Netflix cuts 300 more jobs after subscriptions fall | Hacker News Reader

Netflix cuts 300 more jobs after subscriptions fall

bbc.co.uk

Netflix's mail-order service was bar none one of the best things that ever happened. They had a very, very good film and TV library. We would receive 2 DVDs at once, usually watch them and send them back, sometimes on the same day. It was really easy to use, too.

The library was clobbered at some point, or maybe slowly over time. What happened? They don't even have 1/10th of what they used to have. It's not surprising people are unsubscribing.

competition maybe. seems everyone and their dog is running a subscription service now.

i contracted briefly for lovefilm who ran a similar system in the UK. they were eventually bought and merged into amazon prime video.

In the UK, Lovefilm has been shut down, but CinemaParadiso.co.uk is a great rental service I found.

The constant back and forth of classic favourites like Friends, The Office, and all the various Star Treks, being listed and delisted certainly makes me wonder if I should just subscribe for a month, watch what I want, then cancel for a few months.

If you like watching the same things all of the time, why not buy your own copy of those shows and watch the local copies?

Yeah, I'll just torrent them.

They have content deals, and when they expire they have to renegotiate. The problem is, there are so many territories and so many little competitors now, someone will likely outbid them and the service will then lose that content.

Maybe physical distribution still has some advantages. Instead of sending DVD/BR by mail lets sell disk and drive in the cloud?

I know that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aereo failed in supreme court by trying to argue they were renting remote antenna/tuner. The difference is:

1 they were leasing

2 it was OTA broadcasts, made them look like a cable company

What if you could buy a movie disk and a dedicated drive. After your first purchase you would have right to resell it back to company (at a fixed price) or anybody else wanting to watch it with a drive in same data center at whatever price you wish (open market). Subscription would cover power/colocation and egress VPN. No Video streaming would be taking place - your drive would be mounted remotely over the network and work with any DVD/BR player.

Would that survive lawsuits?

I think there was a service that operated similarly, for the sake of offering content filtering for parents. They were sued and shut down.

In general, DVD/BD streaming over the Internet would require breaking the DRM, which is a big no-no.

Its not video streaming. Real SATA BR drive is mounted remotely, either with a movie already slotted in or connected to custom bulk disk loader/changer. It shows up in your desktop as another drive letter and requires normal bluray player to operate thus No DRM bypassed.

The question is can you legally play your own disk using your own disk player .. over the network?

My understand is that having the copyright they have the right to acknowledge any copy happening even if it’s in a cache somewhere, on a wire somewhere. If you mount a drive remotely copies happens. Actually with dvd copies happens in memory too but those have been legally authorized.

In my scheme:

the disk is explicitly yours - bought at full retail price

the drive is yours, every user gets a dedicated drive in the infra - again bought at full retail price at the moment you sign up

The studios decided that rather than to lease (not sure if that's the right term) content to Netflix they can release their own streaming services and make more money. Disney, Paramount, Sony all have their own services and those are just off the top of my head, I'm sure there are more...

Yes but this will lead to what is now a pretty clear balcanization of the streaming services.

The point of streaming is convenience, if I need to collect 5x or 6x film and music streaming services to have the experience I want, then I might as well just go back to sailing the high seas.

Zoomers can't pirate, they don't even know what directories are.

We understand that, but I don't think the streaming services do, or more than likely, they're chasing quarterly numbers and don't care that in a few years piracy will skyrocket- the execs would've gotten their bonuses by then.

Don't worry someone will reinvent cable TV packaging soon enough.

There is only so much money people are willing to pay for entertainment.

Bundling allows them to squeeze out that extra euro for stuff the customer doesn't really want.

They let the dvd-by-mail service degrade and die from neglect. Turn around time got longer and longer. Discs were regularly scratched and unplayable. But it was great while it lasted.

The reason the streaming selection is worse is simple: content licenses. Netflix didn't need permission from studios to mail discs. They do for streaming.

Netflix has made themselves dependent on their biggest competitors for content. The moment they switched to streaming, their death warrant was signed. They have been living on borrowed time while the big studios ramp up their own streaming service.

IMHO The sheer lack of decent content output from the US media industry over the last decade will play a major role in the decline of these services.

I find the European content quite good generally; the US content degraded, somehow, in a, for my friends and me, unbelievable over the top woke and inclusive ‘thing’ without a cohesive and usually simply weak/bad story. I hear from my US friends that they feel the same.

%100. Hollywood is now ultra woke and I just don’t enjoy the content anymore.

It seems as if the primary goal of production is now to virtue signal instead of focus on artistic excellence.

Got any examples of how it's getting too woke to enjoy? And how it's so bad that it would ruin an entire form of media?

If hollywood has anything to blame it's the reliance on less risky, more cookie cutter films. I mean how does generic crap like Holmes and Watson get made, because it's simple and they know it'll sell.

Someone here raised an interesting theory that the reliance on overseas markets require plot lines that translate easily and suggested this negatively impacted quality in storytelling. The Marvel cinematic universe films were cited as an example.

Disney famously courted Chinese audiences for everything. One big example was them removing Finn from the movie posters, simply for being black. That wouldn't fly over there. Then they turned around and cried about diversity and inclusion and they tried their insane 'latinX' garbage.

Netlfix wokeness is legendary, their mandates are insane.

It was all pandering from the beginning.

I watched the BET awards the other night and was absolutely disgusted. Not one black owned business got air time for commercials- was all P&G, google, amazon commercials. All going on about what they do for the black community.

Like the pride month commercials, I'm just so sick of the bullshit pandering, but I'm also tired of people believing it.

We used to call companies out for this shit. Everything is metrics and visuals, all they care about is money. The rest is bullshit to help them make more of it.

Edit to add re:netflix- they recently dropped a lot of' woke' content. Anti-racist baby, the cartoon by Megan Markel, etc- heads and shows have been rolling. Someone coined the term 'pivot to profit'. Ricky Gervais' new special Supernature, meanwhile, was like their most watched special this year,and they backed Dave Chappelle.

I think now that they have to batton down the hatches the pandering wokeness was the first thing overboard.

Also friendly reminder Netflix greenlit 'Cuties'.

Starting your post with misinfo isn't a great outlook for the rest of it

https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/v2g7xr/whats_...

Not that I have any love for mainstream media but here[1] you go.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2015/12/08/asia/star-wars-china-racist-p...

They distributed Cuties but it was fully produced before that. Greenlit implies they had a hand in funding the production.

Fair point, but makes them no less culpable.

"Cuties" still became their public face. I'd give individuals a pass for obliviousness, but not a media company that's in the business of public opinion.

In what sense did it become their public face? You ask anybody about Netflix and the odds are they're going to be referencing Stranger Things or a year ago Squid Game.

I imagine most people have forgotten about it

It was newsworthy for at least a few months. Stranger Things is probably their strongest association, though.

You're kidding, right? I mean this is a joke isn't it? Examples? LOL

In fairness, this is because big productions can be extremely financially risky and often bomb. I think 1-3 big flops could be enough to tank a studio.

Well, you can pretty much tell who the murderer is in the story. It's gotten to the point that non-whites are starting to complain that they're locked out of evil roles. It's always the Russian.

I think it's a purely economic stance. Going full throttle on the woke train will assure you enough customer to not fail totally. Even if you are producing a shitty content artistically speaking, you prefer being sure to stay afloat financially, using political correctness and ideology validation as a security belt. In particular in the subscription world. I'm pretty sure there a lot of subscribers not even interested in the new content but keep they subscription alive like there where subsidizing a political party or lobby.

What does ultra woke even mean? It seems like these threads are just an excuse for people to come and bitch about their personal pet peeves and blame whatever problems exist on it.

The obsession with identity politics, choosing actors based on their race, gender, and sexuality rather than talent, berating fans as bigots when they don't like the content, etc.

Or it's most likely that competition has ramped up once the major studios realized that they can just make their streaming platforms.

it is actually market saturation. In the UK we have:

Now TV, Britbox, Channel 4 player, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney plus, AppleTV+

Each of those offer a subscription service for a chunk of content. Channel 4 actually offers a free version that is Ad supported, but you can pay more to have no Ads.

We then have BBC, ITV, Channel 5, UKTV Play - all of which show content they broadcast. Mostly free, the BBC is has no Ads.

We then have the boutique streaming services like Paramount and that appear in other streaming services (like Amazon) and want a further fee.

It is impossible to pay 9.99 for everything. It is impossible to subscribe to enough of them to cover everything you would like to watch. I seriously just looks for a DVD on Amazon Marketplace these days if I can't find a legal stream on the ones I subscribe to - and usually get it for <£5 and keep it "forever".

BBC isn’t free you need a tv license

Well - no. You need a TV licence to watch live TV. It just happens to fund the BBC.

https://www.gov.uk/tv-licence

> You must have a TV Licence if you:

> * watch or record programmes on a TV, computer or other device as they’re broadcast

They haven't quite got Netflix style streaming yet... but they did plan to add it. They do have:

> * download or watch BBC programmes on iPlayer – live, catch up or on demand

Notice, BBC is only mentioned in regards to iPlayer - the first part is any live TV, streamed or broadcasted over the air.

How would you watch BBC shows without iPlayer that's not an illegal source and not covered by the other paid streaming services?

The TV license covers you watching any broadcast content, no matter if it is received via antenna/aerial, satellite dish, cable TV or over the internet. If it is broadcasted, it is covered and you need a TV license to view it. It's not exclusive to the BBC. There used to be a loophole that if you didn't watch BBC, it wasn't included - they closed that. Then with the dawn of "live streaming" simulcasted content, you managed to get away with that other than BBC, now that is also closed. If you watch any broadcasted TV, no matter how it is received, it requires a TV license to watch it in the UK. The BBC is funded by the license, but the license is for broadcast TV in general.

On the other hand, streaming "on demand" or "catch up", currently only covers the BBC iPlayer. But I expect they will attempt to close that loophole if they continue with the TV license in the UK, because so many people just don't watch broadcast TV anymore, and if you also don't use iPlayer or watch live TV using a service like NowTV, you can watch whatever you like with no license.

> How would you watch BBC shows without iPlayer

If you paid for a service like Netflix or BritBox you can. They have legally licensed the content. It you watch anything on iPlayer, you need to pay the additional license fee. I don't think anything I have said didn't contradict that, right? If so, sorry for any confusion.

I read somewhere that the movie business runs sophisticated algos/ml to maximise reach of upcoming movies. Makes sense, given how expensive and complicated those projects are. Unfortunately end-products end up entirely forgetful

The real issue is, that people can watch everything interesting when they subscribe for one month per year. If I were Netflix I would only provide content to viewers that was released during the months they paid for. I would allow them to get previous months content only if they subscribe guaranteed for that many months in the future as they want to watch in the past.

Another thing Netflix needs to do is let go of those producers that don't perform. There's simply too much garbage noone is watching on Netflix. And let's face it, Netflix is not a caritative company. This could be easily regulated if people got paid a percentage of the income such content generates. This would lead to actors only starring in projects that look promising, and producers and directors only touching quality material.

Does anyone really think a free / ad-teir is going to increase subscriber counts? If the quality of the content is at best B rated, why would people continue to spend their time on Netflix?

Sure, there are many people who will watch hours of commercials to save $5. Ad-supported Netflix content likely beats what you can get via rabbit ears.

No, rabbit ears are a one time purchase of $5. For that you put up with ads.

The balls of companies just acting like we have to take this shit. Subscription fee and ads?

This is why people sail the high seas.

Companies abuse us so long kids grow up thinking it's normal, next thing you know it is.

We should have stopped cable companies from using ads.

I can't wait until I can charge companies for my stolen time via ads. Billboards, walking through any place with a TV the intrusions are endless and they act entitled to my attention.

Probably the same reason people play absolute shit tier mobile games full of ads and with next to no gameplay, because it's free.

People will absolutely jump through hoops and take low quality products if it avoids spending 10 quid

I would never use such a service.

Is it because of which premise that is the cause for falling subscription with Netflix:

- People learning to share up to six accounts

- Netflix disabling sharing based on wider GeoIP locale?

or no content available ? 2 Python movies, 1 Mel Brooks etc. A bit expensive for 11 € per month.

Using your workers as a profit buffer is horrible.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com