Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India • Hacker News Board

Re: Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India

#71

Post by sharatvir » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

gingabriska wrote: post #52

vijaybritto wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe because Raspberry pi is not a mass market hardware. Also how many in that small population are using it to watch streaming videos? Raspberry pi is for hardware enthusiasts and not for end consumers. Pi 3b costs 3000Rs. A Nokia 1 phone(android) costs 4000Rs. What are people gonna buy in these two?

Well, people can also have old laptop or desktop pc which is same as having a raspberry pi.

That still involves more friction than just casting to a Chromecast or Fire stick

Re: Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India

#72

Post by fizgig » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

totaldude87 wrote: post #70

cptskippy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Netflix UX and video quality are leagues ahead of Amazon Prime Video. The UX for both are bad in different ways. Amazon's wastes a lot of space but Netflix autoplay trailers annoys me to no end. Perhaps the quality varies at lower resolutions but, at 1080 and 4K, I haven't noticed a difference.

>> Netflix autoplay trailers annoys me to no end THIS.. i had to rant about this with 100 words :) https://medium.com/@totaldude87/netflix-please-stop-autoplay...

I rant every time this comes up. I've cancelled solely because of this annoying feature. The Amazon Video app on my Roku may not be as slick, but at least it doesn't force me to mute my TV when I'm browsing through the selections.

Re: Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India

#73

Post by sharatvir » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 4:18 PM UTC

spacemonkey92 wrote: post #66

So this was the reason netflix killed its airplay support? https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/6/18298146/netflix-confirms-...

Wow. Yet another Netflix update that antagonizes users.

Though I suppose this one isn’t a deal breaker. Don’t all airplay capable devices (Apple TV, newer smart TVs, etc) have their own Netflix client?

Re: Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India

#74

Post by ctvo » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 4:32 PM UTC

wtmt wrote: post #58

I've said this here before (though some seem to have disliked it). The Netflix UX and video quality are leagues ahead of Amazon Prime Video. Hotstar is a big laggard and far, far behind in every single aspect except for the amount of Indian content it has. India is a highly price sensitive country, with absolutely no customer loyalty in most industry sectors. Nothing can beat free (which is where Hotstar is stuck, co…

> The Netflix UX and video quality are leagues ahead of Amazon Prime Video.

Source please, especially on video quality.

Re: Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India

#75

Post by ar_lan » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 5:05 PM UTC

wtmt wrote: post #58

I've said this here before (though some seem to have disliked it). The Netflix UX and video quality are leagues ahead of Amazon Prime Video. Hotstar is a big laggard and far, far behind in every single aspect except for the amount of Indian content it has. India is a highly price sensitive country, with absolutely no customer loyalty in most industry sectors. Nothing can beat free (which is where Hotstar is stuck, co…

UX does not matter much if there's not good enough content.

Re: Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India

#76

Post by alienreborn » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

wtmt wrote: post #58

I've said this here before (though some seem to have disliked it). The Netflix UX and video quality are leagues ahead of Amazon Prime Video. Hotstar is a big laggard and far, far behind in every single aspect except for the amount of Indian content it has. India is a highly price sensitive country, with absolutely no customer loyalty in most industry sectors. Nothing can beat free (which is where Hotstar is stuck, co…

Hotstar movie/tv content and UI sucks ass but they have live cricket along with few other popular sports leagues which gives them a huge advantage in Indian market.

Re: Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India

#77

Post by TheCoelacanth » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 5:08 PM UTC

dustinmoris wrote: post #35

Moves like this really demonstrate the economics of most internet businesses. There is no real tangible link between what people pay and what it nearly costs to offer a service over a stream of bits & bytes. Netflix started at $7.99 in 2010 and today for the same subscription you pay $12.99, which is a 62.5% price hike. That is particularly interesting, because it's considerably more than the inflation over the same…

> Content got cheaper

Citation needed. Everything I've heard is that content is getting more expensive for them because there are more streaming services competing for content.

Re: Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India

#78

Post by vishnugupta » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #61

ofcrpls wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Common plans vary between 1.5-5GB per day caps.

Per day?!?!? Mother of god. I get that per month in Mexico.

:-). India has the lowest cost per GB of mobile data [1]. I guess it's primarily due to being subsidized by deep-pocketed businesses' in their quest to acquire customers. One of the early such initiatives didn't end well[2], I wonder how sustainable current rates are.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47416250 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliance_Communications

Re: Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India

#79

Post by darkpuma » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 5:53 PM UTC

wtmt wrote: post #58

I've said this here before (though some seem to have disliked it). The Netflix UX and video quality are leagues ahead of Amazon Prime Video. Hotstar is a big laggard and far, far behind in every single aspect except for the amount of Indian content it has. India is a highly price sensitive country, with absolutely no customer loyalty in most industry sectors. Nothing can beat free (which is where Hotstar is stuck, co…

Let me preface this by admitting that I'm a very poor judge of video quality since I generally think those 720p/700MB torrent encodes are swell. So I'm going to ignore the matter of video quality; by my awful standards they're both perfectly adequate.

I think Amazon has Netflix beat on UX. To search Netflix without using third party tools is a real nightmare. The user interface seems user-hostile, like it's designed to conceal from the user the true breadth of Netflix's library (I earnestly believe it was.) It wasn't always this bad, in the early days of netflix's streaming business the search wasn't bad, and back when they were a DVD service (which is when I first subscribed) the search functionality was pretty decent even.

But with Amazon video, you've got the search features built into the amazon prime apps, which admittedly usually sucks, but you've also got the option of searching on amazon.com itself, or on IMDB (which has been owned by Amazon since the late 90s.) Searching on IMDB is what I do. When doing advanced searches you can specify that you're only interested in movies that are free on amazon prime in your region.

E.g.: Feature Action movies that are free on Amazon Prime in the US, and are in the IMDB Top 1000: https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?title_type=feature&genres...

(Perhaps IMDB advanced search for prime videos is bad UX for casual users (although it was my non-technical mother who brought my attention to it, so I'd push back against that notion) but at the very least it's an option. While I've seen third party websites offering a good proper advanced search of Netflix's catalogue, as far as I know if you stick to Netflix operated search interfaces you're basically stuck up shit creek.)

Re: Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India

#80

Post by cbsks » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 5:57 PM UTC

ctvo wrote: post #74

wtmt wrote: post #58

I've said this here before (though some seem to have disliked it). The Netflix UX and video quality are leagues ahead of Amazon Prime Video. Hotstar is a big laggard and far, far behind in every single aspect except for the amount of Indian content it has. India is a highly price sensitive country, with absolutely no customer loyalty in most industry sectors. Nothing can beat free (which is where Hotstar is stuck, co…

> The Netflix UX and video quality are leagues ahead of Amazon Prime Video. Source please, especially on video quality.

On my Android TV, every Amazon videos starts at low quality before jumping to high res after a minute or so. This happens every time I start the app. Netflix never has that issue for me.

That minor annoyance is nothing compared to Netflix's auto-playing trailers, however. I actively avoid opening Netflix unless I already know what I am going to watch, and I close it immediately after I'm done watching it.