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Comment by benj111 | Hacker News Reader

I've recently gained access to Netflix through my girlfriend. I really don't get why it's so popular though.

It seems to be an awful lot of filler, and it's not even as if the search or the descriptions are any good.

Maybe I'm spoilt having access to BBC iPlayer?

You are late to the game. Netflix was a game changer in the 00s for both DVD and streaming. Sometime around mid 2010s they started losing access to content as the streaming wars started (losing The Office to Peacock was a major blow to them for instance). Now they are their own publishing house but that limits the content to their primary demographics (my kids love netflix fwiw)

Netflix probably lost a lot of viewers when they didn't follow through with their original content.

The OA and Glow were really interesting shows that got cancelled prematurely, without any resolution to the storylines. When this becomes a trend, it makes me not want to get into any new Netflix series, and that usually ends with me cancelling my Netflix subscription.

TBF, Amazon Prime has also done the same with some of their shows (e.g. Forever).

> Sometime around mid 2010s they started losing access to content as the streaming wars started (losing The Office to Peacock was a major blow to them for instance).

Given parent comment is someone presumably from the UK as they're discussing iPlayer, Netflix never had this catalogue. The Office US is still on Netflix in the UK.

I know I'm late to the game. Surely it should be evaluated on what it is now though, not what it used to be.

Compared to Amazon prime, there's more things there that take my fancy. If I were to choose one I'd go for prime.

IMO HBO Max is a good alternative to consider. They've got a lot of good content from the past and present, including solid original movies and shows.

Except that's not available in the UK.

Hmm. It's a good service but it's probably not good enough to move here.

seems these days if you like Korean dramas and serial killer documentaries you are set, otherwise not so much.

Lots of good stuff ends up on iPlayer, including films.

As for the other ones, I do a month or two of Netflix each year and it's pretty much always a disappointment, though with a bit of digging there are normally 2 or 3 things I find to justify the price for a month or two.

Rather annoyingly, I find Amazon Prime Video has much more interesting content in general, though I have kind of worn that out now I think. With any of these services I might leave for a year, come back and find some of the exact same stuff is still pushed as 'popular' or 'featured'.

Really need to break bad habits around laptop use during films, then I can embrace subtitled foreign language films.

Not to get too off topic, but can you name perhaps a "top 5" of shows/movies available on BBC iPlayer right now? What I've been recommended there has always been top notch, but it's hard (for me!) to find the gems just trying to browse through what's on offer. Thanks!

(Line of Duty is a show that was recommended to me that I liked quite a bit. I'm trying to remember the couple of others, but coming up blank...)

When I look at BBC iPlayer, the gems seem like things I've already seen on Netflix, and the rest is yet another small town police murder mystery or just outside my taste (like the British personality shows, all the house fixing/flipping).

Where BBC really shines is that a 6 episode story isn't stretched to 2 seasons à la Netflix.

Well potato potahto. O find the opposite. And as I need to have paid for iPlayer to watch Netflix on a TV then I may aswell just have iPlayer.

Watch their early shows and movies. Over optimization and over production killed creativity and quality, sadly. Plus their recommendation systems are horrible. You have to literally act like a binchicken to find the good quality shows.

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