Netflix Officially Adding Commercials | Hacker News Reader

Netflix Officially Adding Commercials

popculture.com

75 pointsdonohoe73 comments

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If I see one ad, I guarantee I cancel and download elsewhere.

Same.

Same

same

Same

same

Same

https://youtu.be/7zjq7ktX8T8?t=18s

same.

Same

Same.

If this happens, or they try to raise the price to be ad-free, I'll cancel and wait for the DVD to become available.

We have some DVDs for our kids - they're the worst! They are frontloaded with 20 mins of ads which my kids can't figure out how to skip. They hate it and it's unbearable.

same

I'm already on the verge of cancelling Netflix because frankly, their library sucks. I cannot even remember the last time I saw a remotely entertaining original movie, of the hundreds they have. Their shows are a little better, but too few and far between. Seems they've been hedging a lot on poorly dubbed foreign films, again, don't watch.

So yeah, showing even a single ad is just the fire I need to remember to cancel.

I agree and I wonder if this is a problem that is Netflix's creation, or the movie/tv studies creation. Of course it's probably both.

But I just don't think the way culture is moving in the US is that compelling to the rest of the world (and for many in the US). And in that way both netflix and most TV shows are based on cultural values of california.

I'm not in the US and the way almost any US movie/show has to bring the race question into it is super annoying. And I don't even mean the character make up, like fine, I don't give a shit what race actors are, if they are great actors. But literally every story always has to go into race somehow, every film somehow has references to who's black and who's white. Frankly it's racist but reverse racist really, it's pretending to be culturally sensitive but in the end you are still making everything about race, i.e. racism.

I don't care. Stop it. I don't care about racism or about the colour of people. Leave me alone and show me a good story.

Streaming services aren't social networks with lots of user generated content, that probably matches to the country where people use it. At least it's much less that. You can't force people to like California culture if they don't.

I think the problem is that certainly as of late, it's always so on the nose, and about as subtle as an airhorn. It's like on Friday afternoon they thought "oh fuck, we need to do something about race! [feverish typing] Done! Off to beer!" By inserting these things so forcibly I don't think you're really doing anyone any favours really, least of all Black people.

You're not their target audience.

I'm in the US and many of us are sick of it too. Not just black/white, but every minority group and minority issue is in our face 24/7. I'm in a minority group and am still tired of it. My solution is to quit listening to radio in the car. I had already stopped TV news years ago. Now I get my news from HN, believe it or not.

The library for every streaming service sucks now due to fragmentation. A Usenet and indexer subscription are way cheaper and have a full selection and no ads.

They are also illegal

I don't think using them is illegal in Canada at least. My understanding is that distributing copy-written content is illegal (it's a civil issue and they need to prove damages) but downloading is not in any way illegal.

Bingo - Usenet is download only, Bittorent is distribution.

Myself, as a Canadian - I have been hoping that a copyright holder would actually take someone to court here after our laws were changed, to actually test the lifetime maximum "damages" amount of $5,000.

shrug

It sounds like they'll charge extra to avoid the ads. Based on other services, it'll be like $5 a month.

I'm still trying to figure out why advertisers would want to exclusively target Americans with under $5 / month of disposable income.

My big fear is that they'll make tracking and selling profile data mandatory. If it comes down to it, I guess other sources of Netflix content exist.

They’re just targeting people who think the ads aren’t a big deal.

I know people making massive money who sit through Youtube and Hulu ads. I’m the only person I know who subscribed to Youtube premium it seems.

So, plenty of people to target with ads. Even HNers making big bucks.

Ads are their own form of entertainment.

"Workhuman" or whatever it is always amuses me with how freaking tone-deaf the ads are.

My old housemate use to complain when I switched from watching a movie on free-to-air tv, to a streaming service. Mainly because he liked the ad breaks as they allowed him to get snacks / water / toilet break etc.etc. I would say when you want something i will pause, but he wouldnt say its the same.

The ever present war between Coors, Miller, and Bud Lites.

because a lot of fucking people in the US are that price sensitive, for many reasons.

I have Netflix but I still download Netflix shows online from a different source because it is more convenient... and there will not be any ads

I wonder how common this is (I do it too). I'm finding it hard to make an educated guess.

I don't download them, but I watch it on other streaming sites. I figured I already pay for the subscription for it so it should be okay. The reason I do it is simply convenience. Netflix UI isn't particularly good and I absolutely loathe their auto-playing thumbnails with audio. So the interface has little sway for me when content is the same. I also do it for Disney when I cast to my TV. For some reason, their decoding is always messed up. All the colors are green, so I have no choice but to use another source. I pay for Disney subscription as well.

Just curious, how is it more convenient? I assume you have a device that can’t stream Netflix? Downloading off of Netflix I believe you also miss out on Dolby Atmos, Dolby Vision, etc

you can use VLC or Soda Player to cast anything (mkv, mp4, whatever) to a Chromecast enabled TV. Chromecast has been breaking subtitles recently though

I use netflix for netflix, however I miss how simple plex is sometimes because the continue-watching feature on netflix is an unreliable piece of garbage and since they want me to see the shows they want me to watch, the show I'm actually watching is always below the fold.

with plex it's just 1) open plex, 2) click play, and I can continue watching in peace.

It could be automated with something like sonarr.

I've been downloading the same way since way before Netflix started, that might be part of it but also, I used to have issues playing Netflix in Linux (last I tried). I also like not having to deal with their app or their app changes (I can use any video player and transfer anything on mobile if I wish). And lastly, I can keep a recording of what I liked even if it disappears from netflix.com (IE: "Netflix’s US Catalog Has Shrunk by More Than 2,500 Titles in Less Than 2.5 Years").

For me, I also prefer watching downloads with Kodi than using my paid Netflix account.

The main reasons: - audio sync issues are fixable while the film plays, it's almost impossible to get Netflix audio to be frame perfect (and I'd much rather have lip synced stereo than any of those multi channel sounds) - I really hate the "skip intro" button that Netflix shows on almost anything. (as well as messing with the end credits). To really enjoy a show, I need to watch it outside of Netflix. The Netflix UI is optimized for background noise, not something you want to watch and enjoy.

I have Amazon Prime but they don't have anime dubs. I too have to use a different source because of this

The Netflix ui is horrible, their offer is lackluster, the recommendations are useless and now this. For many subscribers any ads or any extra cost will be the final push.

Good timing on the heels of them losing subscribers for the first time and a pretty large dip in stock price.

Based on the content of the article, seems obvious they're adding ads to a new lower tier / free tier plan. This is what most if not all competitors do. I don't see the big deal, it's not like they're going to inject ads into the current tiers.

> it's not like they're going to inject ads into the current tiers

They will have a "limited ads" tier to replace "no ads" within 5 years.

People that have extra disposable income to avoid ads are very valuable to advertisers.

If they do they are going to lose massively subscribers.

It may depend on how the whole ecosystem evolves: if the competition starts doing similar stuff, then you would have no alternative but to stick with one of them and accept the introduction of ads.

That's the funny thing about oligopoly, you know...

P2P doesn't have ads and doesn't look like it's going away.

The success of Netflix came as it was more convenient to use it than to download. If all streaming service are not seen as convenient everybody will be back to "old" download strategy.

You are in a bubble if you think the average netflix subscriber knows how to download using bittorrent or usenet.

And did those who knew and were inclined to pirate ever really stop?

Cancelled today and not looking back! Will focus on platforms with fewer, highly curated shows (and no ads).

Also - interesting to see Netflix not grasping how low quality their brand is becoming. Or grasping, and going all in nonetheless...

Eemember there's tons of content available with a library card.

At this point I don't get why you wouldn't just pirate the movies / series. It's cheaper [0], you have a bigger library, you don't have to pay extra for 4k and, overall, you get a better service.

[0] You can easily find a seedbox ~5€ with 2TiB of storage and upload bandwidth

Streaming services should abandon monthly subscription paying method and let me pay just for time I actually spend on consuming their products. It is ridiculous to pay multiple streaming services for content that I consume rarely.

I'm able to watch 5 feature films in month, which means approximately one film from one streaming service (HBO, Netflix, Apple, Disney...). Together it is around 55 USD (11 USD per feature film) in my country. Not to mention that about half o films I have in my watch list are not in streaming services.

Sorry, that is not acceptable. It is actually stupid business model. If that films are not in local cinemas around, I'm not able to watch them legally.

Netflix is finished. They were first to market and built the brand, they were the only people skilled enough to make cloud streaming any good, and they enjoyed their temporary advantage in the market. The rest of the world caught up. It's over.

In terms of their stock, the only reason to ever own a stock is the promise of future cash flow, and yeah they'll probably get there, but bleh.

They’re definitely not the “must have” they may once have been. Way too many “must have” exclusives in way too many different elsewheres. I recently re-subbed after being gone for a year. Ran out of “catch up” content in less than a week. Un-subbed. Maybe I’ll do that again after another year or two.

  This is the end
  Beautiful friend
  This is the end
  My only friend, the end
  Of our elaborate plans, the end
  Of everything that stands, the end
  No safety or surprise, the end
  I'll never look into your eyes...again
  ......
  
  This is the end...

If they pull a Hulu and charge ads for the 4K plan, I'm officially out.

I use the Netflix DVD service. Let's see them put ads on that.

I’ll cancel my subscription.

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