Rise of Netflix Competitors Has Pushed Consumers Back Toward Piracy
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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
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.
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.
"Netflix Original" clearly doesn't mean much. I think it'd be wiser for Netflix to reserve it for shows they actually own, so they can never disappear from Netflix.
3) Joint productions like Lilyhammer where Netflix partnered with a foreign broadcaster to produce.
So something like Lilyhammer that was a joint Netflix/NRK production means it's a Netflix Original in the US and aired on NRK1 in Norway, but it's actually produced by both companies.
The effect in TFA only really happens with fixed-cost, apl-you-can-eat offerings. (Amazon Prime is another.)
It's why people groused for years about a la carte cable, but nobody cares about McDonald's not serving Pizza Hut.
I'm not paying £7.99 on top of my existing subscription just to watch a 30-year-old movie I've already seen 15 times.
Sorry, I just meant to refer to Prime free shipping. That was super ambiguous of me.
I had a pretty high opinion of HBO from decades ago, tons of premium movies etc. I got a few months free from comcast and was surprised how little content there was.
On side note, I think there's a bit of a "look at this awesome thing you can't have" aspect to IP and content; this can be very frustrating, and has been one of the main reasons people turned to piracy (mostly people are just jerks though). There's actually some very understandable reasons why you'd want, or even need to carefully release in each region; however in other cases the attitude seems to be "we haven't figured out how to monetize this, so I guess no one gets it", "we'll need you to buy that again", or "you can't have this, because we want you to buy something else"
Please, do tell.
Then there's marketing. You need only look at examples like Blair Witch, or "Blumhouse Films" (eg. Paranormal Activity, The Purge), to see what marketing and word of mouth can do for a movie. Of course you'd like to see a bit of that magic (this explains why so many movies are marketed as "reality" / found footage), but in any case, you want to optimize the hype and buzz around a movie. This is a whole skillset, that may differ by culture, and can make or break a film. We're talking about millions of dollars here.
Now none of those things interest me personally. I don't "like them". I definitely don't like restrictions by region. However saying: "they have it in their country, why don't I have it yet?" is a bit like saying "they've made a final cut of the film, why can't I watch it yet?". They have this incredibly expensive asset that they're trying to maximize revenue on.
to my knowledge, legal stuff should in most cases be a nonissue as well. They could put everything behind the oldest age bracket (18/21 yrs old), which would probably be their biggest customerbase anyway. and if they did that, its gonna be the responsibility of the account owner.
the only reason that actually holds up is strategic. They do want to milk all brands to their maximum after all... but if thats the reason, they don't really have any grounds to complain about piracy.
This is coming from somebody who hasn't watched any TV/Movies in ~3 yrs now, because i didn't want to pirate and netflix / amazon video didn't have enough content i wanted to watch.
Why? I'm confused at how that could be the case; it's a big issue for most businesses.
> They could put everything behind the oldest age bracket (18/21 yrs old), which would probably be their biggest customerbase anyway.
You simply can't do this when the entire film is banned. This is also bad from a purely business perspective. Even if it's the biggest customerbase, it's a limiting factor which lowers the number of customers that can see it (this is mostly implicit, not legally enforced in the USA). Sadly, many films are being re-cut or re-written, so that they won't receive an R rating (definitely not the dreaded NC-17). That's why we have things like John McClain saying "dagg nabbit" and "gollie gee", instead of swearing.
> They do want to milk all brands to their maximum after all...
You put this far better than I did. Very succinct and descriptive.
> but if thats the reason, they don't really have any grounds to complain about piracy
You lost me here. These brands aren't cheap; lots of money goes into them. Businesses want as much money as possible, especially given the high cost and risk. I'm not a big IP fan, but it is their property. Saying I stole from you, because I don't like the way you sell things, and you have no grounds to complain isn't completely reasonable (DRM is the most legitimate gripe I have, but it's still not a perfect excuse). I appreciate your commitment to doing the right thing. Sorry for the dissection, I didn't intend for this to be rebuttal, but it kinda got away from me.
Platforms like Vimeo couldn't exists if it were an actual requirement for all video content.
And no, it's not a limiting factor. You're losing 100% of your customers if you don't stream at all in other nations. Even 10% is more than 0%. There are of course political movies that can, theoretically get the content banned in some countries. These are beyond rare in first world countries however, making this a non-issue for almost everything as well.
Finally: piracy is not theft. It never was and never will be. It is at best lost revenue and more likely not even that, as most people wouldn't have bought the content anyway. Ask the people that stopped downloading their content if they started buying the stuff instead... Almost everyone I know just gave up on it entirely.
The problem is industry conventions, which might seem self-inflicted, but are the result of public criticism. It's legal to show porn on cable, but most stations still heavily self-censor. NC-17 / Unrated movies won't be play in many theaters, or sell in big stores. You simply can't make a very successful NC-17 film in the USA. R rated movies make substantially less money, to the point that they've been trying to make less of them. I can't speak for other countries, but I'm pretty sure they censor, or have similar ratings that are avoided. Lots of stuff you dismiss as a "non-issue" seem like pretty big issues to me.
IMO it's very clear they are overdoing it. And their profits suffer from it. Nobody in that area likes losing business to torrents. But they keep pushing their luck and the result is very predictable.
> Lots of strategic, logistical, and legal stuff.
This goes exactly as well as "I want 2 months to refactor stuff so the code is beautiful". Not saying it's the same thing -- but it gets perceived the same. Basically: "lawyer crap".
These businesses are losing touch with reality. Distribution and geofencing are artificially created problems. This gives them much less credibility compared to the very simple and logical desire for convenience that the wide public exercises by going for torrents.
It seems sensible to force platforms with significant market power to open up and allow competing content to be sold on there too, maybe on a basis of costs-plus-fixed-profit for the platform.
Same thing in my country (United States).
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
One difference here in the UK is that I'm unable to even pay for HBO.
I wanted to watch Generation Kill the other day, it seemed like it was available on amazon prime but in fact isn't available in my region. My only option is to buy it for £2.50 per episode, which seems like a bad deal to me.
Sure you can. Sky (a.k.a. Now TV) carries most (all?) current HBO content in the UK.
Though I guess that doesn't apply to historic stuff like Generation Kill, which predates their exclusivity agreement.
Also the Netflix auto-play-previews thing annoys me, trying to constantly force me to keep consuming.
I'll probably cancel both soon.
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.
I recommend JustWatch - https://www.justwatch.com
Note: I am not affiliated with them.
Oh, man, if Disney really makes their entire catalog available for a reasonable price, I'm definitely going to pay for that. All of Star Wars, all of MCU, all of Pixar, not to mention Disney's own stuff and apparently 21st Centry Fox movies. That's enormous.
But most streamers are just too fragmented to care.
What they should do is have one universal streaming service on which content owners can offer their own content on their own terms, rather than those of Netflix.
My problem with Netflix is that it's being more and more user-hostile. It only displays shows it thinks I like, and not everything. And the top band does a horrid autoplay banner. I've still yet to figure out what elements I need to watch to disable that in HTML.
Hulu is also pretty hostile with lots of adverts, but a recent uBlock update fixed that. Now the advert timer goes from 30->15->0 but does black screen for a few seconds. But this service was for $1/mo for a year. After that, we'll cancel unless offered a similar deal.
But I certainly get the piracy angle. I don't want or need 6 streaming services. I wanted 1 or really cheap ala-carte. Instead, it's "Subscribe to Cable, and pay for streaming extra" for a lot of shows. And no.
It only takes three services to reach my prior cable bill and maybe four or five to hit the bigger bills when you roll it all up. so some kind of change will need to happen to keep it sustainable, either these networks are going to need to drop prices of group up. the smaller players will end up together sooner or later or just go bust. It is like when PTEN; Warners Brothers; tried to launch their channel. The had a few shows but fluttered out within five years
Or maybe people are just too lazy and they won't have to bother. I have to say I'm shocked and amazed at how many families of modest means, generally pretty frugal, have cars that need repairs, and try to fix things themselves whenever possible, but happily pays $150 a month for cable.
Is GoT currently running?
For years, I got HBO during the months GoT was on, and cancelled afterward. During season 7, they stopped offering in Netherland except on one cable provider (not mine), so I had to resort to alternative means. No idea why they decided they didn't want my money anymore.
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.
???
If it's easier just to have them in Plex, why would Plex need to search Netflix?
Serious question. I'm not a Plex user, but the first statement made me think about switching for a moment. Then you made the second statement about Plex needing an API to search Netflix.
So I'm genuinely confused why that would be?
And you know what even if you aren't going to stream through the Plex app itself which is easily achievable how hard it is to just make the search API accessible and then simply have links like netflix://f9dd2846-cda5-49a0-bb19-fb9ba5b0521d for one click streaming?
The trailers, recaps and episode data is publicly available any how e.g. https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/70300800
All I want is for a basic API that would allow you to search then use these links to launch the stream through your account I don't care in which app it actually streams, this can be solved by an intern in an afternoon and it's mind boggling why it hasn't been done yet.
This is such an ignorant thing to say. Do you really think it's not done yet because it's so hard to do? It doesn't make any sense business wise for them that's why the public API they had got shut down for everyone except a selected few. Making everything easily accessible and comparable by making it easy to get the data out is most likely not what they are focusing on.
You also don't need an API for their deep urls as you can just build them yourself: nflx://www.netflix.com/watch/<Netflix ID>. This opens the app and plays the video.
It’s much easier for me to automatically download and add all the shows into Plex and use its library management for all media.
If I had a legal way to do it I would, Plex has plugins for example I watch NFL trough a plug-in which is linked to my account, I also watch BBC content through the iPlayer plugin, as well as other content such as podcasts for example from multiple sources.
If Netflix and Prime has an official plugin that would allow me to link my sub and add that content to the Plex library I would do that in a heartbeat.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Even if you've turned off play next episode, it will still auto-play the first episode in a different series after you've finished the last episode in a series.
The Wii U Netflix app didn't support autoplay for the longest time, but then they finally updated it, and I can't downgrade.
The reason seems obvious to me. They want to mask their lack of content. It always seems that Netflix is trying to discourage search. I guess that's because there's a good chance whatever movie/tv show you're trying to search for won't be available. Netflix only has 35 movies out of IMDb Top 250 [1]. Pretty sure the number is even less for other countries.
[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/9gksft/netflix_only...
If looking for something to connect to a TV, I recommend a roku. They are the Switzerland of streaming, wife/kid friendly UI, and don't compete. The rest of the streaming world is pretty conflicted. Sony/Microsoft, Apple vs world, Netflix vs world, etc. Not only are there more channels for roku than anything else I've seen, the implementation of the client seems noticeably better. In particular the netflix UI on various other platforms like various smart TVs is pretty terrible.
They seem to have elevated the prominence of the "continue watching" so that it's in the top three bars shown, but even that fact is ridiculous -- the obvious order should be "continue watching", "watchlist", and then start in with the recommendations. I have no idea why they make it so hard for me to watch things that I've declared an intention to watch. Why even have a watchlist in that case? Is it just a holdover from a previous design that they are no longer really interested in supporting?
Controversial term here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_the_Czech_Republic
It's obvious and perfectly rational.
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.
But you are wrong, the vast majority of Netflix content is licensed and not an original product.
These licenses are sold for regions and countries the same way cinema, DVD or terrestrial programing licenses are sold for specific movies and shows.
They are sold by major distributors like say MGM to clients like Netflix (not really, there's a literal global hierarchy of distribution houses). So say for my country of Croatia, a distributor will offer to sell licenses for their new movie to all the cinemas, and after that to say ALL the digital distribution channels: pay-per-view, Netflix, HBO GO and others.
Basically its not a "a relic of legacy processes being incapable of adapting",why would they adapt? Its literally the business model of the 5-6 major american distributors which makes them boatloads of money even as Netflix tries their hardest to disrupt them. It took decades to build and spread across the world and works perfectly for its purpose: sell loads of movie licenses to all kinds of distribution channels.
If the content is going to stay available, why have subscriptions to all of them all the time?
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.
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.
Steam got it right...
Torrenting and streaming local content from VideoStream or similar works great though, so as always, convenience is king.
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.
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.
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!)
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.
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.
Not necessarily. Having 15 different apps/ways to access content is annoying too. And of course nobody integrates with anybody because they're all competing so why boost the competitor's offer? But yes, if on top of that each of them costs $10-15/month, that's a deal breaker. I'd just subscribe to one that has the most content, and that's it. Maybe sometime in the future they'd get the right idea and learn to play nice... doesn't seem to be happening so far.
I wonder what price might have gotten me in that moment?
$0.50?
I don't think this model would translate to the less-obsessed, though -- especially for films that are easier to find.
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.
Agreed on your points, just saying that the free alternatives aren't doing that bad themselves.
I would be interested about your reasoning?
The fact that you bought plates and cutlery means that you should have food for free?
I don't intend on convincing you because I am not exactly on the opinion expressed above. It's just that many regular folk view things that way -- to them, having paid their internet bill means they can do whatever they want with it. That's not my reasoning. It's the reasoning of a [allegedly small] part of the people out there.
If streaming services or anything that costs extra had a way of adding to your ISP bill -- in the same way as buying apps from Google Play / AppStore adds to your carrier bill does -- then I believe more people would subscribe to streaming services. Alas, it's not happening.
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.
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.
Purely rhetorical question at this point as the national networks are likely to lobby to keep the statu quo.
Two questions:
1. How much is 97% of 3% ?
2. Why did the writer used such technique to make it sound big ?
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.
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.
>Get...pay...setup...setup...and...setup...get...buy...and...connect...buy...
That's why. Torrents are easier for people to figure out.
Maybe I don't want to.
My solution: Download torrents, SCP them to my Plex box, done.
Also: > pay a yearly fee to a decent indexer
"Why would you get something free? Pay instead!". I already do that, it's called Netflix and Amazon Prime. Plus, the only step those have is "get smart TV, connect TV to internet".
Plus the Usenet servers are usually much faster than torrents. With Gigabit I am seeing much faster speeds.
(Not to speak ill of your normal person, just that those skills are esoteric and provide little benefit to most people to say the least).
Why in the hell would anyone do what you suggest, technical or not? A torrent client and about four lines of bash will do the job without Mr. Goldberg's mouse pushing the ball down the ramp to turn on the toaster, to heat the gas in the balloon...
IMO, you're making complexity for the sake of doing so. Regardless, if that's what it takes to watch video media? I'm going to go learn to play the banjo.
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.
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.