
Netflix's gamble pays off as subscriptions soar - panabee
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38672837
======
skrebbel
It bothers me to no end that audio tracks and subtitles aren't available
globally on Netflix. I live in the Netherlands but my kids are half Danish.
It's difficult to keep them exposed to Danish when not in Denmark.

Netflix has nearly all children's cartoons dubbed in both Dutch and Danish but
we can't access the Danish audio tracks from the Netherlands.

I had really hoped that a global service like Netflix would allow global
access to languages. I understand that show/movie licensing is per country,
but subtitles and audio tracks? _why?_ :-(

IMHO, this whole idea of "you live in $COUNTRY so you only get to communicate
in $MAIN_LANGUAGE_OF_COUNTRY" doesn't belong on the internet. Taking an IP-
based guess, sure, many websites do that too. But at least most websites allow
you to pick a different language if you wish. Netflix, not so much.

~~~
gcp
_IMHO, this whole idea of "you live in $COUNTRY so you only get to communicate
in $MAIN_LANGUAGE_OF_COUNTRY" doesn't belong on the internet._

As a Belgian, I can assure you the majority of the internet does not even get
that part right. I get websites in the wrong language _all_ the time.

PSA: The majority language in Belgium is _not_ French.

~~~
skrebbel
Yeah, the weirdest thing is that HTTP Accept-Language has been around for
decades and is usually configured correctly (to the OS system language). No
idea why people use geolocation for language at all, on the web.

~~~
pjc50
People in English-speaking countries are really bad at thinking about
localisation since they're not exposed to these issues personally.

~~~
gcp
Better hope the Chinese don't take over our economy any time soon, I'm sure
their devs have the same view on this.

------
gcp
Netflix is great when you have kids. Uninterrupted cartoons with no
commercials where you can pick suitable shows for any age group, properly
translated, always available. Their original series there don't seem to score
too highly yet (kids hate all of them aside from Lego Friends), but there's
enough on offer.

I did drop down to the cheapest, lowest end subscription though. I stream via
a Wii (kids don't mind the quality) and because of the DRM restrictions in
browsers, I also only get to see the low quality streams anyway.

I'm hoping the stronger position of their Netflix Originals can eventually
tone down the DRM crazy-ness.

~~~
dogma1138
Considering Netflix is tying DRM to CPU and only Kabby Lake PC's and later
will get Netflix 4K support outside of approved devices it's doubtful.

Also bare in mind that almost none of the so called "Originals" are actually
produced by Netflix.

What Netflix calls originals is pretty much "you can't see it almost anywhere
but on netflix", and this isn't even universal, this usually means that
Netflix has secured the primary broadcasting rights in a one or more regions.

This is why in the UK shows like Better Call Saul, Sole Survivor, The Expanse
and many others are marked as Original even tho they are broadcasted on TV in
the US and in many other regions.

~~~
throwanem
Unrelated to Netflix, but if you've watched _The Expanse_ and liked it, I can
really recommend the original novel series; the show covers roughly the first
half of the first book, _Leviathan Wakes_ , and the sixth book arrived late
last year, with at least one more still to come. They're an absolutely
brilliant combination of space opera and hard sf, and while I gather one of
the authors counts George R. R. Martin as a mentor, they are unlike him in
being able to keep up a timely release schedule. Along with Stross's "Library
Files" series, they're easily some of the best new sf I've seen in the last
couple of decades, and I can't recommend them strongly enough to fans of the
genre and especially of the show.

~~~
samlittlewood
did you mean Leviathan Wakes?

~~~
throwanem
I did! I mixed it up with the title of the latest, _Babylon 's Ashes_. What I
get for commenting before sufficient coffee to complete the boot process;
fixed, and thanks for the catch!

------
GotAnyMegadeth
I listen to all of my music on Spotify. Even though both the Windows and
Android apps are pretty terrible, they work well enough, the search works and
it has 99% of everything out there. I pay £10 per month but would happily pay
double if they put the price up.

I've never been content with any video streaming service, I even have Amazon
Prime for delivery reasons and that includes videos, but I don't use it. I
just Google for something and stream it illegally. The few that I've tried
just have such limited selections I find it frustrating. I also find the "you
might like" suggestions almost always terrible. Also Amazon Prime Video's
search is so abysmal it's always easier to steal than work out if you already
can legally watch it.

I'll happily pay £10+ per month when someone makes the Spotify of video, but
unfortunately at the moment Google + illegal is better.

~~~
thirdsun
> I'll happily pay £10+ per month when someone makes the Spotify of video, but
> unfortunately at the moment Google + illegal is better.

The situation is worse than not being able to stream: You can't even _buy_
DRM-less movies. Very much in contrast to music.

I buy lots of lossless, digital music that I truly own and can play anywhere I
want. I'd love to do the same with movies, but it's just not possible. Buying
a movie from a service that may or may not be around in a few years is not an
option for me.

------
arethuza
We just cancelled our Sky subscription because we'd eventually realised that
none of us was watching "live" TV.

I binge watched "The Crown" during a recent bout of flu and was deeply
impressed.

~~~
petepete
If I could do without sports and HBO stuff (Westworld, Game of Thrones), I too
would cancel Sky.

~~~
mcintyre1994
Have you considered Now TV? You get sky channels in bundles, live + catch up,
online or with a (very cheap) modified Roku box. The entertainment
([http://www.nowtv.com/entertainment](http://www.nowtv.com/entertainment))
package includes Sky Atlantic for £6.99/mo, and sports
([http://www.nowtv.com/sports](http://www.nowtv.com/sports)) you can choose
£6.99/day, £10.99/wk or £33.99/mo.

~~~
dancryer
We did this - Cancelled Sky in favour of Netflix + Now TV's Entertainment
bundle.

Not looked back, despite the many, many calls from Sky.

~~~
arethuza
Sky's main mechanism for customer retention appears to be call center staff
basically pleading to have you stay - a few years back when the bought the ISP
I was using the quality of service collapsed and I cancelled the account and
they kept dropping the price and wouldn't go away until I said I didn't want
their service at _any_ price (even free).

------
bgarbiak
I'm currently subscribed to Netflix, HBO GO and Canal+ (French/European
premium TV channel), and HBO GO has the best catalog, by far. The problem with
Netflix is that there are "Originals", and not much else. While the production
quality of these shows is superb, the artistic values are nowhere near what
the movies on HBO can offer. Which is a shame, because Netflix pretty much
nailed the user experience part.

------
legulere
> It has put some of its budget into non-English language shows, such as “3%”,
> a Portuguese sci-fi series. Intriguingly, Netflix noted that many English
> viewers opted to watch the dubbed version, providing an unexpected added
> audience.

I watched 3%, but as the English dub is really horrible (I'm used to really
great German dubs) I switched to Portuguese + subtitles after a few minutes.

------
Sander_Marechal
I wish governments would start with compulsory licenses for streaming
broadcasts, just like they do for radio. Original content is fine, but in a
few years you are going to need subscriptions to a half-dozen streaming
services just to view the things you want.

~~~
nicky0
Licenses for radio only work because governments have control over the means
of distribution (spectrum allocation). The internet does not (or at least,
should not) work like that.

~~~
pjc50
They already have "control" of copyright enforcement over the internet, they
can at least use this power for good to give us nondiscriminatory license
agreements.

------
dazc
Content has certainly improved of late but still not to the point where I'll
subscribe month after month. Amazon seems to have the edge (Prime extras
aside) since they fill a lot of the gaps with pay per view content that I
don't mind actually paying for from time to time.

~~~
cixin
Why not use iTunes for pay per view/purchasing content? Their library seems
very comprehensive.

I'm currently using Netflix and iTunes. I also have a prime account, but
there's rarely anything I want to watch (the exception being Mr Robot).

~~~
dazc
I don't buy anything Apple but, out of interest, is their pay per view
offering more economical than amazon's?

~~~
throwanem
Not usually as cheap, but the breadth of the catalog is remarkable. I'll go
with Amazon for price reasons if both have what I want, but it's not rare that
Amazon doesn't and iTunes does. (And Netflix almost never does. At this point
I'm keeping it for season 2 of _The Expanse_ and basically nothing else.)

------
posterboy
I was upset that only after registration I was informed there was no support
for linux. That's wasting the free month.

How can I get netflix to display on debian testing, out of principle without
chrome?

Supposedly it chrome works, but chromium didn't. Firefox is supposedly getting
support, but not officially and so it didn't work for me. I was thinking to
keep torrenting while paying, but actually the selection on the public
trackers is rather limited to new releases or lonely slow seeders. Avoiding
the hassle of finding sources and exposing buggy clients to _the scene_ is the
main advantage, but then the netflix selection is limited as well, which is
good for competition, I suppose.

~~~
loudmax
I consider myself a pretty hardcore free software enthusiast, and I'm okay
with using the Google-branded browser to play Netflix. My feeling is that if
you're playing copyrighted content, you're in the restricted intellectual
property space anyway. Netflix "owns" the rights to play these videos, so they
get to say what platforms they play on. It would be better if they played on a
fully open source platform (hopefully they will soon), but it would also be
better if copyright law wasn't completely insane.

Frankly I'm just glad I can play Netflix on non-Android Linux at all, because
that wasn't the case originally. For what it's worth, Netflix runs smoothly on
Google Chrome on my Arch laptop. Amazon prime also plays, though the interface
is clunkier. I use chromium as my default browser but I aliased nf='google-
chrome-stable [https://www.netflix.com'](https://www.netflix.com')

~~~
posterboy
> My feeling is that if you're playing copyrighted content, you're in the
> restricted intellectual property space anyway.

Of course, but it goes both ways, so the argument is indecisive at first
glance. Now you can go down a slight slippery slope and weigh each side of the
argument. But it's basically the only reason I am hesitant, so after all you
may be right. Surely, not finding the hoped for selection biased my opinion.
Yet before finding the player _broken by drm_ I had more great shows added to
my list than I currently could reasonably watch.

------
pawadu
Original content is great but I fear in a few years Netflix can more or less
dictate what we can see on TV.

And maybe Im in the vocal minority, but I prefer Friends and Seinfeld to House
of Cards or Orange and OItNB.

~~~
danielbln
You're comparing 90's sitcoms to modern hour-long dramas? The death of the 20
minute laugh-track sitcom is in no way Netflix' fault, is it?

~~~
pawadu
the article is about netflix removing bought content and replacing it with
their own stuff

 _edit: old - > bought_

~~~
gcp
The opposite of "original content" isn't "old content". It's non-Netflix
content.

