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Comment by RHSeeger | Hacker News Reader

I feel like the odd man out, with everyone shitting on Netflix and it's original content. I love my Netflix subscription. There's tons for my (young) daughter to watch. There's tons for my wife and I to watch (Sabrina, Daybreak, Magicions, Badlands). There's tons for me to watch without my wife (mostly anime, etc). Sure, some of the shows are cheesy, but some aren't, and I like the mix.

They don't have every movie I want to see, but they're also not my only source for entertainment. As one source of multiple, I think they're great. I can't think of any service that would be good for a single source of entertainment.

I honestly just don't understand the hate.

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There is also a good amount of foreign shows that I would never have given a chance that are really great.

Black Spot, Dark, Nobel, etc. British shows like Peaky Blinders, Doc Martin, Bodyguard, Sherlock, The Inbetweeners, and especially Broad Church.

Before netflix I would never have given these shows a chance and indeed I cannot think of a time I have watched a foreign show before this besides Luther. Netflix has done a great job of surfacing these at least to me. No idea if I represent the normal TV viewer.

One fascinating thing that I appreciate about foreign tv is that the main actors for many of them don't look like models like in the US but just regular people, flaws and all.

I disagree pretty strongly. It has felt like Netflix is deliberately pushing more foreign language content with bad dubbing and often the structure and execution is pretty amateur (eg Ares). They seem to rely on the mere fact it is foreign for it to be bought into as indie or cultural, but the shows are just bad.

It strikes me as s deliberate marketing tactic. Instead of investing in creating nice, acclaimed dramas, they put that money into relatively more garbage shows that cater to mass audiences and try to find shortcuts to repurpose that content and repackage it to “kill two birds with one stone” and cater to the indie niche with it.

But the tactic doesn’t work, and now my Netflix menus are filled with super frustrating noise of these foreign shows, often which you can’t tell are foreign until you press play. It has made the platform nearly unusable to me.

The crazy thing is that I love a lot of foreign movies and shows. Amour, You Are the Apple of my Eye, Burning are some of my favorite films. But the things Netflix is pushing on me are more like network-level crap dramas with a clear attempt to make you feel like they are fancy merely by being foreign.

I think that's just a side effect of them becoming a more global company and producing content for different markets but just throwing it all up worldwide.

Would agree their dubbing is universally horrendous. Even for something well reviewed like Dark.

One reason why I’d still disagree is that Netflix heavily engineers personalization into their recommendations and listings. You’re not accidentally seeing those foreign titles, you are being targeted with them... which means you’re not being targeted with similar English language shows that would be as good a match in their system (because they would rather save that production money and try to get you to watch the already-made foreign show), or even less good shows in your language of choice.

For me it’s very nearly at a level of canceling the service. Their original content hasn’t been compelling for me personally in many years, and now it feels deliberately manipulative.

I certainly don't hate Netflix, but I've discovered that, possibly unsurprisingly given the streaming landscape, the shows that I want to watch are increasingly scattered across other services. Currently I'm watching a few shows on HBO, a couple on Hulu, a couple on Disney+, a couple on CBS All Access (no, not just Star Trek, it turns out), and even a couple on Apple TV+. This leaves me with these problems regarding Netflix:

- Their "drop everything at once and binge" model means that I don't have to go back there regularly to check out new stuff, especially since there is always "new stuff" coming in just from the shows I'm watching elsewhere;

- Because they won't play with Apple TV's "Up Next" (and I presume they don't with other systems' equivalents), they don't even get to push ads in front of me when I search for new things unless I specifically go to their application to search;

- I hate hate hate going to their application to search because of their insistence on playing previews with sound constantly;

- Last but not least, Netflix is the second-most expensive service I subscribe to behind HBO, and that's without paying extra for the 4K that every other 4K-capable streaming service includes as part of their standard plan.

I know a lot of people cancel streaming subscriptions and then sign up when they have something specific to watch. So far I haven't done that -- but if I start, I'm very likely to start with Netflix.

Netflix focusing hard on original content while simultaneously fighting against the discovery services built into my Apple TV is mind-boggling.

I have shows I’m watching on Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, as well as ones I’ve purchased from the iTunes Store; all of which show up nicely in my Up Next list. It’s the first thing I go to when I fire up my Apple TV to watch something, and as a result unless I have been binging something recently anything on Netflix gets put on the back burner because I have to go elsewhere to look for it.

The Apple TV app already shows results for Netflix content, but without better integration I have to remember to go back to pick a show up. I actually cancelled Netflix at the end of December because discovery was such a chore, I just resubscribed last week to check out The Witcher and watch Altered Carbon when it returns, after which I’ll likely drop it again.

As an aside, I got a year of Apple TV+ free when I activated my replacement iPhone XS. I am rather surprised at the quality of content Apple has put out and the rate they are expanding their library. I may we’ll keep this one around if they keep it up.

At this point I view Netflix as a basic cable (minus sports) substitute. Tons of mediocre but relatively engaging content, with old movies and some reruns. The fact that there are (almost) no commercials and the price is far lower than a cable package makes it worth it for a lot of consumers.

Same here. My partner and I have always got something to watch. We use netflix on average 5 days a week and enjoy what we watch.

Right? I've had Netflix for nearly 10 years. Not once have I not found new, interesting stuff to watch.

The Magicians is such an amazing show. Modern gritty, but awesomely fun adult fantasy series. It is one of a few recent shows from ScyFy that they got right (Magicians, The Expanse, Killjoys)...etc.

Yep, Magicians made a connection with me that few shows have in a long time. There’s just something so human about every season, but still out there and fun/funny. I hope if they end this batch of storylines that they start up a new sequel to the show.

But back on topic, Magicians isn’t a Netflix show. But they’d be smart to purchase it from SyFy if that were to become possible.

I watched the first couple seasons of it on Netflix. I only figured out it wasn't a Netflix show after that. Same thing happened with The Good Place (which is amazing).

I did the same for the good place. Good point. Netflix can and does act as a springboard to that kind of stuff - some could miss out on the magicians or the good place and other such shows if they didn’t find them first on Netflix.

I recently feel like I’ve watched all the good shows on Netflix already. I sometimes browse the online rankings or Netflix home page for half an hour and then, due to lack of interesting content decide to re-watch the show I’ve already finished. I’ll probably switch to HBO Go, or just torrents.

Same. Netflix has more stuff that I want to watch than I ever will watch.

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