Netflix Pulls Plug on Public API | Hacker News Reader

Netflix Pulls Plug on Public API

techcrunch.com

127 pointsbananaoomarang100 comments

What the name for when a company seems to have stagnated, based on the lack of change in their front-end, even though you're sure there're engineers diligently toiling away at things?

Netflix's frontend has not have any real improvement in quite a while. "Share on Facebook"? "Kids Mode"? "Watched by Piper Chapman (Orange Is the New Black)"? C'mon!

Where's the Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB integration? Why does their search still have zero options to help you search? Where's Netflix's rendition of A Better Queue or Instant Watcher?

The shutting down of the public API wouldn't be such a big deal if they paid more attention to their frontend. It also seems that Netflix thinks that if they don't bring up the fact that there are movies that aren't on Netflix, we won't notice.

The next company that comes to mind is Craigslist. I know there are engineers there working on hard problems (the scale they operate on is amazing) but in the midst of the current mobile and UX revolution, all they've manged to do is add a frame around the results page so it's easier to search again?

OKCupid is another site that comes to mind where it looks like the front end is just stuck and has stopped progressing.

(Gmail gets a pass because Google just gave up and made Inbox instead.)

> The next company that comes to mind is Craigslist.

Last I heard (and this was years ago), the crap UX is an intentional design decision from the top. I can't say that about Google or Netflix, but AFAIK with Craigslist, they're deliberately not trying to make the UX modern.

The lack of frontend innovation might have something to do with the sheer number of native clients for different platforms. Software fragmentation can be a bitch...

Random missing features on every platform are also Netflix's fault. Whose else would it be?

Why are new features and change inherently a good thing?

In my experience building consumer products "feature creep", and "unnecessary complexity" are the enemy. Not lack of features and frequent updates.

I agree, Netflix serves it's purpose like a champ. A company doesn't need to run their front end like a hackathon in order to be great, in fact, much of their demographic might have had a learning curve just to learn how to watch movies on their ipad, so doing drastic UI redesigns might actually create a churn from subscriptions. Netflix works on basically every platform(even ubuntu now) with basically no issues except for the native install, and gets right to the video after only a few clicks/touches. Remember when they were carousel and now they're a direct slider? Seems they would simplify due to data. Also the argument for no front end work I find to be unfounded as some of THE BEST Javascript, reactive programming seems to be coming out of the netflix shop with amazing event listening management presentations and and other impeccable reactive front end coming out of netflix. I use those videos to study and learn tons on reactive javascript and find their front end to be exactly what it is. On a meta level and simplicity level superbly build and prestine.

So? I like Netflix's front-end. So does my daughter, my mother, my mother's mother, my dad (who is terrible with tech), and almost everyone else I know.

Craigslist is much the same, what they have is easy to recognize, very easy to use for both sellers and buyers, and it has been consistent.

If it's not broken don't fix it.

>If it's not broken don't fix it.

That's some serious survivor bias with Craigslist.

There have been a slew of useful services that have sprung up over the years (e.g. Padmapper) involving Craigslist data, only to have Craiglist send cease and desists.

If anything, Craigslist has stymied the progression of internet classifieds by not changing with the internet.

Most of the non-tech users I know respond enormously negative to changes, so much so that any improvement would have to be gigantic indeed to justify that cost.

To immediate, drastic, noticeable changes.

Amazon, which arguably has the same userbase, has successfully managed to change their interface over the years by gradually adding functionality.

Craigslist has only bullied others who make a better experience for users.

The types of people who use Amazon, are going to be different then the types of people who use Craigslist. You said it yourself, Craigslist is the internet classifieds. Young people don't use the classified sections, it's predominantly used by those who would have used the classifieds in a regular newspaper, the older, geriatric population; and these people just don't appreciate change. It may be a positive change, it may make things easier, but they learn one way to do it, and gosh darn it, that's exactly how they want it to work every-time.

I should add, I think craigslist is one of the few sites out there that can get away with not updating their UI, so it's not so much that I disagree with several of your points, as it is, I disagree with your points in this specific case. :)

From my perspective, it's just Craiglist has done a magnificent job of evaluating their user-base.

They do, but as long as the change is generally positive they eventually come around.

Each of Facebooks major UI/functionality changes over the years has come with a heap of resistance from users. Not many though if given the choice now would want to undo the past 5 years or more of changes.

> So? I like Netflix's front-end. So does my daughter, my mother, my mother's mother, my dad (who is terrible with tech), and almost everyone else I know.

Not sure what your point is here. I don't particularly like it, I have friends who complain about it, and some of my coworkers (who are great with tech, btw) also dislike it.

Have none of the people you mentioned have ever recognized an actor but have been at a loss for where they've previously seen them? Say, that's not something that Netflix could help with?

The continued existence) of InstantWatcher, CanIStreamIt?, Flixster, Fanhattan, Yidio, proves that there's a not-entirely-satisfied portion of their customer base. Why it seems they're doing nothing to appeal to those users is beyond me.

> Craigslist is much the same, what they have is easy to recognize, very easy to use for both sellers and buyers, and it has been consistent.

It is consistent, I'll give you that. Sellers ignoring phone calls, not returning voice mails, unreplied emails, listings for things which have already been sold with an irate seller that does pick up but then calls you an idiot for not telepathically knowing the item has been sold, bait-and-switch tactics masquerading as incompetence, the poor quality of listings themselves - that listing in autos for $1 is definitely accurate. Listings gaming the search by cramming half the dictionary at the end of the post. People saying they'll meet you to buy the item and then being an hour late or just completely flaking.

Yeah, that's totally not broken.

> If it's not broken don't fix it.

Back in 2006, smartphones weren't broken, but I'm sure glad Apple came along and 'fixed' it.

> People saying they'll meet you to buy the item and then being an hour late or just completely flaking.

Clearly a problem with the front-end.

Craigslist could have an escrow service for money so as to disincentive not following through, or only staking claim to an item if you're serious about paying for it.

They could have a seller/buyer rating system cough eBay.

I mean, you're not even trying...

I think he was trying to point out those aren't UX issues, they're features you wish existed

he's not arguing the craigslist UX is broken just that there are lots of areas where it could be improved.

> they're features you wish existed

the netflix UX is not broken. it just hasn't changed. yea, we clearly want more features. and netflix should too - getting to the top and then stagnating is exactly what their predecessor did..

just because you're happy with the way things are, doesn't mean it cannot possibly improve.

>Have none of the people you mentioned have ever recognized an actor but have been at a loss for where they've previously seen them? Say, that's not something that Netflix could help with?

Netflix does help with this. Just click on the actor's name in the movie description and it will show other movies (available on Netflix) that the actor is in.

You're right, but the "available on Netflix" caveat is a big one. If only there was some sort of database, on the internet for movies. I don't know what you'd call it, but maybe they could have a more complete list of an actor's works, and Netflix could link to them.

It's like Netflix thinks that by pretending video doesn't exist outside of Netflix that it'll just go away.

The funny thing is imdb is owned by Amazon, and Amazon Video has the worst browsing and discovery interface ever invented by man. They make no use of the data at all.

It's almost funny, but I often point to Amazon's video choices to be an example that's worse than Netflix... I actually have a Prime and a Netflix account, though generally prefer torrents. :-/

I really wish that Netflix's UI wasn't so attrocious.. when I'm in a browser, there are so much better ways of interacting than what they offer... for a tablet/phone I kind of get it... the problem is the box covers aren't great for navigating quickly... Many of which you can't even tell what the movie is without hovering over.. or the cover doesn't offer insight.

Especially when it comes to discovery. They also offered multiple users for interacting far too late.. too many devices are tied to the default account user.

I'm not sure what the best option is.. but it certainly isn't what's in place, and could be much better..

Flux Plus does IMDB + RottenTomatoes + some other stuff: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/flix-plus/fcjjgdna...

The issue with Netflix's frontend is I'll just sit there endlessly scrolling around, trying to find something to watch.

The interface for Plex engages me in such a way that I want to watch a movie. (My roommate feeds movies to Plex so I'm not just feeding movies that I'm predisposed to watching to it.)

Has any of them tried to find movie recommendations from Netflix? For me, it sometimes shows me a dozen or so recommendations on the front page. Almost all of them are TV shows. One or two are movies that only showed up after I added them to My List on my own, and I have no interest in the rest. Meanwhile, sometimes I stumble across a DVD-only movie for which it recommends 4.8 stars for me. So where can I just list those?

[edit: addition:] When it comes to instant, I usually end up browsing for half an hour and giving up, but that might be more a function of the kind of content that's there than the interface.

You get mostly TV shows because most of the good content on Netflix is TV.

They can show you movie recommendations, but I'm guessing you won't like many of them.

Exactly... Netflix is the New Craigslist.

>Where's the Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB integration?

Oddly enough, Rotten Tomatoes has Netflix Integration:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/browse/dvd-all/?services=netfl...

Whether this is through the public API or not is unknown.

I think Netflix is stagnating on content, not features. I'm really considering canceling my subscription because I feel like I've exhausted everything worth watching (granted this is highly subjective, but more and more when I get on Netflix I've browsed around for 5 - 10 minutes and just given up).

I feel the same way. I've found great movies and tv shows in the past, but currently it's really hard to find something worth watching.

> Where's the Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB integration?

You think Amazon would allow IMDB integration?

I'm sure they would if Netflix was paying - After all Netflix runs on AWS which they have no problem with! :)

I suppose the issue would be that Amazon are now directly competing with Netflix via their own video offering, so may be reluctant to give Netflix the means to outdo them at their own game.

In my own personal opinion, Amazon's UX for video is not all that great either, so it would seem both parties have plenty of room to innovate in this space at least, which can only be a good thing. I'm paying a subscription for both, and although I currently use Netflix more, it really wouldn't surprise me if Amazon started rapidly working on their video UX - they've got 'buying stuff' down to a tee, so it'll be interesting to see what they can do with streaming video.

Agree to all. I've wondered about this for a while. It seems Netflix works well if you're real particular about what you want to watch, but if you just want to "turn it on" and hang out it sort of struggles. I have to make a conscious choice about what to watch. I'd love to see an update wherein their search engine starts playing something in the background based on what I've watched before or what they think I want to watch. To be honest, I'd love to see Netflix be way more aggressive in marketing too. Sponsor the World Cup or something...truly free me from cable by giving me live sports. The NHL is struggling in a lot of markets...start carrying them (Bias admitted: from Minnesota). I've "cut the cord" for 3 years now and I still have to sneak a way to watch baseball/football/hockey through other people's cable boxes. I think sports might be the way to truly break cable for Netflix.

I've been working on a side project for just that problem! Basically it sticks a programming guide on top of Netflix (and soon Hulu/HBO Go/Youtube/etc) and just autoplays a random shuffle for the channel you choose. It's still really early stage, but you can check it out here:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ottoplay/jckdbebff...

Maybe there is a market for what you are suggesting, but I like On Demand services like Netflix because I get to pick what I want when I want. Netflix is decent at suggesting things to watch based on my viewing history, but I have never been in a scenario where I wish it would just start playing something for me. I don't want Netflix to play stuff for me, I just want them to keep adding/making new content.

Netflix seems to be recruiting for the search side of things (so says the Netflix recruiter in my inbox), so at least they know that they need to fix that part. :/

APIs are something a service offers when it needs help to grow. Once the service gets big, the API goes away, or becomes a pay service.

Google once allowed search queries via a SOAP interface. That's gone. They also dropped RSS feeds. But the API for submitting paid ads, that works. The paid cloud services are fine.

Twitter doesn't like third party Twitter clients any more and will pull the API key of anyone who writes one. A third party client might have a spam ("sponsored tweet") filter.

Twitter is back to trying to lure developers in; there will be another batch of whiny posts in 2 years when they pull the rug out from this new set. Devs should stop playing charlie brown.

Did I miss something? What has Twitter done lately for devs?

https://dev.twitter.com/

Yeah, that's a joke. What developers really care about is Twitter's API.

I agree. Nobody cares about Fabric. Who cares if it goes down, your business won't die. If their API dies, you can bet a whole lot of companies and their employees are basically screwed. Hootsuite, Adobe Marketing Cloud, BrandWatch, Buffer, Salesforce, SimplyMeasured, Oracle marketing cloud, etc, etc.

Perhaps people will rediscover the value of standard protocols and platforms that allow for competing client AND server implementations.

Or not.

I really wish XMPP had taken off. Perhaps the most important place for standard protocols is in chat applications - i.e. how we communicate with each other electronically. Email is unlikely to go away but if I want to communicate with all my friends I need:

* Google Hangouts

* Facebook

* Twitter

* SMS

* Whatsapp

* iMessage (cost prohibitive)

When really I should just be able to log into xmpp.voltagex.org and talk to everyone.

(Also, why isn't there a standard for "dialling" email addresses yet?)

Actually, you can do SMS, Facebook and Hangouts in one app.

There are SMS services who support XMPP, and additionally Facebook and Hangouts support the XMPP client-side. It’s not as convenient as sending from kuschku@chat.facebook.com a message to justJanne@talk.google.com, but it still works quite nice.

That's interesting. Which SMS services? (is SMS service a tautology?)

Short Message Service service

Looks like it is yeah

Isn't Facebook XMPP going away? https://developers.facebook.com/docs/chat/

GChat used to use XMPP, as did Facebook IIRC. I also remember reading that iMessage uses it, and HipChat definitely uses an extended version. These could all be made to work together, but how would that keep users on the site where they're force-fed ads? It makes a little less sense in the HipChat / iMessage use-case.

Basically the same reason that little is available via RSS these days, and what is always has the "click here to read the whole article on our site, where we can show you ads!" after a few sentences / paragraphs.

> APIs are something a service offers when it needs help to grow. Once the service gets big, the API goes away, or becomes a pay service.

This isn't so cut and dry. iTunes offers database dumps, for free, to any developer building music discovery sites and apps: this is why virtually everything has a "buy this on iTunes" button. Walmart has an API for people who want to add "buy this from Walmart", as does Amazon (also Best Buy and Sports Mart, but they are not clearly dominating like Walmart and Amazon in their respective markets). There has to be something different about how this plays out for Netflix than for these other companies.

Is there a database dump available for app metadata?

If he's talking about the iTunes EPF program, then yes.

> APIs are something a service offers when it needs help to grow. Once the service gets big, the API goes away, or becomes a pay service.

I wouldn't phrase it exactly that way. All the examples are of something much more specific: APIs go away when a company embraces an advertising-driven revenue model.

Google offered a SOAP API because back then they weren't an ad company. When they became an ad company the API went away, because you could use it to get Google search results without the ads. Twitter supported third-party clients because back then they weren't an ad company. When they became an ad company the API went away, because you could use it to read tweets without seeing the ads.

Once you decide your company is going to make its money via ads, the strangulation of any channel people can use to get to your service without seeing the ads inevitably follows.

I agree that this is the pattern generally, but it doesn't explain Netflix's decision specifically, unless they're secretly planning an ad-based revenue model, which doesn't seem likely.

Wasn't Google pretty dominant when their SOAP API was available? Aren't they less dominant now?

It's too bad, but the writing has been on the walls for a long time. A close friend of mine had build a great little iOS app a while back designed to let you know when items on your queue were going to be pulled from Netflix instant. After several months of the app being live in the app store, Netflix decided to limit the results to showing either greater than 2 weeks or less than 2 weeks. Eventually, that information was removed from the API altogether, and my friend pulled his app from the store.

From that single anecdotal data point, I had the Netflix API has always been a mess anyway, and poorly documented.

What was the app's name? I built the same thing but for Android app about 4 years ago: FixMyQ. It's still a painful use case that I wish they would officially implement, or at least be more transparent about. I always suspected that they didn't/don't want users to focus on movies expiring at all (makes sense). However, rather than educating users as to why this happens, they pulled the info like you mentioned. Such a shame!

It was called Queueview. I couldn't find its homepage (in sure it was taken down), but the Facebook page, complete with all the notices about the API changes is here: https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?v=timeline&filter=1&id=31...

I do not understand the backend reason for this (and did not when I saw the announcements about this two years ago): while I can see not wanting to provide a full movie metadata API, having "is this or is this not available on Netflix right now" seems like a really important API to have, one that allows websites people use to browse and find movies to funnel users into Netflix (and seems a natural fit for their very popular affiliate program).

Apple actually provides massive database dumps of everything available in iTunes, for free, to anyone who asks, which is why virtually every music discovery site or app has a "buy this on iTunes" button, not just "a small set of developers whose applications have proven to be the most valuable for many of our members" (which is a quote from the Netflix developer blog earlier this year; you have to pull this from Google Cache now, sadly).

I don't see how "stream/rent this on Netflix" is a bad thing for Netflix (but am totally willing to believe I am not "seeing far enough", because this is not my area of expertise, hence why I am asking this question: I hope to be enlightened ;P). (edit:) I guess maybe for the same reason Uber and Lyft don't want APIs? Because they want to dominate the end user searching and discovery experience as well? But like, even Walmart and Amazon offer APIs... ;P.

I agree it is shortsighted.

It is probably a business decision to 'own the data' and control the storefront/display for margins. However not realizing that the data/api part is what helped them along in the first place and all this means is they lose control of the data.

Cutting off the API does nothing to stop scraping which will happen more now and not funneled into a controlled/throttled/tracked usage of that data.

Worst for Netflix is that other competing services will own more and more data instead of relying on theirs. Another streaming service could come along with that type of developer love again and catch Netflix high centered.

This is a very business over technology/open decision here for a Netflix that has moved away from developer support with things like the Netflix Prize, that time is done and over.

The argument of public vs private api usage that Netflix states how public api is only 0.3% is not valid because most public api usage just pulls data to cache and rarely hits the endpoint where private apis they use constantly track progress/settings/state etc.

while I can see not wanting to provide a full movie metadata API, having "is this or is this not available on Netflix right now" seems like a really important API to have, one that allows websites people use to browse and find movies to funnel users into Netflix (and seems a natural fit for their very popular affiliate program).

Wouldn't that API use would also funnel users to its competitors in the case that Netflix doesn't offer the movie you were looking for?

I see their API closing as a natural business decision — anticipating a time when streaming services are a commodity and margins are thin on streaming licensed content they don't own. They'll have to compete with something else: their core service, their own content, and their recommendation engine (which I find to be fantastic). A public API fights against the recommendation engine. They want you to sit down and watch Netflix, not a movie in particular.

> Wouldn't that API use would also funnel users to its competitors in the case that Netflix doesn't offer the movie you were looking for?

I don't know what you are envisioning :(. What I am talking about is when you find yourself on some random movie review website, and there's a "buy/rent on iTunes" button, and a "stream from Amazon Prime" button, but no Netflix button, that sounds like it would be bad for Netflix. Especially so if the only reason the person added the "stream from Amazon Prime" button is because they wanted to have a "stream" button, were sufficiently lazy to only put one such button, and Netflix (their first choice as having a longer-term brand) didn't have an API available. Like, I can't imagine Apple ever deciding "no, we would rather have you put a buy from Walmart button on your website than a buy on iTunes button, so we are going to stop giving you database dumps".

Netflix is great, don't get me wrong... I wouldn't want to do without them. But at the same time, a large portion of their business model is devoted to making sure that nobody can tell just how little content they have to offer. There is no other explanation for deliberately nerfing their search engine and killing off third-party apps.

If and when Netflix is able to reach fair and reasonable streaming contracts from all of the major studios, I believe the API will come back. Right now, though, it's more of a liability than an asset to them.

>But at the same time, a large portion of their business model is devoted to making sure that nobody can tell just how little content they have to offer.

You nailed it.

Netflix is the best thing out there for legal streaming TV and movie content; it's that "legal" part which makes things complicated. Objectively speaking, Netflix clones that pop up but have no qualms about distributing pirated content provide a much better experience for users, because just about everything they want to watch is a click away.

In fact, Netflix's entire UI was designed with this in mind. All the "main" views try to give the impression that there is a lot of content, yet the search functionality is not very visible or easy to find and takes 2 steps to actually use. This seems to be a rule that applies to many applications: when your home page is just a search bar, that often means 80% or more of what the majority of users want is available. When your home page is a directory, or just a flattened spattering of content, you know that user's options are constrained.

Netflix is trying to push customers to use their application as more of a feature listing rather than mislead them into thinking it's a universal "watch whatever you want", because they know people will be disappointed if they think it's the latter (and I would assume A/B testing and metrics have demonstrated this to them empirically). So they go with a model of "here's a bunch of stuff you can choose from, you may not have heard of this show but it's good!" instead of "your own personal streaming media hub".

Obviously one can't fault them for this, since they have to rely on B2B relationships that don't always necessarily provide an excellent value proposition for the partner business and/or are very expensive for Netflix, and they have to obey the law. I'm also hoping they can work out more contracts with more studios.

Very true and you seem to be right. The HBO GO app is very much like this.

> "But at the same time, a large portion of their business model is devoted to making sure that nobody can tell just how little content they have to offer. "

But this doesn't quite scan. Other services with plenty of content such as YouTube also nerf sort by ranking functionality.

If I have 100 things to show you as a subscriber and I know that you will only really enjoy 10 of them, than the argument is showing you all 10 up front means that you burn through those and don't stay around for the other 90. Of course there would be a margin of a few shows until you figured out that nothing was left of value, so say 10 you truly enjoy (the "Value Set"), and 10 mediocre ones you have to watch before you decide there's nothing else worth staying subscribed for (the "Transition Count").

How is this better than showing you only 2 of the 10 you'll like from the Value Set, and than making you hunt around for the other 8 until you decide there isn't any more valuable content even though there are 8 more items you would like. It seems like it just starts the Transition Count sooner.

Hmm, maybe it's a gambling phenomenon, in that inconstant rewards keeps the gambler playing? The odds of getting a show from the Value Set before completing the Transition Count is high enough that it just keeps resetting the Transition Count to 0?

I guess that could work...

Yeah, I think it's an inconsistent-reward thing. Netflix wants you to be pleasantly surprised when you stumble across something you enjoy, not frustrated because there's 57,000 channels with nothing on. Apps like abetterqueue had the effect of letting the user peek behind the curtain, so they had to go.

When a site like Craigslist that has total control over its content pulls this kind of user-unfriendly trick, I have nothing but contempt for them. But I'm more sympathetic to Netflix. In negotiating deals with Hollywood, they are dealing with some of the most primitive beetle-browed troglodytes in the business world so I don't have to.

In case this wasn't obvious to you, Netflix is not the internet's friend, fun examples include:

- Browser DRM (making it impossible to produce a fully functional AND open source browser)

- HDCP-for-sockets (e.g., to replace HTTPS with something they can tie to platform DRM-protected key exchange -- http://techblog.netflix.com/2014/10/message-security-layer-m...)

... and now this.

Thank the studios for most of this - they will not allow their content to be distributed without encumberance.

Even if that somehow makes them evil (or insert other derogatory words here), their assistance in the fight for net neutrality makes them very much "the internet's friend", IMO.

FWIW, I find it very hard to get outraged about DRM when it comes to streaming services - the usual "fair use" things that DRM usually inhibits does not do so in the context of streaming. The only thing you can't do with an encrypted stream that you can do with an unencrypted one is record it, and you agreed not to do that when you signed up for Netflix anyways.

In other words, you're getting exactly what you pay for with the service: Ephemeral, on-demand streams of content.

> ... the usual "fair use" things that DRM usually inhibits does not do so in the context of streaming.

Sure they do. Video rentals were based on the first-sale doctrine[1]; the video store bought the movie, the video store rented their copy to you, and you could play it on any device that was technologically capable.

There was no end-to-end control over the production, distribution, and viewing pipeline:

- Anyone could run a video rental store.

- Anyone could develop and sell a VCR.

- Consumers could watch the movies in any way they wanted, with any device they wanted, rented or purchased from any store their wanted.

With DRM, that healthy competitive market has been collapsed down into:

- Content distributors must license the media specifically for digital distribution, granting full control to the content owners (and increasingly are the content owners)

- Only playback devices that are approved by the content distributors may be used.

If you think Netflix is your friend because they support net neutrality, consider what it means when the distribution mechanisms for the content you might like to consume over that internet (apps, games, music, movies) are far from "neutral".

Netflix — and other companies — don't simply want to be the pipes, any more than Comcast wants to be a commodity pipe. If they fight for net neutrality, that's a happy accident of their own commercial interests, but we'll have even less choice and competition than when we started if the Netflixs simply replace the Comcasts.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

That's just it though. A video rental represents a physical object, a stream does not. There is no first sale doctrine on OD streaming content.

Are you arguing that selling access to an ephemeral thing shouldn't be allowed? The physical copy of a movie and a stream of a movie are two different items, with the second one having far less value due to its nature.

Here's where we diverge. If I go buy a movie, then as the first sale doctrine and common sense implies, I should be able to digitize it, format/time shift, etc.

Rentals confer none of those rights, either legally or morally. You are paying for temporary access to a thing under the limited terms offered you by some third party. If you want more rights, buy instead of rent. This is not a new or troubling development!

As to whatever you perceive Netflix's ambitions to be, I prefer to castigate them if/when they start abusing their position and become enemies to a free internet. They have shown zero evidence that they are doing this, quite the opposite in fact.

How is Message Security Layer HDCP-for-sockets? I saw nothing in the article that seemed outrageous. The only thing it looks like you could be objecting to is the fact that they want to use device cryptography if available, which makes sense.

Of course, the DRM premise is flawed and these things don't need protecting like they talk about. It's great business for Netflix to pretend so, to ensure competitors have a harder time.