streaming services has been just as good as my experience with Netflix. They basically all just work almost all the time. If Netflix has more valuable technical excellence it should show in the customer experience of the product.
The UIs may suck in some way or another, or be buggy, but the backend doesn’t struggle anymore than Netflix with serving 4K streaming video to me.
Maybe their costs are higher because their technical expertise is less… I’m not sure.
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There was a show I watched every episode of, not because I particularly liked it but it starred one particular actor that I really wanted to watch. I'm rather embarrassed to admit this, but there it is.
Was the show Gumby? Haha sorry, I had to!
TTTT I have never seen that show though I know what the character looks like. Nowadays I suppose it's on youtube but I don't even care.
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The thing for me is that the media companies that thought they could just launch their own streaming services and keep all the money for themselves completely devalued the engineering of Netflix. It was "FAANG" for a reason. Viscerally, Netflix doesn't feel like it belongs alongside Google, but it did, because it was good. How does Disney fail to make money off Star Wars? Because they decided to build a shitty tech c…
As a Star Wars fan, Disney’s failure on this topic isn’t technical at all. The content is just mediocre; it doesn’t excite or motivate one to watch, it feels bland and commercial. What they’re doing to other franchises — and notably Pixar’s work — is quite similar.