4 ms·

I have a strong suspicion the reason the interface is set up like this is to prevent you from realizing how small their catalog actually is.

utopcell 8y ago
I agree. Amazon recently moved to a Netflix-like interface, likely for similar reasons, a pain to navigate compared to what they had before.
jesseb 8y ago
I see comments similar to these on a lot of websites, and I don't understand the sentiment; I feel like I'm missing something major here. There are thousands of television series and movies available to Americans on Netflix (less so in other countries, but the point still stands). Cable television doesn't offer a fraction of what's available on Netflix. I'm not aware of another streaming service that offers more titles. What is Netflix's library "small" relative to? Again, just curious because I've seen this mentioned plenty of times, and I personally find there's an overwhelming amount of content on there.
- gnicholas 8y ago
  With cable television, you get new content. Most of Netflix's catalog is old, and much of it is really quite bad. One of my pet peeves is that they don't indicate that a show is in a foreign language with English subtitles. Why is there no way to set a flag to just show English-language content?
  - exolymph 8y ago
    This drives me crazy too, since a lot of the time I want a background show, and for that I need English audio.
- SpecialistEMT 8y ago
  Relative to the pirate bay ;)
- 1123581321 8y ago
  I find there are people who are more concerned with collecting digital video than watching it. Those kinds of people do not like Netflix and make those kinds of comments because Netflix is not trying to cater to them. Others are fine with Netflix if it can offer them something to watch that meets their standards. It doesn’t matter if it was one of two or two hundred viable options. Netflix is able to do this for very high standards as well as middling tastes. This is also known as maximizing vs satisficing^. Both ways of treating media are valid but there’s some friction when the collectors try to make the watchers feel bad (or when the watchers make the collectors look a bit irrational, as I’m admittedly trying to do with this comment.) ^ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/201506/satisficing-vs-maximizing https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/20150...
pasbesoin 8y ago
I, as well. Likewise their introduction and increase of the rotation of the image tiles applied to each title, in their listings. Most recently, there is the response to their removal of user reviews. That I regret; I've found them useful, and even a bit more so with the removal of the "star" ratings for this overly simplistic and opaque thumbs up/down mechanism. But what I haven't seen mentioned, but am now noticing, is that at some point they removed the year of release from at least their hover/pop-up descriptions. At the moment, and not in the right place to check, I'm not sure whether they are gone from their more details listings -- whose UI to access is an unwieldy pain in the ass, itself. They just want you to see an interesting looking tile, that you haven't seen before, and click on it. Never mind that the content behind it is most likely the same "minimally acceptable" c-list, maybe b-list, content they've been increasingly shoveling up for these past some years. Except for some of their headliner "original content". And, a lot of their original content listings are becoming similar stuff they slap their brand on, often acquired -- likely on the cheap -- from non-U.S. productions. (There's nothing wrong with non-U.S. productions, but there's a lot of inexpensive, second-if-that tier stuff in the rest of the world. And the good stuff is increasingly captured by other outlets maximizing returns and control over what Netflix will pay and offer.) At least, that's the way I've come to interpret what I'm experiencing with them.
simonebrunozzi 8y ago
Absolutely 100% this.

utopcell 8y ago

I agree. Amazon recently moved to a Netflix-like interface, likely for similar reasons, a pain to navigate compared to what they had before.

jesseb 8y ago

I see comments similar to these on a lot of websites, and I don't understand the sentiment; I feel like I'm missing something major here. There are thousands of television series and movies available to Americans on Netflix (less so in other countries, but the point still stands). Cable television doesn't offer a fraction of what's available on Netflix. I'm not aware of another streaming service that offers more titles. What is Netflix's library "small" relative to? Again, just curious because I've seen this mentioned plenty of times, and I personally find there's an overwhelming amount of content on there.

gnicholas 8y ago
With cable television, you get new content. Most of Netflix's catalog is old, and much of it is really quite bad. One of my pet peeves is that they don't indicate that a show is in a foreign language with English subtitles. Why is there no way to set a flag to just show English-language content?
- exolymph 8y ago
  This drives me crazy too, since a lot of the time I want a background show, and for that I need English audio.
SpecialistEMT 8y ago
Relative to the pirate bay ;)
1123581321 8y ago
I find there are people who are more concerned with collecting digital video than watching it. Those kinds of people do not like Netflix and make those kinds of comments because Netflix is not trying to cater to them. Others are fine with Netflix if it can offer them something to watch that meets their standards. It doesn’t matter if it was one of two or two hundred viable options. Netflix is able to do this for very high standards as well as middling tastes. This is also known as maximizing vs satisficing^. Both ways of treating media are valid but there’s some friction when the collectors try to make the watchers feel bad (or when the watchers make the collectors look a bit irrational, as I’m admittedly trying to do with this comment.) ^ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/201506/satisficing-vs-maximizing https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/20150...

pasbesoin 8y ago

I, as well. Likewise their introduction and increase of the rotation of the image tiles applied to each title, in their listings. Most recently, there is the response to their removal of user reviews. That I regret; I've found them useful, and even a bit more so with the removal of the "star" ratings for this overly simplistic and opaque thumbs up/down mechanism. But what I haven't seen mentioned, but am now noticing, is that at some point they removed the year of release from at least their hover/pop-up descriptions. At the moment, and not in the right place to check, I'm not sure whether they are gone from their more details listings -- whose UI to access is an unwieldy pain in the ass, itself. They just want you to see an interesting looking tile, that you haven't seen before, and click on it. Never mind that the content behind it is most likely the same "minimally acceptable" c-list, maybe b-list, content they've been increasingly shoveling up for these past some years. Except for some of their headliner "original content". And, a lot of their original content listings are becoming similar stuff they slap their brand on, often acquired -- likely on the cheap -- from non-U.S. productions. (There's nothing wrong with non-U.S. productions, but there's a lot of inexpensive, second-if-that tier stuff in the rest of the world. And the good stuff is increasingly captured by other outlets maximizing returns and control over what Netflix will pay and offer.) At least, that's the way I've come to interpret what I'm experiencing with them.

simonebrunozzi 8y ago

Absolutely 100% this.