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Comment by jrmg | Hacker News Reader

I can’t square your comment with the fact that my experience of the other big name streaming services has been just as good as my experience with Netflix. They basically all just work almost all the time.

If Netflix has more valuable technical excellence it should show in the customer experience of the product.

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As an Apple TV user, I'd mostly agree with this, especially as everyone except Netflix is able to make their platform work with Up Next etc. on the Apple TV. The only streaming app I have that is worse than Netflix is Amazon's but that's mostly because the UI is completely unusable on an Apple TV. Their catalogue is also reminiscent of the 50p bargain basket at Blockbuster, just shit that nobody else wanted.

Is this a case of can’t get it to work or won’t work on it yet?

With some businesses the drive for features may be driven by the number of users using that feature. I wish my Apple TV could add Netflix to the up next based on which profile we were using.

But it’s not a deal breaker, would be nice.

So I wonder if the work required to get it on there would take resources from areas that more customers are using?

It previously worked till Netflix decided Apple shouldn't see Netflix library or usage and pulled it.

It sort of worked with the app..

https://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/netflix-apple-tv-app/

Then with TV+ it didn't...

https://bgr.com/business/netflix-apple-tv-new-service/

Of course, now most smart TVs fingerprint what's on screen and sell that data so the data is out there.

Meanwhile, here's who plays (literally) nicely:

https://support.apple.com/en-nz/HT208083

The 'channel' subs are most seamless, but heads up Apple doesn't let 'channels' list some of their less family oriented content while apps can.

Yeah, it's very much a case of Netflix thinking they're more important than Apple or the end users and deliberately not playing nice. The end result in this house is that we barely watch anything on Netflix because new episodes aren't tracked along with literally everything else that we're watching. Doesn't help that 99% of their output is lowest common denominator garbage; compare and contrast Dopesick on Disney+ and Painkiller on Netflix - the former being one of the best, most moving dramas I've watched in years, the latter one of the most superficial, turgid things I've watched.

I disagree. Amazon Prime has an obnoxious UI, HBO until recently at least was even worse. Those other providers feel like these airplane interfaces for media, there is some flimsiness to it.

yeah, from the ones I a have used (Netflix, Disney+, Prime, Maxdome) only Prime is atrocious, all others are not perfect but usable.

I found Netflix to be getting worse and worse till I finally cancelled 1-2 years ago. The interface was doing weird stuff, more and more autoplay, weird suggestions, search results turning to shit.

They were working towards being as bad as prime, but prime was "free" if you subscribed to at least one twitch channel, and Netflix kept raising prices.

Technology doesn't seem to be the sticking point that keeps people at particular streaming sites. It's the content that rules the decisions about which service, at least based upon all of the discussions amongst the internets and friends and family.

To be fair, if they started bad and stayed there (kinda like Amazon), I probably wouldn’t have minded as much. But getting worse over time? Thanks, but no thanks.

HBO's app is a dumpster fire, but disney+ is quite nice.

The recent Max UI revamp was awful and completely unnecessary. It looks worse and I personally find it harder to find what I'm looking for.

HBO’s offering is particularly terrible. It’s amazing how often it just … pauses with a blank screen. Or thinks that I am episodes back in my watch history.

I have not really encountered anything like that in a few years. It was pretty bad back when HBO Now and Go were newer, though.

Everyone replying is missing the point that the technical challenges that Netflix is purported to be great at… aren’t a problem for the other streaming sites.

The UIs may suck in some way or another, or be buggy, but the backend doesn’t struggle anymore than Netflix with serving 4K streaming video to me.

Maybe their costs are higher because their technical expertise is less… I’m not sure.

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