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Online movie services are a disappointment because the selection is terrible. Go to IMDB.com. Pick a random movie. Click on the director to see more movies by

Online movie services are a disappointment because the selection is terrible. Go to IMDB.com. Pick a random movie. Click on the director to see more movies by him or her. Choose one. Click the lead actor to see more movies with him or her. Choose one. Click the studio to see more movies by them. Choose one. Why can't I do this with any streaming service? There's no decent search and filter ability because there's not enough selection to support it. The interfaces are all geared toward suggesting what you might like, not letting you search for what you know you want, or filter out what you know you don't. Want to see only Best Picture winners? Only 5-star PG movies? Only detective films from before 1970? Nope. Sorry, not enough selection. Maybe you'd like this new drama we just made? Technically, we could have a service with every movie ever made. But we don't, for stupid business reasons. If we ever get a service with a decent selection, it won't be possible for it to have 50% original content because it would take a hundred years of solid filming to get there.

kodablah 9y ago
I regularly use https://www.justwatch.com https://www.justwatch.com for looking up movies. But its scraping abilities leave a lot to be desired; they are often wrong. And the data is not very transparent (e.g. historical data). I have considered creating an alternative. And have the client choose the streaming services they have like JustWatch. However, for unavailable movies, have a "I'd watch this if it were streaming for me" button. Then I'd record the cross-section of that user's streaming services and their request and keep public counters. I'd remove all users votes if that movie became available for any of their streaming options. I'd show votes for movie per streaming subscription service. Also, in the interest of transparency, I'd keep a running history of when movies came and went from providers. I'd also scrape TV guide to see when they are on TNT or whatever. This is the type of data people deserve. Aside: JustWatch people, I know you browse HN...you can steal this idea and monetize it by, instead of being nice like me and making the votes transparent, just keep the counters internal and sell them as data points. You can couple it into a "I'd watch this! Notify me when this movie is available" feature.
- dewey 9y ago
  > But its scraping abilities leave a lot to be desired; they are often wrong. If you spot any mistakes, especially ones that are consistent and happen frequently (wrong price on a provider,...) feel free to email us at data-police@justwatch.com and we'll take a look. We are very responsive when it comes to that and are constantly improving our scraping infrastructure to stay as accurate as possible. Unfortunately it'll always be a bit of catching up if you scrape hundred of third party providers in more than 30 countries that constantly change their APIs or websites :) As for the "notification" system. That's definitely something that we think about, stay tuned! Disclaimer: I work on the JW scraper
  - kodablah 9y ago
    By "often wrong" above, I should clarify that I find maybe a mistake a week browsing hundreds. I don't want to give anyone the wrong impression that it is wrong most of the time or anything. I do report incorrections through the app. I love the feature that allows me to put in my email to get notified when the issue is fixed, I wish more companies did this (granted I only put my email on a small percentage of the issues I find). To date, I have not seen anything systemic though.
  - ascorbic 9y ago
    Filtering by Metacritic scores please! They're more useful than Rotten Tomatoes for TV shows.

kodablah 9y ago

I regularly use https://www.justwatch.com https://www.justwatch.com for looking up movies. But its scraping abilities leave a lot to be desired; they are often wrong. And the data is not very transparent (e.g. historical data). I have considered creating an alternative. And have the client choose the streaming services they have like JustWatch. However, for unavailable movies, have a "I'd watch this if it were streaming for me" button. Then I'd record the cross-section of that user's streaming services and their request and keep public counters. I'd remove all users votes if that movie became available for any of their streaming options. I'd show votes for movie per streaming subscription service. Also, in the interest of transparency, I'd keep a running history of when movies came and went from providers. I'd also scrape TV guide to see when they are on TNT or whatever. This is the type of data people deserve. Aside: JustWatch people, I know you browse HN...you can steal this idea and monetize it by, instead of being nice like me and making the votes transparent, just keep the counters internal and sell them as data points. You can couple it into a "I'd watch this! Notify me when this movie is available" feature.

dewey 9y ago
> But its scraping abilities leave a lot to be desired; they are often wrong. If you spot any mistakes, especially ones that are consistent and happen frequently (wrong price on a provider,...) feel free to email us at data-police@justwatch.com and we'll take a look. We are very responsive when it comes to that and are constantly improving our scraping infrastructure to stay as accurate as possible. Unfortunately it'll always be a bit of catching up if you scrape hundred of third party providers in more than 30 countries that constantly change their APIs or websites :) As for the "notification" system. That's definitely something that we think about, stay tuned! Disclaimer: I work on the JW scraper
- kodablah 9y ago
  By "often wrong" above, I should clarify that I find maybe a mistake a week browsing hundreds. I don't want to give anyone the wrong impression that it is wrong most of the time or anything. I do report incorrections through the app. I love the feature that allows me to put in my email to get notified when the issue is fixed, I wish more companies did this (granted I only put my email on a small percentage of the issues I find). To date, I have not seen anything systemic though.
- ascorbic 9y ago
  Filtering by Metacritic scores please! They're more useful than Rotten Tomatoes for TV shows.