4 ms·

When I say Netflix sucks these days, I don't mean Netflix sucks compared to Amazon or Hulu. I mean Netflix today sucks compared to Netflix yesterday. It's gone

by chc 10y ago

When I say Netflix sucks these days, I don't mean Netflix sucks compared to Amazon or Hulu. I mean Netflix today sucks compared to Netflix yesterday. It's gone from "Wow, I want to tell everyone about this great service with a constantly expanding catalog of wonderful stuff I'd like to watch" to having really slim pickings. Sometimes I'll look for stuff on Netflix and just decide to listen to an audiobook instead. The fact that Amazon and Hulu's subscription services are also weak doesn't make Netflix's content more compelling.

nikdaheratik 10y ago
They had a great early deal with Starz to license their entire library at a fraction of what it would be today, and once that expired their back catalog never was the same.
- wapz 10y ago
  Are all the starz movies now gone instead of an additional fee? I subscribed to netflix long ago when it was included for free along with mailed dvds. Then they started charging for starz and I found myself not watching much and cancelled my subscription.
  - chc 10y ago
    I think you may be misremembering. I'm pretty sure, at least in America, Netflix never charged extra for for Starz — it was either included in Netflix's catalog or not offered at all. Maybe you're confusing Netflix with Amazon, who do offer Starz as an additional subscription? Or maybe you're just conflating the Starz catalog with Netflix's streaming service, which was originally part of the DVD service and then became its own thing?
    - wapz 10y ago
      Thank you, I looked it up and you are correct. I must be remembering the "price" hike where the price was actually the same but we lost the dvd option (so we would have to pay extra for it). I'm guessing when Starz got dropped is when we cancelled and not the price hike then. I haven't used Amazon recently so I wasn't aware of their Starz plan.
anigbrowl 10y ago
Sounds like someone binge-watched themselves to satiation and is now projecting changes in their personal preferences onto the vendor that supplied their cravings.
- CodeWriter23 10y ago
  There are many titles now missing from Netflix. My 7yo has a hobby of being a detective so I went to look up Columbo on NF and found they no longer have it. A lot of their catalog is missing, Farscape for example.
- chc 10y ago
  My wife and I watch a movie together a few nights a week. That's my primary use for Netflix. I don't think "binge-watch" is a very accurate way of putting it. We used to have a really long list, and still we'd find stuff that wasn't on the list that we decided to watch instead because it all sounded good. Over time, we only got to watch a a fraction of the stuff we'd added to the list, with the rest simply disappearing. This isn't just a "feeling," it's both an actual phenomenon and to some degree a deliberate choice on the part of Netflix, which wants to focus on its own stable of Netflix Original content that it won't have to renegotiate for every few years. See, for example: http://screencrush.com/yes-netflixs-film-catalog-has-gotten-much-smaller-and-it-is-frustrating/ http://screencrush.com/yes-netflixs-film-catalog-has-gotten-... (and note that the "before" number in that article is from after Netflix lost the whole Starz catalog!)

by chc 10y ago

nikdaheratik 10y ago

They had a great early deal with Starz to license their entire library at a fraction of what it would be today, and once that expired their back catalog never was the same.

wapz 10y ago
Are all the starz movies now gone instead of an additional fee? I subscribed to netflix long ago when it was included for free along with mailed dvds. Then they started charging for starz and I found myself not watching much and cancelled my subscription.
- chc 10y ago
  I think you may be misremembering. I'm pretty sure, at least in America, Netflix never charged extra for for Starz — it was either included in Netflix's catalog or not offered at all. Maybe you're confusing Netflix with Amazon, who do offer Starz as an additional subscription? Or maybe you're just conflating the Starz catalog with Netflix's streaming service, which was originally part of the DVD service and then became its own thing?
  - wapz 10y ago
    Thank you, I looked it up and you are correct. I must be remembering the "price" hike where the price was actually the same but we lost the dvd option (so we would have to pay extra for it). I'm guessing when Starz got dropped is when we cancelled and not the price hike then. I haven't used Amazon recently so I wasn't aware of their Starz plan.

anigbrowl 10y ago

Sounds like someone binge-watched themselves to satiation and is now projecting changes in their personal preferences onto the vendor that supplied their cravings.

CodeWriter23 10y ago
There are many titles now missing from Netflix. My 7yo has a hobby of being a detective so I went to look up Columbo on NF and found they no longer have it. A lot of their catalog is missing, Farscape for example.
chc 10y ago
My wife and I watch a movie together a few nights a week. That's my primary use for Netflix. I don't think "binge-watch" is a very accurate way of putting it. We used to have a really long list, and still we'd find stuff that wasn't on the list that we decided to watch instead because it all sounded good. Over time, we only got to watch a a fraction of the stuff we'd added to the list, with the rest simply disappearing. This isn't just a "feeling," it's both an actual phenomenon and to some degree a deliberate choice on the part of Netflix, which wants to focus on its own stable of Netflix Original content that it won't have to renegotiate for every few years. See, for example: http://screencrush.com/yes-netflixs-film-catalog-has-gotten-much-smaller-and-it-is-frustrating/ http://screencrush.com/yes-netflixs-film-catalog-has-gotten-... (and note that the "before" number in that article is from after Netflix lost the whole Starz catalog!)