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When I say Netflix sucks these days, I don't mean Netflix sucks compared to Amazon or Hulu. I mean Netflix today sucks compared to Netflix yesterday. It's gone from "Wow, I want to tell everyone about this great service with a constantly expanding catalog of wonderful stuff I'd like to watch" to having really slim pickings. Sometimes I'll look for stuff on Netflix and just decide to listen to an audiobook instead. The fact that Amazon and Hulu's subscription services are also weak doesn't make Netflix's content more compelling.

They had a great early deal with Starz to license their entire library at a fraction of what it would be today, and once that expired their back catalog never was the same.

Are all the starz movies now gone instead of an additional fee? I subscribed to netflix long ago when it was included for free along with mailed dvds. Then they started charging for starz and I found myself not watching much and cancelled my subscription.

I think you may be misremembering. I'm pretty sure, at least in America, Netflix never charged extra for for Starz — it was either included in Netflix's catalog or not offered at all.

Maybe you're confusing Netflix with Amazon, who do offer Starz as an additional subscription? Or maybe you're just conflating the Starz catalog with Netflix's streaming service, which was originally part of the DVD service and then became its own thing?

Thank you, I looked it up and you are correct. I must be remembering the "price" hike where the price was actually the same but we lost the dvd option (so we would have to pay extra for it). I'm guessing when Starz got dropped is when we cancelled and not the price hike then. I haven't used Amazon recently so I wasn't aware of their Starz plan.

Sounds like someone binge-watched themselves to satiation and is now projecting changes in their personal preferences onto the vendor that supplied their cravings.

My wife and I watch a movie together a few nights a week. That's my primary use for Netflix. I don't think "binge-watch" is a very accurate way of putting it.

We used to have a really long list, and still we'd find stuff that wasn't on the list that we decided to watch instead because it all sounded good. Over time, we only got to watch a a fraction of the stuff we'd added to the list, with the rest simply disappearing.

This isn't just a "feeling," it's both an actual phenomenon and to some degree a deliberate choice on the part of Netflix, which wants to focus on its own stable of Netflix Original content that it won't have to renegotiate for every few years. See, for example: http://screencrush.com/yes-netflixs-film-catalog-has-gotten-... (and note that the "before" number in that article is from after Netflix lost the whole Starz catalog!)

There are many titles now missing from Netflix. My 7yo has a hobby of being a detective so I went to look up Columbo on NF and found they no longer have it. A lot of their catalog is missing, Farscape for example.

I regularly use Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon and I disagree on the far superior UI experience. Amazon and Hulu have done a great job in recent days and I think has Netflix currently has the worst UI experience, at least on Apple TV. The Netflix app does a poor job of highlighting their original content separately from others (recently I searched for a complete list of Netflix Originals and could not find it on the app - the list I did find was incomplete). I also don't like how they organize content, or more specifically the lack of organization options. For example, it's very difficult to view only movies or TV shows - something I'd expect to be a common use case and Hulu makes very easy.

Content-wise I think Netflix is doing an amazing job, even if I cannot come close to keeping up. They're doing so well, it's harder and harder to track their originals you might be interested in.

Amazon's technique of mixing prime, and pay content is clearly a dark pattern. The way they display each season as it's own item is just annoying.

On the other hand I actually like Hulu's interface better than Netflix.

Really I wish they would agree on a standard streaming API, to enable 3rd parties to create UIs. Right now I find myself opening up multiple apps searching Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and Crackle to find something specific.

http://instantwatcher.com/

TiVo does a great job of unifying the search experience (including cable as well).

The Amazon UI on Xbox One is just awful, in my opinion. It seems like they are trying to compromise between being an avenue to watch your purchased videos and watching your Prime content and doing neither well. And the best part is, you can't buy anything through it, so if you want to watch a movie that you haven't already bought or isn't on Prime, you have to pull out your smartphone. Oy.

I prefer everything about Netflix's user experience on all devices EXCEPT the auto-play trailers on Roku. They are the worst invention in the history of UI! 1) It took me forever to realize they weren't the episode/movie starting. 2) I now have to rush instead of leisurely browse through the menu (unless I turn the sound off) 3) ULTIMATE SIN: There's no setting to turn them off! I actually dread going to Netflix now on my Roku and sometimes go to Amazon first (gah!) just to avoid that one aspect.

Worse, when you're browsing Netflix titles they now start playing (literally) random music when a show is highlighted for more than about 3 seconds. The music is very generic and is not related to the show in any way, except that it superficially resembles the style of the show (e.g., drama, comedy, horror, etc.). It's an incredibly stupid feature that serves no purpose other than noise pollution.

I recently spent two frustrating hours trying to get my Amazon rental to play in HD. Their player is atrocious!

(Eventually, I got it to work in Safari... somehow. Chrome wouldn't do it, and there was no feedback as to why.)

Possibly related to how Netflix streams in Chrome are 720p because Chrome doesn't support a certain level of DRM crap that Safari and Edge do?

It wasn't even 720p — it just stayed in SD for no reason! Mousing over the greyed out HD icon provided no information. Also, I had to fast-forward to the end of the movie on my laptop because it couldn't tell when I was switching to my iPad and vice versa.

Meanwhile, Netflix works consistently on all my systems with no issues.

That is strange, on android (and android tv) there is a dedicated row for netflix originals and it is usually at the top. There is also a netflix originals section when you want to look up movies / tv shows by category.

Amazon on Roku has a terrible UI. It can't suggest content well, it doesn't make it obvious what you've already watched, the descriptions are useless dribble which is surprising when Amazon owns IMDB. You watch a single kung-fu movie and your action movie suggestions get overwhelmed with kung-fu flicks. The separation between Prime and Amazon Video is easy once figured out in the app, but for casual users its a frustrating experience when the video they thought was included with prime is not.

At this point I'm still thankful Netflix and Hulu even have an Apple TV app - Amazon still hasn't made one for viewing video.

The Apple TV UI is the worst since they have to stay within the Apple world. The Samsung TV NetFlix interface is vastly superior.

Not just content but their tech. Very many of Netflix's new shows stream at 4K and they've started pushing HDR as well. Where Amazon's 4K HDR streaming is choppy and inconsistent at times (I think it's actually due to Amazon's mediocre Android app which runs poorly while browsing content), Netflix's 4K HDR streaming is smooth, works wonders and looks amazing. They're really pushing that boundary.

For me, it's the reverse. Netflix is really good at tailoring the feed to your bandwidth. I hate watching Hulu when I'm on the road because crappy motel wifi will destroy Hulu, and even Amazon is... weak. Netflix is like "Oh hey, you're not home anymore, are you? Let's just keep lowering the quality until there's no choppiness. Sorry everything's blurred, but that's the best I can do in Waynesboro."

My fiancees parents live out in a tiny country town with an awful phone line an internet connection. They can't really make landline calls, they frequently can't load a lot of websites, youtube is usually right out, but somehow they can always watch Netflix.

IIRC Netflix has preferred traffic agreements with a number of backbones and ISPs -- so it's Netflix that's actually killing everything else lol.

What is HDR in this context exactly? I thought it was these saturated images but that makes no sense.

Those saturated images you're thinking of started as HDR but to display them on a non-HDR monitor they had to be converted first. The conversion process uses various tricks like local contrast to make it seem they're still HDR.

This can look quite natural when done right. But some people like to crank the settings in the converter to make the images super saturated.

HDR is high dynamic range. Basically, TVs that support HDR can show more unique brightness levels between the darkest and the brightest. That means you can have more contrast in an image.

I haven't seen an HDR TV in person, but I've heard people say that it's a more significant upgrade than the resolution jump from 1080p to 4k.

I have an OLED 4k from last year. It was a massive improvement over my first generation Samsung 4k tv. It's insane how dark blacks can get and likewise how bright the lights are right next to darks. Most people are used to black being a shade of gray. That's starting to be a thing of the past now.

HDR in monitors means (a) very high white point (800 to 1000 nits) and a very low black point. It lets you see more detail in the highs and lows. Its kind of replaced 3d as the new buzzword to sell super high-end monitors.

Speaking as someone who knows pixels, HDR is the first non buzz thing that's been out for a long time. Try it before making quick judgements

It's great, or I would say if I could see it without shelling out $100 for some hardware that would have literally no other purpose than 4k Netflix. Not to mention, HDR is disabled in the drivers for any consumer video card. I would really enjoy the content, but I refuse to spend my hard-earned cash jumping through arbitrary hoops just because of proprietary software and DRM. Am I really asking for too much here?

In terms of hardware, sony has built in 4k and hdr streaming through its androidtv software. I hardwire from its ethernet port.

Yet I can't even get 1080p in Chrome or Firefox.

Netflix has awful user interface. I found out that i waste 15 to 20 min everyday browsing the same movies which i have rejected previously. There is no way to hide a movie. If you start hiding the movies on Netflix, you will find that there is actually no new stuff to watch most of the time. Also their rating system is horrible, they should tie up with Rotten tomatoes for actual rating.

They are currently in the process of updating their rating system. http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/16/14952434/netflix-five-star...

Their current rating system is flawed. I found many good one star movies on Netflix.

That is surprising. I've tried watching many 2-3 star movies and thought to myself "yep, this movie is shit" and stop watching.

Most of the people don't get Art films. For example this movie https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/raman_raghav_20/ This was one of the best movies i have seen in last 2 years. It was one star, now its 2 stars http://www.flixlist.co/titles/80115687

Most people don't like or care about art films. Important distinction. They watch movies and series to be entertained and to be engrossed with the story. Not to appreciate the subtle nuances and artistic style. So most people will hate 1-2 star movies (including me).

Just FYI, Zootopia is Disney.

> (far) superior UI experience.

Seriously? It's just a bunch of overlapping lists to bloat the appearance of lots of content. There are many things I would change about the UI. They should get out of the UI business and let us choose one that meets our needs, or better still, roll our own.

I agree there's a lot they could improve, but honestly they're miles ahead of so many others it's ridiculous. I'm in the UK and:

- BBC iPlayer is outstanding

- ITV player is terrible, I have to disable my ad blocker and then watch the opening ads a few times before it loads. Also needs silverlight..

- Amazon iirc will only play HD in some browsers, I can't remember if it needs any plugin. Also they have ads.. In a prime only thing.

- Sky Player (they have HBO :/) is terrible to navigate, silverlight, even more ads than ITV, low quality, awful.

Netflix isn't perfect but honestly their competitors are mostly atrocious.

I don't like how content appears & disappears on these services. I pay for them, but I also download things because I'm not interested in the vagaries of who holds what contract with whom at what time, I just want to watch things I like.

My main beef is if I try to look up any old movie ever, It's almost guaranteed to not be on Netflix. It's the first place I try and it fails every time.

I pretty much stopped considering Netflix as a source for movies. On the other hand, I watch TV shows on it all the time, and there's a great selection of shows. The downside is like every stream service, content randomly comes and goes (mostly goes) with no apparent rhyme or reason. This is what I hate about Netflix and Hulu. Stuff constantly disappears. I just wish the content owners would stop playing this game.

I don't think it's content owners playing games. AFAIK Netflix declines to renew content, even if the deal isn't any worse than it was last time, in order to devote the money to new content.

Netflix is not movie collection anymore. They become more like TV station on demand which is totally fine, because their original and acquired content is great but because of this pivot there is now small niche on the market for company that will serve wide range of featured, new and old movies in HD/4k on demand. Think Blockbusters or Apple Movies with monthly payments.

> For me, the stand-up specials like Dave Chapelle and Louis CK alone are huge and welcome additions, never mind the many, very good lesser known comedy specials on there

The reason there is so much standup comedy on Netflix is because it is incredibly cheap to produce. It probably costs between $50k-150k to shoot a special, comedian payout is also inexpensive in comparison and then they can stream it forever....

Rumor is that Dave Chapelle got $60m for the three specials.

http://www.tvguide.com/news/dave-chappelle-netflix-specials-...

Dave Chapelle is an outlier. Louis CK is probably in the millions too, but most of the comedians they have specials for are not in that category.

Wow, $60M for 3 hours of work must be a new record (I know prep takes longer than that, but still).

It's not just the prep, even though that material probably took a couple of years to develop in its entirety. When they sell a special like that to Netflix they know that anyone who's even slightly interested in their work is going to watch it and so they have to retire every bit of that material. It's still a great payout, but he can't really ever use a significant amount of that routine again.

Usain Bolt's entire Olympic career clocked in at just under 4 minutes...

It often takes 10-15 years on the stand up circuit to get to where they are

How many other stand up comedians that put in 10-15 years pulled in $60M for 3 60 minute episodes?

About 5

These days I enjoy all of the Amazon TV shows a lot more than anything Netflix does (except for House of Cards and maybe Fuller house and that other TV show I forgot the name of). I guess I am just not the target audience of many of the shows Netflix makes these days. For example, I am tired of superhero stuff that has tons of unnecessary violence (like very detailed violence).

So that plus the fact that most of the other shows on Netflix are useless in a sense made me cancel it.

So these days I enjoy shows like Goliath and Bosch and even Grand Tour, all which are Amazon Prime Shows.

My opinion is not that you are wrong that you prefer Netflix, but rather I am disagreeing with:

>Especially compared to any other streaming service, such as Amazon or Hulu, they continue to provide much higher-end content for my dollar, as well as a (far) superior UI experience.

Personally, over the years the UI of Netflix has gotten worse as well.

Finally, after almost five years of membership I cancelled my subscription with them since I found that I barley use them. I guess I will just sign up eventually for a month or two to catch up with the shows I mentioned, but that's about it.

I love Amazon's content. I just wish they'd quit being petty and enable Chromecast support again. Its not even stopping me from streaming -- I can cast the tab from my laptop -- it just makes it more annoying to use their service.

F#@K you Amazon, I'm not buying your streaming stick. Let me use the service I pay for.

A complaint is as important as a compliment you can't fix anything if you don't know what is wrong.

It's like when a waiter asks patrons "Is everything OK?" people say "Oh yes!" then when the waiter leaves they grumble that their food is burned and tasteless.

I find myself watching HBO Now almost exclusively. Quality over quantity.

I also disagree that Netflix has a superior UI. For instance, you can't even read reviews on the mobile app.

I often wonder this, too; how many hours of entertainment do you expect for $10 a month? My list of shows I want to watch on Netflix is way longer than my hours of show watching I have.

> as well as a (far) superior UI experience.

Did you ever see smartflix.io's UI? It was incredible.

Netflix on Apple devices has some DNS issues that cause the app to crash on startup 80% of the time which requires multiple reboots of the device and internet modem to fix. Other services don't have this problem. Makes me close to canceling it.