6 ms·

I’ve become super bearish on Netflix. At some point the masses will realize how bad the selection is for the money you pay.

kjksf 7y ago
Netflix just released its Q1 numbers. They've added record 6.9 million subscribers. That's new subscribers - defectors. I'm not sure what would cause the "masses" to re-evaluate the quality of selection, especially taking into account the fact that Netlifx is now adding tons of content they'll own forever, so 10 years from now "The Crown" and "The Stranger Things" etc. will still be there plus all the shows and movies they've added in those 10 years. Competitively Netflix is safe because to watch those 250 top movies online in one place you can go to... nobody.
- inciampati 7y ago
  That's an opportunity. If someone would only figure out how to get th classics all in one place. Netflix is just a new HBO with a better interface.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    FilmStruck tried. R.I.P.
    - philipkglass 7y ago
      I was a Filmstruck + Criterion subscriber still when they closed down. I was planning on subscribing to the new Criterion Channel that looks ready to fill that niche. But it seems that I should try Kanopy first, based on other comments here.
hombre_fatal 7y ago
I would need to watch an unhealthy amount of Netflix to run out of things to watch and I already watch one episode per day. If you seriously can't find anything to watch on Netflix, I suspect you either are uninterested in trying new/unknown things or are so hard to please that no service could satisfy you. I can't imagine either is a demographic all that large or rewarding to pursue. I don't mean that in a bad way. Rather, I don't think it's in our best interest for any single company to own the entire catalog that would appease these demographics. People have been foreseeing a mass exodus from Netflix for years now though, often when Netflix loses their hobby horse show. Yet Netflix only grows in net subscribers. Since everything always comes to an end, surely you need to put a timescale on your claim if you want to receive credit when Netflix finally collapses. Even Chicken Little is eventually right.
- Nition 7y ago
  Part of the problem is often people want a specific thing. If I want to listen to a specific song, Spotify almost always has it. If I want to watch a specific movie...
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    True, but Netflix competes with nobody who can offer that either. And Netflix's coffers clearly aren't losing to piracy. And, if you look at piracy for the lay person, it's not all that attractive. You have to somehow be able to sift through the bullshit streaming and torrent websites will throw at you. Somehow click the right links along the way that don't dead-end in a fake paywall or ad. And after torrenting something, you might get a scary letter from your ISP which happened to my sister in Austin with Comcast.
    - ghaff 7y ago
      Exactly. I'm a fairly sophisticated user and I know how to use VPNs, etc. I also make a comfortable tech wage. TBH, piracy is an absolute last resort. Even if it comes down to buying a $20 DVD off Amazon, that's probably what I will do if it's something I want to watch enough that I've gone to the trouble of even thinking about searching the torrents for. Do I wish there was a video equivalent of premium music services for video? (i.e. had most content) Sure. There isn't. So I'll pick some streaming services and I'll buy a la carte in various formats and just accept there's no single bundle that gives me everything for a monthly subscription.
- asark 7y ago
  >I don't mean that in a bad way. Rather, I don't think it's in our best interest for any single company to own the entire catalog that would appease these demographics. Well, best best interest would probably involve mandatory, open-to-all-interested-parties licensing terms/fees in order to enjoy copyright protection, and outlawing vertical integration of end viewer distribution with production. Also I'd like a pony.
  - 7y ago
ghaff 7y ago
Serious question. Who's better? Amazon Prime is OK and it's "free" if you use Amazon Prime for other reasons. But I find it inferior overall. We're just collectively reinventing the cable bundle in a new form.
bcassedy 7y ago
This depends quite a lot on how you define selection. If you want highly rated content of all genres and formats (TV and movies), you get more than you could ever hope to have time to watch. If you want to watch one specific thing, then yeah chances are good it's not there.
TheGRS 7y ago
> ...for the money you pay. That's where I'll have to stop you, as its still a very cheap service comparatively. I worked at Blockbuster toward the end of their run, it was about $4-7 dollars for a single rental. Current streaming rentals on Amazon range from $4-8 as well. Netflix, streaming only, is currently $13 per month. The only alternative I think is very good is HBO, which is $15 per month. They usually have before-cable-run-but-after-initial-rental-period movies. And they have a handful of stellar TV shows. We still struggle to find something to watch on that service.
- kolbe 7y ago
  Blockbuster is irrelevant. They had to pay for real estate and retail employees, and had a much better selection. Streaming is a completely different business. Netflix disks are a better comp. They cost the same as streaming does and while the selection is far better, the limited capacity is far worse for most people. The real competition will probably end up being piracy, eventually. Netflix streaming is getting worse content. And if this decline continues, piracy will become much more favorable.
  - inciampati 7y ago
    I am a habitual pirate. I'm the kind who wants to pirate media because I believe that the media system is a lifesucking waste exploiting the rest of society. If I can drop their profits then maybe they will spend more on the cheap stuff (good writing and ideas) and less on the eyecandy and marketing. At best, they fade out of existence and we go back to swapping stories orally. So at some point I decided that a subscription service with almost everything I was interested in would socialize things appropriately and reduce the transaction costs so that piracy and this anarchic tendency wouldn't be worthwhile. After a few years of using the service, I feel that it is only a moderate convenience. In the end my watching habits haven't changed. I am saving some time downloading random things from random horrible websites. But the selection is horrific. There is no way to actively decide to watch something. There are just a handful of options. There are no classics. It's worse than the selection on an international flight. And it's getting expensive.
- adventured 7y ago
paxy 7y ago
~$10/month is still ridiculously cheap for what they offer. One single show in their catalog you like will probably make it worth it. They can still raise prices by a LOT before people stop being interested.
sl1ck731 7y ago
I've been thinking it will only take a couple more subscription price bumps. I've already lowered my subscription to the lowest available and will likely just get rid of it altogether in favor of other means of procurement. If they inch towards the 20$ mark for basic I think they will start to decline. I've already seen many people who I would never believe could pirate anything reliably turn to sharing Plex libraries.
carnagii 7y ago
I signed up for Netflix once because I wanted to test how it worked on linux when chrome first added support for it and I had it for about 18 months (never watched it) until my credit card expired because they require you to call to cancel. Don't underestimate how much money you can make off of subscriptions like this. $10 a month is not a lot of money and not worth potentially spending 30-60 minutes on the phone for a lot of people.
- harry8 7y ago
  "Inertia revenue" "inertia rentals" eg 3 year lease that's a decent deal but if you don't cancel and take a 4th the lessor makes a large profit. IT equipment leasing is frequently like this. I mention by name it in case anyone wants to dig deeper with this idea w.r.t their own business...

kjksf 7y ago

Netflix just released its Q1 numbers. They've added record 6.9 million subscribers. That's new subscribers - defectors. I'm not sure what would cause the "masses" to re-evaluate the quality of selection, especially taking into account the fact that Netlifx is now adding tons of content they'll own forever, so 10 years from now "The Crown" and "The Stranger Things" etc. will still be there plus all the shows and movies they've added in those 10 years. Competitively Netflix is safe because to watch those 250 top movies online in one place you can go to... nobody.

inciampati 7y ago
That's an opportunity. If someone would only figure out how to get th classics all in one place. Netflix is just a new HBO with a better interface.
- ghaff 7y ago
  FilmStruck tried. R.I.P.
  - philipkglass 7y ago
    I was a Filmstruck + Criterion subscriber still when they closed down. I was planning on subscribing to the new Criterion Channel that looks ready to fill that niche. But it seems that I should try Kanopy first, based on other comments here.

hombre_fatal 7y ago

I would need to watch an unhealthy amount of Netflix to run out of things to watch and I already watch one episode per day. If you seriously can't find anything to watch on Netflix, I suspect you either are uninterested in trying new/unknown things or are so hard to please that no service could satisfy you. I can't imagine either is a demographic all that large or rewarding to pursue. I don't mean that in a bad way. Rather, I don't think it's in our best interest for any single company to own the entire catalog that would appease these demographics. People have been foreseeing a mass exodus from Netflix for years now though, often when Netflix loses their hobby horse show. Yet Netflix only grows in net subscribers. Since everything always comes to an end, surely you need to put a timescale on your claim if you want to receive credit when Netflix finally collapses. Even Chicken Little is eventually right.

Nition 7y ago
Part of the problem is often people want a specific thing. If I want to listen to a specific song, Spotify almost always has it. If I want to watch a specific movie...
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  True, but Netflix competes with nobody who can offer that either. And Netflix's coffers clearly aren't losing to piracy. And, if you look at piracy for the lay person, it's not all that attractive. You have to somehow be able to sift through the bullshit streaming and torrent websites will throw at you. Somehow click the right links along the way that don't dead-end in a fake paywall or ad. And after torrenting something, you might get a scary letter from your ISP which happened to my sister in Austin with Comcast.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    Exactly. I'm a fairly sophisticated user and I know how to use VPNs, etc. I also make a comfortable tech wage. TBH, piracy is an absolute last resort. Even if it comes down to buying a $20 DVD off Amazon, that's probably what I will do if it's something I want to watch enough that I've gone to the trouble of even thinking about searching the torrents for. Do I wish there was a video equivalent of premium music services for video? (i.e. had most content) Sure. There isn't. So I'll pick some streaming services and I'll buy a la carte in various formats and just accept there's no single bundle that gives me everything for a monthly subscription.
asark 7y ago
>I don't mean that in a bad way. Rather, I don't think it's in our best interest for any single company to own the entire catalog that would appease these demographics. Well, best best interest would probably involve mandatory, open-to-all-interested-parties licensing terms/fees in order to enjoy copyright protection, and outlawing vertical integration of end viewer distribution with production. Also I'd like a pony.
- 7y ago

ghaff 7y ago

Serious question. Who's better? Amazon Prime is OK and it's "free" if you use Amazon Prime for other reasons. But I find it inferior overall. We're just collectively reinventing the cable bundle in a new form.

bcassedy 7y ago

This depends quite a lot on how you define selection. If you want highly rated content of all genres and formats (TV and movies), you get more than you could ever hope to have time to watch. If you want to watch one specific thing, then yeah chances are good it's not there.

TheGRS 7y ago

> ...for the money you pay. That's where I'll have to stop you, as its still a very cheap service comparatively. I worked at Blockbuster toward the end of their run, it was about $4-7 dollars for a single rental. Current streaming rentals on Amazon range from $4-8 as well. Netflix, streaming only, is currently $13 per month. The only alternative I think is very good is HBO, which is $15 per month. They usually have before-cable-run-but-after-initial-rental-period movies. And they have a handful of stellar TV shows. We still struggle to find something to watch on that service.

kolbe 7y ago
Blockbuster is irrelevant. They had to pay for real estate and retail employees, and had a much better selection. Streaming is a completely different business. Netflix disks are a better comp. They cost the same as streaming does and while the selection is far better, the limited capacity is far worse for most people. The real competition will probably end up being piracy, eventually. Netflix streaming is getting worse content. And if this decline continues, piracy will become much more favorable.
- inciampati 7y ago
  I am a habitual pirate. I'm the kind who wants to pirate media because I believe that the media system is a lifesucking waste exploiting the rest of society. If I can drop their profits then maybe they will spend more on the cheap stuff (good writing and ideas) and less on the eyecandy and marketing. At best, they fade out of existence and we go back to swapping stories orally. So at some point I decided that a subscription service with almost everything I was interested in would socialize things appropriately and reduce the transaction costs so that piracy and this anarchic tendency wouldn't be worthwhile. After a few years of using the service, I feel that it is only a moderate convenience. In the end my watching habits haven't changed. I am saving some time downloading random things from random horrible websites. But the selection is horrific. There is no way to actively decide to watch something. There are just a handful of options. There are no classics. It's worse than the selection on an international flight. And it's getting expensive.
adventured 7y ago

paxy 7y ago

~$10/month is still ridiculously cheap for what they offer. One single show in their catalog you like will probably make it worth it. They can still raise prices by a LOT before people stop being interested.

sl1ck731 7y ago

I've been thinking it will only take a couple more subscription price bumps. I've already lowered my subscription to the lowest available and will likely just get rid of it altogether in favor of other means of procurement. If they inch towards the 20$ mark for basic I think they will start to decline. I've already seen many people who I would never believe could pirate anything reliably turn to sharing Plex libraries.

carnagii 7y ago

I signed up for Netflix once because I wanted to test how it worked on linux when chrome first added support for it and I had it for about 18 months (never watched it) until my credit card expired because they require you to call to cancel. Don't underestimate how much money you can make off of subscriptions like this. $10 a month is not a lot of money and not worth potentially spending 30-60 minutes on the phone for a lot of people.

harry8 7y ago
"Inertia revenue" "inertia rentals" eg 3 year lease that's a decent deal but if you don't cancel and take a 4th the lessor makes a large profit. IT equipment leasing is frequently like this. I mention by name it in case anyone wants to dig deeper with this idea w.r.t their own business...