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Comment by lookageek | Hacker News Reader

480p streaming which this plan offers will look absolutely pathetic in most Android phones (by this time has 98-99% share in India) which boast ever increasing screen resolutions. So I bet this plan has no takers for people who love beautiful resolutions on their phones which cost sub $300.

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1. 480p resolution is almost retina at about 20 inches distance on a 6 inch screen.[1] Maybe I'm part of a minority, but I find 480p quality to be totally acceptable for viewing on a smartphone.

2. Users in India access the internet via data packs and not wifi/broadband. Most are on a daily data limit of 1-2GB/day. Netflix uses about 1GB/hr for standard definition streaming.[2] So most users will likely be able to watch only 1-2 hours of video per day. Had they been streaming in HD, this would drop to about half an hour a day.

My opinion is that this is brilliant move by Netflix.

[1] https://www.designcompaniesranked.com/resources/is-this-reti... [2] https://help.netflix.com/en/node/87

I think we're beginning to see the emergence of the videophile, like the audiophile, in which a small minority of consumers become obsessed with video quality and pursue it to the ends of the earth, all the while illogically neglecting obvious issues like "Gold plated TOSlink cables are completely moronic"[1][2] or "maybe I should be buying bluray DVDs instead of streaming video onto my smartphone."

I don't think the GP is really exemplary of this, but I've seen it cropping up more and more. For instance people who insist on running their low-quality anime rips through numerous interpolators and scalars to knock 720p/12fps source material up to 4K/60fps, or similarly insane endeavors.

[1] Technology Connections brought my attention to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICcEOXVZ3F0

[2] https://www.amazon.com/s/?field-keywords=TOSlink+gold

480p isn't that bad, but then it depends upon what your used too. But way better than 640x480 resolution that many grew up with.

India consumers are really price savvy and look for value for money more than most people I know and with that, not as easily hooked into the fashion whims of society. Though that may well change as the average income rises.

I had a look at the best selling phones in India and https://www.gizbot.com/best-selling-phones/ and it is most insightful, of note - not one single Apple product there. Though I do recall Apple looking at producing phones locally - which would help in price as would avoid import taxation saving around 20% of the price and allow them to pass that onto the consumer. https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/apple-foxcon...

To add a counterpoint - think about a much bigger whale - Youtube - automatically upscales to 1080p when network and devices supports it. And Youtube in India is much much bigger over Hotstar and all other streaming providers. 80% of internet users of India use YouTube https://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/youtube-india-penetra.... You can see that people know their 1080p when they see it.

1080p Youtube is ~8Mbps and will go through the entire 1GB Jio daily data cap in 15-20 minutes.

Also notable is that several of those phones don't have Widevine Level 1, and don't get full HD content on Netflix on any plan.

I have been using this plan for a few months on and off (they have been trialling it for a while and it's also weekly billed) and I couldn't even notice any difference on my OnePlus 5.

I look at 480p movies all the time: good internet connection is not easy to find on the move. Honestly I don't care that much for HD as long as the experience is fluid and instant.

People who love beautiful resolution in India will be about same percentage point of people who love flying in chartered plane in US. So Netflix plan will likely work fine for target customer base.

> 480p streaming

Why are they doing this though? Saving data streaming cost?

That's the cheapest tier. Others tiers exist, perhaps an upsell opportunity.

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