
Rise of Netflix Competitors Has Pushed Consumers Back Toward Piracy - SirLJ
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d3q45v/bittorrent-usage-increases-netflix-streaming-sites
======
idlern
>That’s especially true in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa, where
BitTorrent now accounts for 32% of all upstream network traffic. One major
reason for BitTorrent’s rising popularity? Annoying exclusivity streaming
deals.

In my country you can't even watch Netflix exclusives on Netflix because they
already sold the rights to local TVs. So you sign up for Netflix and it's a
wasteland of 2nd tier movies and old series. Yeah Friends is cool but who
cares about it in 2019.

Segmentation is the biggest problem. But that's true for every digital store
not just Netflix. I wish these stores were one unfied thing not US Netlix,
German Netflix, UK Netflix etc.

I know it comes down to copyright laws and such but the difference between the
countries is soooo big. Feels like you are signing up for a 3rd tier service
for the same amount of money

~~~
wlesieutre
From what I understand, "Netflix Original" means two different things:

1) Things that are actually Netflix's shows, like House of Cards

2) Things that Netflix bought exclusive distribution rights for in the US and
markets as "Original" just like House of Cards, but actually had nothing to do
with.

So it's less that Netflix sold the rights to local TVs and more that they
never had those rights to begin with.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
And that means that Netflix exclusives can go off the air due to poor TV
viewership. Dirk Gently, you were gone too soon.

~~~
mcv
Is Dirk Gently gone from Netflix?! It's one of the best things there.

I thought I still saw it listed recently. Maybe it's only gone from your
region and not mine, in which case I recommend a VPN.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
It's still there, but because the BBC didn't get a lot of traction with it in
the UK they canceled further seasons.

~~~
mcv
I frankly was surprised to even see a season 2. Season 1 was brilliant, but it
didn't seem possible to do a follow up that wouldn't be lame. I was wrong, but
I'm still happy we got these two seasons. I imagine it's pretty hard to keep
up this level of weirdness.

------
alistairSH
Yeah, this isn't surprising at all. I've run into it. Typical lazy weekend
evening... \- turn on AppleTV \- search for [year old hit movie or TV show] \-
brief happiness because it's available \- followed by annoyance because it's
available on one of the services to which I don't subscribe (or it's on
Amazon, but isn't Prime)

I have Prime, Netflix, and HBO and still run into this regularly. It's really
annoying. As soon as GOT is done, I'll likely cancel HBO - it doesn't add much
value. Netflix is hanging on, barely - every time I go to cancel, I find
something interesting to watch, and that keeps me for another month or two.
But, it feels user-hostile and with the price going up again, I'm that much
more likely to just cancel and be done with them. And I hate the idea of
relying on Amazon even more than I already do.

Le Sigh

~~~
koboll
>As soon as GOT is done, I'll likely cancel HBO - it doesn't add much value.

This is basically my philosophy with streaming services. I keep Prime because
it's useful all-around, and Netflix (for now) still has enough variety to keep
me as a subscriber (though I wouldn't be surprised if I jumped ship to Disney
later this year).

But beyond that, why not choose a la carte? I'm signing up for HBO when GoT
airs, and I'll binge True Detective in between, but beyond that I don't care
much about it. Hulu I signed up for a month and then immediately canceled;
watched all I cared to in that time. I binged Star Trek within the one-week
CBS trial period.

It would be nice to have a Mint-like streaming services dashboard I could use
to selectively toggle on and off various streaming accounts when I decide
they've built up enough content I haven't seen to warrant activating for a
month. There's a product idea for ya.

~~~
judge2020
> It would be nice to have a Mint-like streaming services dashboard I could
> use to selectively toggle on and off various streaming accounts when I
> decide they've built up enough content I haven't seen to warrant activating
> for a month. There's a product idea for ya.

I recommend JustWatch - [https://www.justwatch.com](https://www.justwatch.com)

Note: I am not affiliated with them.

------
dogma1138
Not surprised I have a Netflix and Amazon Prime sub I find myself downloading
the shows I pay for because it’s eaiser to have them in Plex than searching
for them on Netflix/Prime.

In the US it’s even worse as there are many more services available like Hulu
all of these really need to open up an API for searching and streaming so Plex
and Kodi can easily integrate with them.

The cost is also getting pretty steep with more and more services being
required for coverage.

~~~
crispyambulance
Yeah, it baffles me why Netflix, a company with deep pockets and enormous
technical talent, deliberately makes their search shitty and instead seems to
be pushing algorithmic "recommendations".

Their genre categorizations are a joke too.

Really, the only thing that their search (at least on the Roku) seems to work
for is Titles. Would it be too much to ask to be able to search against
director, cast, language, actors, date?

~~~
barrkel
Netflix is a hostile user application due to perverse incentives.

They see engagement as a proxy for stickiness, and similarly lack of
engagement as a leading indicator of churn.

So they implement features that look like they increase engagement, like auto-
play while scrolling, auto-play of next title, auto-play of a new series after
the end of a series. I don't know about other people, but they absolutely
infuriate me.

We normally mute Netflix on entry into the app because we know that it's going
to start blaring out of the speakers as the menu is navigated. And even the
menu can't be navigated in peace: I need to keep hopping between adjacent
shows to stop it trying to auto-play in the background with distracting
images. If I want to leave the remote idle, I need to exit the app or find
somewhere for focus to rest where it's not going to start playing something.

It's just one or two more "engagement" steps away from getting cancelled.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
> like auto-play while scrolling, auto-play of next title, auto-play of a new
> series after the end of a series

The only one I'm cool with is auto-play of the next episode after I finish
one, and even then it's iffy. Seriously though Netflix, I'm reading the movies
description, why would I also want to see the studio logos and listening to
the opening music? I can't even stop it as I'm not actually watching the
movie.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
> The only one I'm cool with is auto-play of the next episode after I finish
> one

I actually loathe this. I like endings. After the episode wraps up and the
credits finish scrolling, I want everything to naturally stop so I have a few
seconds to sit and process and contemplate.

You can technically turn off autoplay next episode, but the video will still
go into a tiny window as soon as the credits start rolling, with a big ad
encouraging you to watch the next episode. That's not how I want to consume
content.

~~~
ajmurmann
Can you actually turn this off on all platforms? I watch 95% of all Netflix
via PS4 and I cannot find an option to turn off any of this.

~~~
Lindby
It's available in your profile if you browse to it on a computer. The apps and
mobile web does not have these setting. The profile settings are global.

~~~
ajmurmann
That's such an evil pattern to not make this accessible everywhere out at
least on the app. I think I haven't logged in to the website in years.

------
ymolodtsov
"That’s especially true in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa, where
BitTorrent now accounts for 32% of all upstream network traffic." Here's the
thing — you can't legally watch HBO Now here. You simply can't access certain
content through streaming. That's also one of the main drivers.

~~~
yomly
Licensing by country is so infuriatingly backwards for what is supposed to be
a globalized economy. Maybe it made sense when you had fragmented countries
with their own separate distribution networks (and cinemas) but when it's one
provider direct to the end-consumer it's really just a relic of legacy
processes being incapable of adapting.

~~~
shanghaiaway
No, actually explain why licensing by country is backwards.

It's obvious and perfectly rational.

~~~
seszett
Well from the point of view of a user it's a real pain.

I really hate that now that I moved to Belgium, I have to use a VPN to watch
French TV, although before that I had to use a VPN as well to watch Belgian
TV. When I was close to the border I could still get most channels with an
antenna+tuner but not anymore. On the other hand, my Netflix account won't let
me watch some Belgian stuff, I have to close it first and open a new one here
(but then, some French movies will not be available to me anymore).

I can't even pay for watching what I want, my only recourse is using technical
solutions that are not available to most people, what does it actually
achieve?

Geographic restrictions are one of the most infuriating things on the
internet.

------
jerf
The solution I've been experimenting with is streaming rotation; rather than
subscribing to a dozen streaming services and watching a few hours of each
each month, this couple of months will be Hulu, this couple of months will be
Sling (sports, mostly, though lately they seem to be getting locked out of
more and more stuff too), this month will be this other service, and so on.

If the content is going to stay available, why have subscriptions to all of
them all the time?

~~~
patrickk
I know of people who do this for Sky Sports UK (traditional premium tv), who
hold the exclusive rights to many English Premier league games (soccer). When
the off season approaches, call up Sky and ask to terminate your subscription.
Either they offer you a really nice deal, similar to what new subscribers get,
or you quit for a few months and re-subscribe just before the season starts
again. There's more on Sky than just soccer, but obviously that's the main
draw for most people.

~~~
purple_ducks
With Freesat in the mix in the UK, the only other things Sky has going for it
are:

a) Sky Atlantic showing new HBO shows 1 day after HBO (no HBO in UK)

b) a slightly more polished EPG and recorder than the freesat/linux
equivalents though that gap seems to be reducing.

~~~
patrickk
Yeah I've seen projects like OpenVix running on nice hardware, e.g. VU+ tv
boxes where there's a nice UI that is a clone of the standard Sky menu.

------
zaarn
Nowdays, with a bit of elbow grease, piracy can be easier than Netflix.

In a purely hypothetical example, I could be running Sonarr and Radarr to gain
almot immediate access to any TV-type media release as soon as it's available.
I could feed the files into Plex and thanks to Plex Pass, I could then
download the episodes of my favorite show in the morning and watch them on the
go. If a show becomes unavailable due to legal reasons (Netflix' Star Trek
Discovery) or other reasons (removed from media library, not licensed or
license ran out), I would have a local copy. I could hook up bazaar to obtain
subtitles for all those would-have media files. I wouldn't have to deal with
resolution restrictions or siloing. It would be all in one app that contains
_all_ my media. This experience would be free plus the work I have to do
myself to set it up.

But the actual reality is that I have 3 streaming apps on my phone because
neither of the three offers all the tv shows, movies and anime that I want to
consume. Shows vanish for various reasons and I cannot consume them anymore.
They're gone. I have to put in actual work to discover where the current media
is best obtained and sometimes the price is too high. For this experience I
have to pay.

If Netflix and Friends want to keep people out of piracy, they need to stop
siloing, stop geofencing their offerings and start competing around the
service of media, not the availability of media.

Piracy almost always wins the availability contest. Piracy at the moment wins
for Geofencing and other DRM (there is none). Piracy doesn't silo my favorite
content. And piracy doesn't cost the end user anything, only the producer.

Now, I'm not advocating for piracy. I'd rather live in a world where piracy
wasn't necessary or even lucrative for the end user. It's very frustrating to
be stuck in the one where I throw money at the subpar solution.

~~~
xtracto
Regarding piracy, IPTV + PopCorn Time _really_ outplay having to pay for 10
different services.

Steam got it right...

~~~
spronkey
And now Steam is under attack from Origin, Gog, Epic games' store, Blizzard,
and all the other integrated storefronts that seem to be popping up. Sigh.

------
fredley
It's not just obtaining content, it's bloody playing it too. We have a
Chromecast, which works great for Netflix and works acceptably for most
domestic UK TV (BBC/Channel 4 etc). But it won't work with Prime, or several
other subscription things anyway, and I really resent being forced into buying
another media dongle just because the one I have has been crippled due to
these corporations' wankery.

Torrenting and streaming local content from VideoStream or similar works great
though, so as always, convenience is king.

------
CivBase
"Competitors" is the wrong word here. The problem is not competition, it's
exclusivity. I'm subscribed to half a dozen streaming services but I still
regularly find content that isn't available on any of them.

There's definitely some truth to the notion that piracy is a service problem.
Even without considering the costs, I really don't want to subscribe to any
more streaming services simply because I'm being forced to maintain accounts
and share payment information with so many entities.

It doesn't help that a regular subscription for a streaming service with only
one or two appealing pieces of content is simply a bad value.

~~~
pdimitar
Here in Eastern Europe torrenting is mostly done for the convenience. It being
free is secondary.

~~~
omnimus
I doubt that. Paying 30usd in easter europe is like paying 150 in US. That
isn't negligible

------
NotAnEconomist
I don't pirate... but I pay around ~$100 a month to say that (for video), and
_still_ don't have access to a fair bit of content that exists in silos.

For reference, that's buying: Amazon Prime ($10), two channels on Prime ($20),
Netflix and another streaming ($20), and a streaming TV subscription ($40-50).
Notably missing is Disney SVOD -- though some Disney content is carried by the
streaming TV.

Given the frustration of having to use multiple apps and services while still
not getting everything because of the massive fragmentation -- never mind that
most people can't afford anywhere near that a month on TV -- I'm not surprised
people are pirating content.

~~~
mxuribe
Minor point: I'm curious about someone paying for channels via Prime. I also
have Prime but no other channels via Prime...but because of a seemingly silly
reason: the Prime App is awful - both slow and buggy - so i would NOT want to
experience those other channels through the Prime app. I'll be honest I've
actually never tried to add/pay for other channels via Prime, so i'm making a
BIG assumption that they would play through the Prime App. My experience has
been quite positive with the netflix app, awful with Prime App, also awful
with hulu App, and so-so/not terrible with hbo's separate App....and these are
all via my dedicated roku 3 device. If you seem to have a positive experience
with those additional channels via Prime, curious to learn more about your set
up? Are using roku device, etc.?

~~~
NotAnEconomist
I'm deep into the Amazon ecosystem, so I use a FireTV Cube.

There, the Amazon video content is some kind of default invisible app
accessible as a tab at the top of the screen and via searches, so it sort of
"just happens". When I go to "Videos", there's just an extra lane of channels
I've subscribed to below my watch list and suggested content -- if I pull them
open, it brings up what's basically the home page again, but with only that
channel's content displayed.

It's not a great app, I think your description of 'so-so' fits the experience,
but it's better than some of the dedicated streaming ones (looking at you,
DirecTV and Funimation!)

------
dsr_
"BitTorrent usage has bounced back because there's too many streaming
services, and too much exclusive content"

Bzzt, wrong. The number of streaming services is fine.

It's the pricing that's the problem. Proof by reductio: if they were all free,
everyone would subscribe to everything.

People are willing to pay for convenience. They aren't willing to overpay for
convenience when they have free alternatives.

They'll pay $25/month for a service that combines Netflix, Hulu, CBS and
Disney into one searchable interface. Split them up, and people will drop or
not even start the ones they perceive as being lowest value.

~~~
GuB-42
> Proof by reductio: if they were all free, everyone would subscribe to
> everything.

Not even sure. If every time you need to watch a movie you need to make a new
account, with the usual form to fill, email check, all the little popups
telling you how to use features you don't need, the notification to disable,
etc... only to notice you didn't subscribe to the right platform, I think you
will go back to torrents rather quickly. And that's without touching
compatibility issues.

And then, you contradict yourself in the last sentence by saying "a service
that combines... into one". Acknowledging that you want a single $25/month
service, not just a discount if you buy all 4.

------
Gys
I often think of quiting netflix. I only keep it because its very cheap. But
their recommendation system is terrible (includes everything I already saw and
liked - why ?!), there is a very, very minimal description (I like to spend
more then 1 sec reading before I spend 90m watching), there are no ratings (if
imdb says less the 5.5 then I do not watch it anyway), etc, etc.

~~~
theklr
Do it. I left in October and haven't looked back. I get the library and all
but for the reasons you mentioned,I could not keep partially funding an
experiment.Although I miss the moments when they've had these releases land
into the zeitgeist, after the hype (and mediocre reviews) I realized it's just
FOMO and wait another month until I build up enough content I truly want to
watch.

------
jshaqaw
The whole streaming model makes little sense st this point. It is replicating
the cable channel system. The model which makes sense was/is an ITunes ala
carte system where you buy shows and movies you watch direct. Bundling only
works for the provider not the consumer. For a while the streaming services
like Netflix artificially made themselves look better than ala carte with the
standard tech playbook - offer a product below cost until you are an 800 pound
gorilla and can dictate terms. I don’t think the vast majority of newer
streaming services will make it.

~~~
eppsilon
A la carte might make sense if the pricing was more reasonable. I don't want
to pay $2-3 per episode to own a TV series I'll never watch again.

~~~
mentos
I agree with this, the other night I saw a show I wanted to watch but then it
proposed a $3 price to watch the episode which sadly turned me off. I laughed
like 'ha I guess I'm that cheap' turned off my tv and rolled over in bed to go
to sleep.

I wonder what price might have gotten me in that moment?

$0.50?

~~~
danillonunes
I would pay $3 for renting a single movie, but not for a show episode because
that would build up too fast. 10 episodes per season and that’s already $30
for one show.

~~~
asdff
TV on DVD was just as bad.

------
SketchySeaBeast
Netflix got me as it was the first, and it still provides decent value for the
money, as well as great 4k/HDR/Dolby Vision content. I'm thinking about
signing up for Prime as it seems to have a lot of content. That's about it.
I'll seriously consider the Disney streaming service because I am a man-child
and love the MCU and want to see the series on there, but I will not sign up
for CBS all access, Hulu, or Crave TV. It's all too much, and I'm not going to
pay another cable bill equivalent.

------
onemoresoop
I recently subscribed to Mubi. They have a curated selection of movies in a
list of 30 movies, every day a movie gets out and another one gets in. I think
it's around 8-9 USD per month and there's a week trial. I like revisiting
classic or arthouse movies so I naturally like their selection but I doubt
this is for everyone. The model however, could work with different audiences.

~~~
stevewillows
I was on Mubi for a while and really liked the 'one in, one out' system. I
typically watched the movies that were about two days out, regardless of my
interest. As a result I watched a lot of movies I never would had known about.

I don't think this model would translate to the less-obsessed, though --
especially for films that are easier to find.

------
pdimitar
This is particularly hilarious especially when you are in Eastern Europe.

For the longest time the myth that people pirate because they are cheap
reigned supreme. Then a few local TVs figured to make on-the-street interviews
and about 95% of the people said they torrent because it's easier and quicker
(only a minute chunk of them said "I already pay my internet bill, why should
I pay extra" which is IMO not such a flawed argument as claimed either).

Convenience is the biggest factor. Make something inconvenient and people will
just go somewhere else. It's as simple as that.

I wish the streaming services luck navigating the foggy mire of copyright laws
and exclusivity deals now. In the meantime everybody in that area loses
business to torrents.

That system is so tragically slow and sluggish that it eventually works
against its own interest.

This makes me smile. What makes me smile even more is that they will probably
just try to ignore the issue and will lose even more money in the process.

~~~
cirgue
"If your paid product is worse than the free competitor, people will continue
to use the free product until that changes." Netflix's value add for 90% of
people is content discovery and convenience.

~~~
pdimitar
Fair enough, but plenty of torrent trackers have very respectable dashboards,
like "Trending content" or "Newest additions", "Most downloaded" etc.

Agreed on your points, just saying that the free alternatives aren't doing
that bad themselves.

~~~
cirgue
We're very much in agreement, I should have said "only value add".

------
rchaud
The article correlates rising Bittorrent traffic with exclusive streaming
deals without showing any causality. Disappointing.

That being said, users are absolutely having to hunt and peck across different
services as the article said. And this is not a simple matter of comparison
shopping, as Netflix makes it impossible to actually view their catalogue
without signing up. Once you sign up, you realize that shows don't have
reviews anymore.

Finally, it's all too obvious now that Netflix's preference these days is to
dump all of its licensing deals and only have its own content on the platform.
It wasn't an issue with 'prestige' brands like House of Cards and Stranger
Things, but now there's a glut of straight-to-DVD-esque Netflix originals that
they constantly bug you to check out.

Honestly, if they ever drop Friends and The Office (shows with highly devoted
followings), they're likely to see a big dropoff in subscribers.

------
zozbot123
Honestly, given the sheer amount of high-quality video content that's
available from free, ad-supported streaming platforms _with no DRM to speak
of_ (indeed, you could _easily_ grab a copy of anything you wanted to keep for
the longer term - it's just that you don't even bother with that!), there's
very little reason to even pirate nowadays. Why would I want to support
consumer-hostile organizations like Netflix, HBO or the Amazon Video division,
even with my attention and by engaging with their crappy "content"? I'll just
keep watching stuff from the sites that don't pull any DRM crap. (In fact I
don't even bother with blocking the ads, they're reasonable enough and they do
a tolerable job of supporting creators.)

~~~
rdruxn
How is HBO consumer-hostile?

~~~
sliken
They have several channels on the roku, not sure why. It's painful to setup,
and it forgets the authorization every few weeks. Since there's not much
content I wouldn't run it often, but when I did it would pop up a code and ask
me to go to a website to approve it. Said website would bounce through the
comcast authentication page... but bouncing often didn't work.

When it did work it would take about 5 minutes of futzing around. I couldn't
watch it from firefox or google chrome running on my linux box.

The client would hang fairly often, I'd end up resetting my roku to clear it.

Netflix does it right. Auth lasts a long time (at least a year), the client is
generally pretty reliable, and I can watch from Linux, Roku, or Android as I
see fit. I can even download episodes on Android if I want to save on
bandwidth charges.

While Netflix isn't perfect, it does seem way less consumer hostile than HBO.

~~~
asdff
I wouldn't call that consumer hostile, I'd call it a shitty roku app. HBO go
is old school. They aren't going to autoplay bullshit the minute you are
trying to think of that movie you were meaning to watch. Their XBOX app looks
like it's from 2009, just simple bread and butter search + categories +
watchlist. Bulletproof.

------
arethuza
I don't know about piracy but I'm definitely thinking about getting a new
DVD/blu-ray player as even with Netflix, Amazon, Apple iTunes and BBC iPlayer
the choice available is still pretty restricted - particularly when it comes
to older content.

~~~
asdff
You can also rent DVDs and Blu ray for free from the library, and if your
branch doesn't have it you can have it shipped in.

------
isuckatcoding
Of course it’s much easier to pay for a cheap VPN and use one of those torrent
streaming services.

------
touristtam
Could that lead to a revision of the term of licensing and a unification of
regional markets (specifically in mature market like Europe)?

Purely rhetorical question at this point as the national networks are likely
to lobby to keep the statu quo.

------
HugoDaniel
"file-sharing accounts for 3 percent of global downstream and 22 percent of
upstream traffic, with 97% of that traffic in turn being BitTorrent"

Two questions:

1\. How much is 97% of 3% ?

2\. Why did the writer used such technique to make it sound big ?

~~~
larntz
1\. 0.3 * 0.97 = 2.91

2\. I don't think the author is trying to make it sound big, but they could
have worded it differently. I think the author is making two points:

> a. 3% of all downstream traffic is file-sharing traffic. > b. 97% of file
> sharing traffic is bittorrent.

------
Finnucane
This is one of the reasons we still pay for the Netflix DVD service.
Eventually everything shows up there, regardless of where it originated. If
they can get it on disk, they can rent it.

~~~
stevenwoo
I stopped the Netflix DVD service because even some Netflix streaming
exclusives do not show up, 13th was not available last time I was on there I
believe in November 2018, additionally my local library has the new
DVD/Blueray releases available around the same time my place in the Netflix
queue went from long wait to available.

------
wil421
Why are people still using file sharing and torrents?

Get a Usenet subscription, pay a yearly fee to a decent indexer, setup NZBGet,
setup TV automation with Sonarr, and Radarr for movie automation if needed.
Lots of Usenet providers include VPN, AT&T doesn’t seem to care FYI.

Setup Plex for a media sever, get plex pass, buy a USB TV tuner or HD Homerun,
and a digital antenna. Connect the HD homerun to plex for TV broadcast
automation.

Now you need to buy more hardrives because you ran out of space.

Edit: Great my comment is almost as bad as the Dropbox vs Rsync one.

~~~
iamatworknow
>Why are people still using file sharing and torrents?

>Get...pay...setup...setup...and...setup...get...buy...and...connect...buy...

That's why. Torrents are easier for people to figure out.

~~~
wil421
This is HN. I expect a technical audience who want technical solutions.

~~~
danso
The article seems to be talking about consumers in general, not consumers who
read HN.

~~~
wil421
I’m on HN taking to HN users. I’m sure the same article is on r/torrents with
less useful comments.

~~~
jasonlotito
You are replying to the main article, not an individual user. Therefore, in
context, your question "Why are people still using file sharing and torrents?"
is asking that of the people referenced in the article. Context is important.

------
hombre_fatal
Does anyone ever get "life is amazing but I choose to be angry" vibes from the
comments on this topic every time it comes up? Like letting yourself get livid
that you couldn't quite stretch your legs on a cheap flight that took you
where ever you wanted in the world.

I always scroll the comments in the hopes of finding someone frustrated at the
frustration, and I never find it.

For example, in these comments people assert that it's "user-hostile" that
Netflix's search shows you related shows for your search term.

Should it do a better job indicating that your target show wasn't found?
Maybe. Though I'd like to hear how you'd design that, because Netflix search
is essentially a multi-lingual keyword search across multi-lingual titles. Is
someone searching "funny" looking for the movie "Funny Games"? You'll notice
that Netflix tries to help you drill down into comedies.

It's "user-hostile"? Has anyone here not been in a group setting trying to
find something to watch, so you search something and someone recognizes some
other movie from the search results? I've never even been in a group setting
where anyone knew what we should watch, chaining through related videos seems
like the best UX.

Also, do we really need access to every bit of content under the sun for some
small monthly payment? Is that really the end-game? As a community of people
who supposedly appreciate the merits of decentralization, which company gets
to be that tollbooth of all content produced by humanity?

This topic generates so many strong opinions and anger at what seem like
inconsequential issues that I have to wonder how much of the problem is
Netflix and how much is merely our entitlement in a world where we have access
to more content than any humans in history, and how that makes us even
thirstier than ever.

~~~
sliken
The netflix UI is pretty user hostile. You can't control what sections you
see, nor what order those sections are. So it's maddening to even find what
you were just watching 10 minutes ago. When browsing they assume you want to
see the preview, and you can't turn it off. Nor can you browse only videos you
haven't seen.

You'd think they would want a nice clean interface where your recently seen
videos are always on top, and your favorite sections show only videos you
haven't seen. Sadly that's not possible. If they published an API for that
functionality I'm sure someone would fix that pretty quickly.

