Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

pajiba.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

721–730 of 1001 posts

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#721

Post by yeetsfromhellL2 »

eweise wrote: post #675
ripe wrote: post #662

It's sad that we cannot own titles but are forced to rent them from these streaming services that can't seem to get their shit together. (Not blaming Netflix per se; this is a pox on all their houses). Used to be nice in the DVD days. I built myself a nice collection then. This was the idea behind digital rights lockers: UltraViolet, which Disney refused to participate in and which closed down in 2019, and its succes…

I don't know about movies, but music streaming is awesome. I have a couple thousand CDs that are sitting in a closet somewhere. For a while I kept them as mp3s on a hardrive, copied other people's mp3s to build up my collection. But its still so limited. I love going through my favorite artists on spotify, listening to the less popular albums I never would have bought and discovering new artists.

I did the same thing. I used to put a lot of effort into getting a perfect FLAC rip of everything I ever listened to, having them on my devices, or setting up streaming from a home server. I threw that shit out a long time ago, partly because I don't listen to the garbage that I used to, and partly because I've got better things to fuss over now. The amount of time worrying about file integrity, backups, server being up (and updated)...sorry, 90‰ of it is music I'll just get tired of soon. It wasn't worth it. Spotify makes more sense for me.

Same with movies. As I've gotten older, I can name about a dozen movies I'd like to watch again. I can afford to buy the next "highest quality release ever" when the time comes.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#722

Post by cwkoss »

Stunting wrote: post #366
delusional wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever chief executive that decided to create their own streaming platform for a price that's too high is stealing your money. They are the ones that made it more convenient to pirate.

Ah, now that is a point. I don't expect consumers to take on my personal union politics. That is the duty of the workforce and their union.. Which is more powerful if consumers don't steal money out of their pocket. Pay for cool things and you'll get more cool things.

What if I pay for a movie ticket because I think it might be cool, then the movie is awful and I don't want more like it to be made?

There is no option for refunds. Pirating first gives the user more control over which films they economically incentivize iteration on.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#723

Post by tomohawk »

> the binge model, churn rate, and rising subscription prices.

Missing option: woke partisan programming

Putting the face of a divisive politician like Obama on a show? Guaranteed to lose 30% - 50% of potential viewers who won't watch it no matter how awesome it is.

More than half of the most watched shows are not shows that Netflix produced. Shows like Better Call Saul.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#724

Post by burntwater »

davidw wrote: post #712
jbverschoor wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with pay per item is that they try to stretch and tretch the amount of items/movies/episodes you watch. Netflix overdid it with making everything a serie. It's super annoying, and I simply don' have the energie to start another serie simply because Netflix's analytics say that it's better for engagement that you have use the serie format instead of a simple movie. It has very little to do with the actual…

I kind of long for the sitcoms of my youth. Something like Night Court, where it's a half an hour of jokes and then you're done . It's nice and relaxing and doesn't try and hook you into watching hours on end.

I've started watching Cheers on Hulu for exactly this reason. Next will be Mash.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#725

Post by numbchuckskills »

ripe wrote: post #662

It's sad that we cannot own titles but are forced to rent them from these streaming services that can't seem to get their shit together. (Not blaming Netflix per se; this is a pox on all their houses). Used to be nice in the DVD days. I built myself a nice collection then. This was the idea behind digital rights lockers: UltraViolet, which Disney refused to participate in and which closed down in 2019, and its succes…

No post body was provided.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#726

Post by diogenescynic »

danans wrote: post #322

I doubt most of the subscription loss is attributable to reasons that most HN types go on about (the rants about wokeness, not enough scifi, carousel UI, pirating etc...). What's probably going on is after after a few years of pandemic isolation and Netflix binging, the arrival of pandemic triggered inflation, and overall higher employment rates, people just have less interest, time, and money to binge watch longer f…

It's both.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#727

Post by nostrademons »

davidw wrote: post #712
jbverschoor wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with pay per item is that they try to stretch and tretch the amount of items/movies/episodes you watch. Netflix overdid it with making everything a serie. It's super annoying, and I simply don' have the energie to start another serie simply because Netflix's analytics say that it's better for engagement that you have use the serie format instead of a simple movie. It has very little to do with the actual…

I kind of long for the sitcoms of my youth. Something like Night Court, where it's a half an hour of jokes and then you're done . It's nice and relaxing and doesn't try and hook you into watching hours on end.

This niche has largely been replaced by casual mobile games. Pop open Candy Crush and play for as long as you have time. You're never really done, but each session is basically independent of the past and doesn't require a whole lot of mental effort.

TV in general is losing viewership to games. A decade ago, the watercooler conversation at work would be "So, what TV shows are you watching?" Now, it's "So, what games have you installed lately?" This may be a big part of Netflix's problem.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#728

Post by brimble »

lostcolony wrote: post #673
ripe wrote: post #662

It's sad that we cannot own titles but are forced to rent them from these streaming services that can't seem to get their shit together. (Not blaming Netflix per se; this is a pox on all their houses). Used to be nice in the DVD days. I built myself a nice collection then. This was the idea behind digital rights lockers: UltraViolet, which Disney refused to participate in and which closed down in 2019, and its succes…

The cost is part of the reasons those never really caught on, not just participation. The number of titles I (and I assume, most people) will watch enough to warrant paying $20 for is vanishingly small. Even $4 a rental is a hard bar to pass at this point with streaming competing. $1-2 to rent though? I'd be all over that. Weirdly, that's the cost to rent a physical disk at Redbox...but an on demand title anywhere is…

I would do a whole lot more digital rentals if the prices weren't so damn high. How is it that it can be significantly cheaper to rent the physical disk than to stream the movie once? How can I watch 20 hours of stuff on HBO in 4k for like $10 or $12 or whatever that runs now for a month, but a single 2-hour movie is $5?

It'd also help a lot if I didn't need a different "app" for every store, with its own player UI. Learning how to use yet another designer's cute "experience" just to do the same thing I used to do with a few buttons on the front of a VCR that were the same for every single movie, isn't my idea of fun.

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#729

Post by rc_mob »

The comments in this thread are 100 times more insightful and interesting and accurate that the author of the linked article. The article itself read like it has an agenda and its full of logical holes. Why are internet authors so bad?

Re: The bottom is dropping out of Netflix

#730

Post by diogenescynic »

jbverschoor wrote: post #687

Well it's simple.. The movie industry almost killed itself, and now it's getting greedy again. More and more people are simply downloading again. Not because they refuse to pay, but because they refuse to pay for 6 platforms, and get annoyed by not being able to find where they can watch things.

I'm not even against piracy but this comment smacks of entitlement and lack of nuance. The "movie industry" isn't some monolithic thing and no one needs 6 platforms. Pirate content if you want, but don't pretend you're entitled to tv or movies.
Post reply on HN