Ask HN: What's still missing in Netflix, Hulu, Amazon video?
What do you think are the needs that they didn't have filled yet?
Are you always been satisfied by Hulu + Netflix?
How are they if compared with the tv scheduling?
Are you always been satisfied by Hulu + Netflix?
How are they if compared with the tv scheduling?
These services are all partially overlapping solutions. Here's what I want:
- All TV shows, current season as it airs and all past seasons
- No commercials
- No time pressure to watch before "expiration"
I'm willing to pay substantially for this. I'm talking $40-60/month, and I don't care about HBO or Showtime either. Instead I have two services that charge me $8/month and have the selection of a small-town Blockbuster. If any of these services were actually trying to compete with cable, they could charge more and provide access to the rest of the content. Instead they seem happy to play the annoying long-tail game with off-brand crap, and it's deeply dissatisfying.
The real problem here is absolutely not technical. It's contractual with the companies that own the content. I doubt you could do better than they have without offering more money, but I think there could be a real niche there if you're willing to charge customers actual money to provide actual service.
From Hulu's "What Is 'Web Only' Content?" page (http://www.hulu.com/support/article/20116158):
"It's our goal to provide as much content as possible and to keep it all on our service as long as possible. However, what videos we post, what devices we provide them on, and how long we're able to keep them on Hulu depends on streaming clearances granted by our content partners."
So it basically isn't up to Hulu. In order to keep the thing completely legal and avoid lawsuits, they are pretty much under the thumb of the "content partners" they work with.
The same goes for Netflix and all the other services.
After about 18 months, I just cancelled Hulu+ because the commercials are too long. Otherwise a nice service and I wanted to support them, but...
Netflix is pretty good. Both my wife and I pay them $8/month and like the content, the recommendations, etc. Good value.
I think that Directv is way too expensive because we don't actually watch much content through Directv. I want to cancel but there there is some resistance from my family.
I'm thinking seriously of getting an old-school DVR and a massive antenna. Problem is, I live out in the sticks where I'll need a huge antenna just to get about half the broadcast TV.
Was it really that bad for you? (Genuinely curious).
Like I said, where I live broadcast isn't an option without an expensive antenna. I have a cheap ($25) antenna and I get exactly one of three channels depending on how I orient it. The other options are cable without internet, which chafes badly, and satellite. The lesser evil I lived with for years was no TV at all. I prefer Hulu to nothing, but not to the other two options, and the question I was responding to above is "how can we do better than Hulu and Netflix?" not "how can I convince strangers to man-up and love shitty options?"
Ah, I see, it sounded like you both paid $8 a month for netflix.
Additionally, a personal note -- I'd like to see a shuffle system.
90% of the time I use any of those services, it isn't really to pay attention to a show; it's for background noise. The same way I'd put on one of my favorite movies or leave the television on HBO while tidying up or making dinner, etc -- on any online service, I'd like to say "from this [list|category|favorites], play random selections of shows and/or movies until I tell you to stop."
The ability to build playlists might be useful as well.
More of a blue sky wish would involve deeper searchability, like, find all episodes of "Star Trek" across all series with an appearance of the character Sarek, as an example.
for that reason I'm starting to like the mash-ups people are making like http://abetterqueue.com/
I am not sure it is as simple as just better recommendations.