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Comment by tehlike | Hacker News Reader

You can always pay 9.99 or whatever the price and cancel after one month. Still cheaper than movies.

Not so sure it's cheaper in France. There are many ways to go to the movies for much less than that. There is some kind of subscription that's very popular in Paris that lets you go to any movie in about half of the theaters (including independents) for a monthly fee, and a few times a year there are weekends when the movies are 2-3 euros a pop.

Thus said watching a movie on a laptop screen in your apartment is hardly the same as going to a proper cinema.

But going to a "proper cinema" is a lot less enjoyable than using your own 4k screen with good audio, comfy seating, homemade snacks, no other audience, choice of language and subtitles and the possibility to pause it if needed. Let's not forget the choice of the exact time you watch it and you don't have to get dressed too.

A fast PC, a 4K screen, a nice home, paid streaming service subscription, paid ISP subscription and snacks. I believe France to be a bit more socialist (in the same way as Scandinavia is) than some other countries and it's possible also that the 'draconian laws' as YC comments insist on calling them, are there to level the playing field for all?

Plus you can make your own popcorn for $0.35, instead of getting juiced $12.00 for a bowl-full.

So we don't need cinemas anymore because instead of $11 for a cinema everyone could pay $10000 for a home cinema system and get the same experience. Makes sense...

You forgot that the first month is free :)

With the added costs of owning a PC good enough to stream and being on a paid for network good enough to stream, which might not be available in a lot of the French countryside where a bicycle ride or a short trip on public transport is more affordable. The cost is far greater than 9.99. Not to mention that French cinema sees itself as 'art' and a laptop screen can't do the director justice.

Netflix, in some countries has an option to download movies. And most PC's are good enough for 1080p.

This doesn't make sense.

A Chromecast is 35€.

A 7 year old laptop is perfectly capable of streaming and a HDMI cable to plug your laptop into your existing tv is 10€.

11.99€ for the "UHD/4k" subscription, my local cinema costs 7.80€.

I agree it is still reasonable but I feel that a limited release would be better as a subscription for a single film is pretty dumb IMO.

Yes, but general public doesn't know this and Netflix is not going around advertising this with high priority. Getting/Cancelling the subscription on a per movie basis is not the intended use of Netflix anyway, so it's gaming the system and netflix allows it.

The general public doesn't realize they can sign up for a month long subscription of something and cancel it? Are you serious?

How is that gaming the system at all?

Psychology 101:

People sign up for just a month. Don't cancel immediately after watching the movie they want, because they want to use the paid month in full. After two/three weeks the brain phases out the expiration date and the subscription renews.

"But reminders!" the reader would complain so let me preempt that: not many person actually set reminders for this kind of stuff - part because 'it's only a month' part because not everyone is as phone dependent as techhies and mbas types. For internet and social? Sure. For reminding every little detail in life? Hardly. Especially since outside apple setting a reminder is still a subpar experience.

To be fair, you can cancel Netflix and then continue using it until the end of your current subscription period. I would have thought it would be illegal to withdraw the service early as punishment for cancelling.

Netflix seems to try to provide a good enough service so that customers want to extend the subscription, rather than relying on customers forgetting to cancel. Very irrational of them as we all know capitalists try to scam everyone first chance they get.

These are truly first world problems.

France is first world, isn't it?

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