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Comment by cmsmith | Hacker News Reader

>Even though HBO and the different TV providers ... The paradox is that Netflix's UI is on average worse than theirs, so my preference of browsing shows on Netflix is not a usability thing, it's an emotional thing.

I would disagree very strongly with regard to Netflix vs HBO UI. HBOgo tries much too hard for a stylish UI, but makes it more difficult to find the things I want to watch. Relative to netflix, their search is very literal and slow, they make no attempt to remember which series I'm rewatching at the time, they can't seem to remember which episode I'm on in that series or what place I paused in a given episode, and the act of trying to jump to a certain time in the video randomly sends me back to the beginning.

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You're right, Netflix does a great job of tracking state and knowing where you are in an episode. And their streaming is pretty solid too.

Maybe I gave HBO too much credit. Still, I do think Netflix has a bit of a Craigslist/Amazon issue where so many people are used to it working a certain way that it's now hard to change the UI in material ways without causing a drop in revenue. I've used their new web UI, and it's a little better, and I'm glad they dropped their red-heavy color scheme, but it's still basically the same clickable linear lists of shows arranged into a series of rows. I guess I'm just cranky that there aren't more visually interesting ways to discover new shows--I find that my eyes glaze over after a minute or two of browsing with these kinds of UIs, and everyone seems to use them.

I think the worst UI award goes to iTunes though. It is so hard to discover new shows and movies on there. I can find things I already know about, but when I'm searching and trying to find something new and fun, it's hard to find cool stuff. I basically click on related shows for something I already like until I find something new, but it's not fun and I find better recommendations on Netflix.

> Still, I do think Netflix has a bit of a Craigslist/Amazon issue where so many people are used to it working a certain way that it's now hard to change the UI in material ways without causing a drop in revenue.

They could do what Google did with Inbox -- provide an alternative UI on a separate page/app without discontinuing the existing UI.

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