I was a Netflix subscriber for its first streaming service decade or so [in Scandinavia], starting in 2011. Cancelled about a year ago. The primary concern was the the quality of new content, not the price.
Netflix should have just doubled their prices and 'doubled' the content they offered. Would have smothered all these other streaming services. The horse has bolted now.
I catch up with one or two shows and that's it, I barely open the app for the reminder of my period. I don't really see the point of paying for 5-6 streaming services every month.
I read your link and it didn’t seem to address the question. (I admit bailing early because it didn’t seem relevant. It talks about Netflix’s content creation policy, and bizarrely, what Elon Musk thinks of it. Why Musk is being quoted in an article about Netflix is a mystery to me.)
Additionally, your explanation is word salad. What is a “5-year old adult” and how do you avoid triggering them? Which social belief systems are you referring to, specifically?
It's stunning to me that certain political groups are incredibly and violently angry (dare I say... triggered) about something they're completely unable to quantify or describe.
This description is about as opaque as your opinion on Netflix.
One: HBO Max, they had this deal of "half price for life" when they launched here (so about $5/month.) It's sort of barely worth it. They do have a nice 90s archive.
Amazon Prime Video (which is not the same as the Prime Video you get with your Amazon Prime sub, this is only available in countries where regular Amazon Prime is not available) https://www.primevideo.com/
Honestly netflix is the main platform I have kept around since 2000's. All other platform I signup to catch up on shows and then cancel after a month. I think netflix has the best all around library for my entire family to enjoy.
One of the issues regarding content is that a lot of popular shows are in a format that encourages binge watching. It seems impossible that they’d ever be able to keep up with viewer appetites by creating their own content when people consume so quickly.
To combat this they buy a lot of old crappy shows and movies and the catalog ends up looking pretty average. It reminds me of the old “weeklies” section at Blockbuster.
Maybe to combat this, they’ll switch to a format where they space episodes out to keep you paying.
So, they might end up releasing episodes of popular shows weekly AND have ads. The irony.
I watch those old shows. Sometimes you just want to watch tv and it doesn't really matter what's on as long as it's decent quality. Seinfeld, Friends, Fraser, I'd watch them every few years. In some ways it's better than watching something I feel like I need to binge. I don't really want to spend 6 hours watching something just to keep that "ooh what's next" feeling going.
All the other streaming services already do the weekly thing. I think I enjoy it more and remember more, so it's worth the delay. People have actually talked about the latest episodes of (for example) Andor and Rings of Power longer than the week after the first episodes.
What a sad sign of desperation from Netflix, being reduced to racing to the bottom. This is copying a (imo gross) Hulu package pricing strategy.
I wonder what the target audience is? i.e. who really wants to save $4/month by getting bombarded with ads? I'd just as soon skip it completely, but I really dislike being subjected to advertisements.
I just don't want them in my brain.
Maybe some people enjoy watching 30-40% ads over th course of an hour?
I used to think the same thing, but I started asking the people I knew who had Hulu accounts, and apparently a lot of them are paying for the ad tier. It's insane to me that people are so accepting of the absolute worst part of watching TV.
What scares me is gen alpha is being raised in an environment where bombardment of advertising is normal and even encouraged in some cases. I can't fathom willingly paying for a streaming service and still getting ads, or at least not blocking them myself at browser or dns level.
If people want to be bombarded by ads while watching low quality streams they will use pirate streams and save $6.99 a month and get a bigger library. At least the pirate streams have the common courtesy to not show you ads for penis enlargement pills during the actual show. What is the target market for this?
You also can't design shows that work with ads and work without ads at the same time. The writers have to write interruptions into the script, like cliffhangers right before the ad break like they used to do, or they have to assume a continual run of the program. Since the latter is now the norm, the ad breaks will inevitably be horribly timed interruptions so bad that it's an insult to charge a monthly sub on top.
Your assumption of the average consumer’s technical chops and desires isn’t realistic. Pirating anything is not as convenient as paying $7/mo.
The majority of outcomes here are either they pay the fee and get ads, pay the higher fee and don’t get ads, or don’t pay and don’t watch. It’s not a pirate or don’t pirate discussion for most of the world.
A large percentage of the world pirates. If you can't learn how or find someone to teach you, when the benefits are clear, then you deserve to pay and suffer through ads.
I mostly agree with you, with one clarification that you don’t personally need to know how piracy works to benefit from it.
Piracy is very common outside of the US. In the US piracy is an individual decision, you pick your storage and tools yourself. Other places it’s trivially easy to find someone selling pirated media in local markets.
Piracy isn't just a "nerd" thing, I literally saw EVERY sibling and classmate doing it growing up because they had no money. Using these sites is not rocket science, they're designed to be usable by the average person, they just have to click through 6 ads on the way to their video.
People who want to stream using a web browser, or their roku, or just their iPhone, and have it "just work" by clicking on a video to play, but want higher quality video without porn spam.
Many of the piracy methods you use to get (better than) streaming quality are a little finicky especially if you aren't technically inclined. The big time pirates I know drop thousands of dollars on equipment. Streaming is dead easy, you just need to find a site and click through ads. The latter bit is why Netflix was a better experience, but now?
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 87.6 ms ] threadI catch up with one or two shows and that's it, I barely open the app for the reminder of my period. I don't really see the point of paying for 5-6 streaming services every month.
1. Competition
2. Lack of content created by legacy studios whom were provided true quality.
3. Too much content to wade through and no easy way to do it.
Additionally, your explanation is word salad. What is a “5-year old adult” and how do you avoid triggering them? Which social belief systems are you referring to, specifically?
It's not a word salad, every word is intentional. Admittedly, I did not do a good job at explaining this, but honestly it's just a waste of our time.
This description is about as opaque as your opinion on Netflix.
I share Peacock out with friends and family and in return I use their Netflix, HBO, Disney+, and Hulu.
Watch the same 3-4 series again and again. Never watch any of the featured content. It is not quality content.
Feels like you would be better off with the dvd box
And Gamepass Ultimate for the Xbox Cloud game streaming (if that counts) https://www.xbox.com/en-us/play
Unless you count Spotify.
- Amazon Prime Video because its with prime
- D+ and hulu come from the family cellphone plan, I wouldn't have them otherwise
- HBOMax with a cousin but I'm dropping that when the next cycle runs out
- Crunchyroll with friends
- A local movie rental store + Plex is doing alot of work recently
To combat this they buy a lot of old crappy shows and movies and the catalog ends up looking pretty average. It reminds me of the old “weeklies” section at Blockbuster.
Maybe to combat this, they’ll switch to a format where they space episodes out to keep you paying.
So, they might end up releasing episodes of popular shows weekly AND have ads. The irony.
I wonder what the target audience is? i.e. who really wants to save $4/month by getting bombarded with ads? I'd just as soon skip it completely, but I really dislike being subjected to advertisements. I just don't want them in my brain.
Maybe some people enjoy watching 30-40% ads over th course of an hour?
Upper class children are going to grow up with premium services that don't serve ads.
Lower class children are going to grow up being bombarded with ads at all times, from all places.
It's going to be interesting to see how that changes things.
You also can't design shows that work with ads and work without ads at the same time. The writers have to write interruptions into the script, like cliffhangers right before the ad break like they used to do, or they have to assume a continual run of the program. Since the latter is now the norm, the ad breaks will inevitably be horribly timed interruptions so bad that it's an insult to charge a monthly sub on top.
The majority of outcomes here are either they pay the fee and get ads, pay the higher fee and don’t get ads, or don’t pay and don’t watch. It’s not a pirate or don’t pirate discussion for most of the world.
Watching cracked streams is akin to trading endpoint security for the latest GOTR episode, too.
Piracy is very common outside of the US. In the US piracy is an individual decision, you pick your storage and tools yourself. Other places it’s trivially easy to find someone selling pirated media in local markets.
Many of the piracy methods you use to get (better than) streaming quality are a little finicky especially if you aren't technically inclined. The big time pirates I know drop thousands of dollars on equipment. Streaming is dead easy, you just need to find a site and click through ads. The latter bit is why Netflix was a better experience, but now?