Yes, it's crazy to me that Netflix puts so much effort into improving encode quality, and then they don't let most people see that version -- almost no one gets to see the "good" versions of their encodes.

Whether it's because Netflix locks the good high-bitrate encodes to the most expensive subscription plans many people aren't on, or because their "Roku 4K" or "Fire TV 4K" or whatever is actually negotiating the 1080p-H.264-low-bitrate stream, or because their internet connection latency was auto-detected too low, or their device doesn't have enough memory to buffer nicely or whatever.

I bet Netflix is absolutely capable of delivering something really nice. But in my experience, Netflix quality as delivered looks about on-par with "YouTube free 1080p" -- so much so, that even plugging in a 1080p-only-Blu-Ray, is a huge improvement even non-techie folks can notice.