https://www.whats-on-netflix.com is a good way to search for stuff.
But what if I want a faster horse?
491–500 of 632 posts
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#492For any given thing or category of thing , a tiny minority of the human population will be enthusiasts of that thing , but those enthusiasts will have an outsize effect in determining everyone else's taste for that thing . For example, very few people have any real interest in driving a car at 200 MPH, but Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches are widely understood as desirable cars, because the people who are into car…
This is the cycle I keep seeing: Most great products start out for enthusiasts and often by enthusiasts. They’re opinionated, sharp, sometimes rough, but exciting. Then VC funding comes in, and the product has to appeal to a broader audience. Things get smoothed out and the metrics rule decisions. Eventually, the original enthusiasts feel left out. The product’s no longer for them. So a new product comes out, started…
This is far too generous a story. While true in certain basic respects, it is a process of capitalists changing products to favor their own interests over users in a mature market. It is a process that begins with the promise of individual empowerment (in a new and growing market where companies are forced to appeal to customers) that ends in a kind of silken chains (when the market is well understood and companies are optimizing their financials).
Notably, this process usually involves not creating a simplified interface that can be turned into expert mode but actively removing features, adding cues, and steering user behavior though a psychological maze to achieve desired effects.
Basically, people should understand this corporate lifecycle and stop being deluded by the opening moves in a new market that superficially appear to favor customers, individual empowerment, etc. It is a process that always ends in heartbreak because it serves investors, not the public.
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#493Me too, but you and I cannot afford a faster horse, or even the same horse we once had. The horse they use to offer was an illusion, a bait for the new Tiktok thing. Sooner or later, people will forget that horses once exist.
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#494Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches For street usage, I think those cars are popular because they’re beautiful more than because they’re fast (or because enthusiasts like them). My utterly soulless Lexus will drive more than fast enough to get me in serious trouble. No one will look at it and feel stirred by its beauty, whereas the typical Ferrari or Porsche coupe will look at least appealing to most and beautiful…
That doesn’t explain why japanese manufacturers who used to make sports cars in the 90s don’t anymore. It’s a mixture of enthusiasm and conspicuous consumption. Most enthusiasts love 90s japanese cars, but the average person sees an old mazda and recoils. But put an old ferrari in front of anyone and they have a completely different reaction.
Didn't the US put in a trade agreement that crushed the Japanese economy by overvaluing its currency?
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#495Earlier quoted context omitted.
My hunch is these algos are also optimized for hiding the long tail of content that's more expensive to serve as it's not edge-cached. And it was the long tail that drew many of us to these services in the first place. At least that's my feeling using Youtube and Netflix these days.
I don't think it's about expense, it's more about hiding the fact that their catalogue is actually really small. They can't let you narrow your search at all because then they wouldn't have any content to give you. Think how many times you've searched for a specific film and it says "Content related to ".
> I don't think it's about expense, it's more about hiding the fact that their catalogue is actually really small.
I agree with you for Netflix.
However, Youtube's catalog is almost certainly larger today than it was a decade ago. Even if you could somehow weight by quality, I think it would be hard to argue that Youtube's content catalog has gotten worse. Maybe average quality per video has gone down, but there is so much content on Youtube nowadays, assuming you're able to find it.
I'm not sure about Spotify.
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#496I just hate so so so much the Netflix of nowadays, they manage to keep me because of a few good movies/series and releasing new seasons of shows that I watched previously. But otherwise, this interface is so much bat shit! Incredible to me that anyone can pretend to Product manager of something so badly designed and unergonomic. The most important thing is "continue watching", that should be almost the first line, bu…
> The most important thing is "continue watching", that should be almost the first line, but no it is randomly spread at different levels
This seems to be common among the streaming services. I can't imagine any reason other than they want to force people to see their other content.
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#497All the result of A/B tests. Everything will converge to give you an engaging experience for most people. The only not too bad student is reddit which lets you keep using their older UI if you want to. But everything else is pushing new driven by A/B tests UI optimized for engagement.
I fear old reddit is going to be killed off this year. They're getting rid of the red envelope for messages/replies, they've pushed the notification and chat with red icons into old reddit and more and more content seems to "accidentally" link to new reddit.
They left it alone for years but now they're converging them, looks like it's only a matter of time
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#498Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple Music still offers library management, with their entire catalog to choose from. They try to play all sides, with algorithmic playback, radio, add to library, and playlists. Adding to library and playlists do seem to be core features, but I’m curious how many people put in the effort when it’s not explicitly required.
Is that different from Spotify? Am I using Spotify wrong? I mostly just curate and listen to my own playlists
If you only stream your music then the difference is negligible, but Apple Music blends Spotify-like streaming music with your personal library of music you own. It's built off of iTunes in this regard. One perk of this is that you can upload your own music and it shows up everywhere matched to the real albums and artists; Spotify's support for streaming local files is much clunkier.
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#499There's a fundamental reality that shapes both Netflix and Spotify's trajectory: content licensing. 2012 Netflix had access to vastly more of everyone else's library, so it was closer to an indexed search of what was available that one could watch and then getting that video onto your screen. Over time, other companies understood that they were underpricing their content and Netflix was reaping the benefits. Once ext…
> Spotify faced a similar crossroads and decided to broaden beyond music once they started losing bidding wars for licensing. I wasn't aware that Spotify lacked much in the way of mainstream western music. Are they having licensing issues?
didnt neil young pull his stuff from spotify in protest?
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#500Ironically the old horses were faster! Run XP on modern hardware (if you can get it running at all) and you'll see what I mean. Explorer opens fully rendered in the span of a single frame (0.016 seconds). And XP was very slow and bloated for its time! It'll do this even in VirtualBox, running about 20x snappier than the native host, which boggles my mind.
My setup(FreeBSD+XFCE) hasn’t changed at all over the last 20 years and is just as fast as it’s always been.
I use virtualisation for the rest.