8 ms·

I don't necessarily agree with this. If I want to watch well produced online content, I do not think Youtube.com. I do think that Netflix and amazon Prime video

by S_A_P 8y ago

I don't necessarily agree with this. If I want to watch well produced online content, I do not think Youtube.com. I do think that Netflix and amazon Prime video have "traditional" studio created content that has high production value. That said, I watch youtube and Netflix almost equally, but for different reasons. Youtube is great for short videos, interviews and niche interest. IF I want to watch scripted drama like NARCOS, I can't find anything close to that on Youtube. At this point, I dont think that they are competitors. The content is not even close to being equal. Im not even saying one is better or worse, they just are too different to call them competition.

bayesian_horse 8y ago
Youtube is better at grabbing the users' attention... Not necessarily with better content. Though I learn more from Youtube than from Netflix, in general...
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  Again though, Netflix is not there to grab a user's attention, Netflix is there to grab a user's money. We shouldn't conflate these two base motivations. If netflix gets you to pay the monthly fee, while at the same time you only use a quarter of the bandwidth of most other netflix users... well, I'd imagine that's a win for netflix. Again, we'd need more of Netflix' internal data, but I wouldn't be surprised if a full modeling would reveal that netflix wants to optimize viewing time to be something less than 100% of some break even viewing level. I have to believe that people using Netflix more than a certain amount in a month end up costing netflix instead of benefiing netflix. But again, we really need access to their internal data to say that for sure.
  - jsnell 8y ago
    Bandwidth is cheap, when the users are actually paying customers. Churn, on the other hand is very expensive. I bet Netflix prefers heavy users over those who watch two movies a month: the latter people are much more likely to cancel the service.
    - bilbo0s 8y ago
      It's been said before, but we'd need the internal data regarding viewing patterns, license fees (which are per user in many cases), bandwidth costs, etc etc, but I'd take your proposed wager. Without hesitation. I can think of very few scenarios where the amalgamation of these per user costs is lower for a heavy user. (Not saying it can't happen, just saying based on what I know, I'd feel pretty confident betting that it doesn't happen.) Additionally, throwing in what I know about consumer behavioral patterns, I'd wager even their light users are extremely unlikely to cancel Netflix.
InclinedPlane 8y ago
Irrelevant. Books, video games, films, youtube, netflix (et al), mobile games, even social media all compete for the same thing: time. People don't have infinite time, if it's filled up with watching youtube videos it can't be filled up watching netflix, regardless of the quality of the content.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  >if it's filled up with watching youtube videos it can't be filled up watching netflix... Correct. And that's pretty convenient for Netflix' bottom line if that person is paying the monthly fee, but using only, say, a quarter of the netflix bandwidth of a heavy user. The modeling to figure all this out is a lot more complex than just "are they watching?"-"are they not watching?". We need access to Netflix' internal data to determine viewing patterns, license fees, bandwidth costs, etc, but I suspect that people using Netflix more than a certain amount in a month end up costing netflix money instead of making netflix money.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    You constantly assume bandwidth is a big concern for Netflix.
    - bilbo0s 8y ago
      And you constantly assume bandwidth is the only per user cost that Netflix is paying. It's one cost, that definitely affects decision making, but there are others. For instance, if you try to license certain types of content, you'll find that the licenses will tend to work in the following fashion: -Estimate how many people will use content. -Resolve differences, if any, between your estimate and content owner's estimate. -Settle on per user fee. Then there are other licenses that are kind of pseudo per user. For instance: -How many people tix to your last tour Mr or Ms Comedian? -Well Mr Digital Property Licensing Hardass, we sold X tix. -Great!!! We'll give you X dollars because we know from analytics that (factor * X) people will view your content over the life of this license. These things are a lot more complicated than just "Are people watching?" - "Are people not watching?". Likely Youtube can do things like weigh bandwidth costs heavier in their models, therefore prioritizing eyeballs. Any eyeballs, because they make money from ads. You try to run something like Netflix using the same modeling factors and you'll go under in fairly short order. There are just a lot more expenses, and the revenue is from a source with a different behavior. So you don't want eyeballs, you want the right eyeballs for the content that you've paid to provide. That means you need to be cold, hard, and calculating. Not every viewer will be equally profitable to you.
woodycheers 8y ago
What the story is driving at is that people end up spending a lot of time on YouTube, when they could have spent it on Netflix, as its CEO has desired. Spending 60 odd minutes of 80 odd minutes one frequents the web for watching video on YouTube is massive.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  The thing is that it's a bit more complicated than that. The business models are different. Even if we don't do the full analysis we can see that someone spending 60 minutes on youtube instead of netflix means that netflix is not paying for that 60 minutes of bandwidth. Netflix doesn't have ads paying for everything, they have to pay for everything other ways. So that business becomes about more than just blindly getting eyeballs. You want the right eyeballs, based on the content you pay to offer. That implies some fairly complex modeling. Now of course we'd need more information than Netflix would likely provide us to do a full analysis, but my sense from what we can know is that this guy is likely close to correct about what his enemy is.
  - anongraddebt 8y ago
    I agree. Netflix aims to be a sort of global tax on TV and Movie based entertainment. Their business model runs up against biological constraints (with regards to the desire for perpetual growth).
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >Even if we don't do the full analysis we can see that someone spending 60 minutes on youtube instead of netflix means that netflix is not paying for that 60 minutes of bandwidth. The bandwidth would be insignificant to Netflix compared to churn. Not to mention, with edge caches at telcos and so it, it would be already paid.
icebraining 8y ago
YouTube Originals has scripted dramas, though the selection is still tiny, and the UI is a mess, in my opinion. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqVDpXKLmKeBU_yyt_QkItQ/playlists?shelf_id=30&sort=dd&view=50 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqVDpXKLmKeBU_yyt_QkItQ/pla...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- aequitas 8y ago
  YouTube recently suggested Impulse to me (sci-fi/drama) out of the blue. Just the first 3 episodes for the rest you needed premium. It definitely looked like a show you would find on Netflix or TV in terms of production.
  - alimbada 8y ago
    I watched the first couple of episodes of that and while I do enjoy it I wouldn't pay a monthly for a YouTube Premium subscription just to watch one show. The other show that it keeps suggesting to me is Origin which looks interesting too, but it's still not enough. Edit: Origin, not Origins.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> If I want to watch well produced online content, I do not think Youtube.com I do. Historia Civilis is presently my favourite channel. Production quality is nothing to write home about, but the quality is fantastic. Moreover, I don’t walk away feeling like I crapped away thirty minutes—I learned something.
- oxide 8y ago
  There is a ton of quality on YouTube, some of my favorites are Redlettermedia, Baz Battles (focused on historical battles) and Lemmino, his short form documentaries are extremely well edited. Historia Civils is one of my favorite channels as well. Excellent content.
  - assblaster 8y ago
    Check out PBS SpaceTime, and you'll quickly lose a day to that amazing content.
- nindalf 8y ago
  There’s two things I adore about Historia Civilis. One is the way he represents terrain and units on a battle field in battle related episodes. It might not look fancy but it gets the job done. Normally I struggle to imagine unfamiliar terrain so this helps a lot. The second is he passes the Gell-Mann test for me. There are certain sections in history I know really well because I’ve read multiple books on it and he gets those absolutely right. So when I watch an episode on an era I’m unfamiliar with, I’m confident he’s done his due diligence.
  - Scriptor 8y ago
    What do you mean by the "Gell Mann" test?
    - sah2ed 8y ago
      The quality of a news source passing a simple test of credibility by presenting an accurate account of a topic the reader is deeply familiar with. For instance, if you are a Computer Scientist and you find yourself agreeing to a layman explanation of the halting problem while reading a NYTimes article (targeting a general audience) then the article passes the Gell-Mann test. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect
manojlds 8y ago
Does sleep have well produced online content?
- jerkstate 8y ago
  if you do it right: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  Sleep goes you one better. Often enough sleep provides fantastical entertainment content indistinguishable from reality. Every genre, from comedy to horror. Only thing is, you can't choose what content you want to experience. (At least, not to my knowledge you can't pick what content you want?)
  - clarry 8y ago
    Look up lucid dreams.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - Kirth 8y ago
    I haven't been remembering my dreams for almost a decade now. Is this good, is this bad? Does anyone have a similar experience?
    - Retra 8y ago
      It wouldn't expect it to mean much. You're probably just not waking up during your dreams and staying in bed to ruminate over them. Dreams don't go into recallable memory unless you hold onto them when you're waking. If it bothers you, you can always try sleeping in new and interesting places/positions every night. That seems to be a common trigger for lucid dreams, sleep paralysis, and other unforgettable dream experiences.
  - 8y ago
B-Con 8y ago
They don't have to produce the same type of content to be competitors. They are competing to produce video content you spend time on, albeit different types. But YouTube is hinting they are considering making "TV show" style content, what with most of their YouTube Red exclusive content being of that format. While I find none of it interesting, except Mind Field by VSauce, they clearly have the idea on their radar.
prostoalex 8y ago
Just like everyone else, they’re nailing down exclusives. I was going to buy my son the latest season of Thomas & Friends in digital (those Amazon Prime $1 digital store credits for delayed delivery do come handy), but apparently the only venue to do so is YouTube.com.
samsonradu 8y ago
Interestingly there's no mention of HBO here (nor in sibling comments), a very high production value content which imo is running circles around Netflix and Prime.
- oblio 8y ago
  HBO barely streams anything, at a global scale.
- codq 8y ago
  Agreed. As far as I'm concerned, almost everything on HBO is worth watching. But almost nothing on Netflix is worth watching anymore. The quality bar has lowered so much over the years.
fipple 8y ago
There's plenty of content on YouTube that's at the highest level of professional production. It's 0.01% of what's on YouTube, compared to 100% of what's on Netflix, so you will not find it by just going to YouTube.com and clicking random links... but there's still many human lifetimes of high-end content on YouTube.
- joshschreuder 8y ago
  Fair point. I think Captain Disillusion is a good example of this, his production value is extremely high with regards to visual effects for what is a fairly niche subject matter.
  - Lewton 8y ago
    Still, imagine if he got a Netflix deal(how awesome would that be), the production value would go up
    - bmsleight_ 8y ago
      To me it is perfect expansion for Netflix. Youtube offers a universal service provision, Netflix could carefully cherry-pick the top youtubers and offer them the money.
  - nothrabannosir 8y ago
    Captain Disillusion is nowhere near the quality of a Netflix show. I love the guy and support him on Patreon, but at the end of the day, it’s a garage version of myth busters. It still has that “youtuby” feel of a guy doing a thing in his spare time. The budget is incredibly low; look at his Patreon. Compare this to the millions of dollars that go into a film considered “low budget”. If CD is YouTube’s high quality content, then that is exactly the point GP was making.
    - tk75x 8y ago
      For an example of high quality Youtube content, check out Good Mythical Morning.
genidoi 8y ago
They are competitors - for your eyeballs. Just because they don't provide precisely the same service doesn't make them non-competitors. Youtube competes with Netflix the same way your shower length preference competes with Netflix. The disconcerting (if not narcissistic) elephant in the room being that service providers are viewing any activities that cause you to spend time away from their service as "competition" at all.
- mijamo 8y ago
  I don't really understand this. Netflix cares about how much you watch it ONLY if it means you will stop your subscription. In fact, as long as you keep your subscription their interest is that you watch as few as possible to minimize costs, right? So a few addictive shows that make you need to keep Netflix are betters than keeping you on Netflix all day every day. If Netflix cannot be replaced by Youtube, it is not a real competitor. Saying otherwise leads to weird useless definitions of competition. We would have to say everything is a competitor of everything else, and then how is that interesting to know?
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >So a few addictive shows that make you need to keep Netflix are betters than keeping you on Netflix all day every day. Not really, as you're more likely to drop the service you're not on "all day every day" than otherwise. And the fewer the addictive shows the more chance you'll get addicted to something else next year on another service (or just download the stuff).
  - davidivadavid 8y ago
    No, it leads to the only valuable definition of competition: competitors are products that serve the same need. Netflix and Youtube are entertainment. They compete with each other, as well as TV, video games, and a bunch of other things. They also serve other needs (e.g. education). But there are (many) other needs that they don't serve (e.g. nutrition (you can't eat Netflix), healthcare, human relationships, etc.).
  - bryanrasmussen 8y ago
freddie_mercury 8y ago
> IF I want to watch scripted drama like NARCOS, I can't find anything close to that on Youtube If you step outside of the narrow US/English speaking world this isn't the case. Here's episode 92 of a popular hour-long scripted family show from Vietnam: https://youtu.be/rqdqn5Rfx6w https://youtu.be/rqdqn5Rfx6w You can see that it has 5.7 million views within 5 days of release. That's more viewers than, say, Daredevil gets.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- thedaemon 8y ago
  Netflix does not release it's viewer data as far as I understand. You cannot compare that which you have no data for.
  - freddie_mercury 8y ago
    You don't need Netflix to release viewer data for other analytics firms to provide the answer.
sebastianavina 8y ago
I've bought several movies on youtube. My family has netflix, but I don't like to watch tv, so I really dont care... On the other side, sometimes I read something about a movie, and I just want to watch that movie... If it's not available on netflix, I go straight to youtube and buy it or rent it... Also, I always listen music on youtube. It's just a differente market... My mom love the tv, and watches tv 10 hours a day straight (yeah, its unhealty, but she is 66 y/o, so if thats her will, she can do whatever she wants), and she loves netflix, and amazon prime, and claro video, and youtube...
httpz 8y ago
Comparing YouTube to Netflix is like comparing apples to oranges. However, at the end of the day I'm not gonna eat another orange when I already ate a lot of apples.
coldtea 8y ago
>I don't necessarily agree with this. If I want to watch well produced online content, I do not think Youtube.com (...) Youtube is great for short videos, interviews and niche interest. IF I want to watch scripted drama like NARCOS, I can't find anything close to that on Youtube. That's orthogonal though, since people don't split equally their viewing habits based on content types. So if, e.g. younger generations, watch less "scripted drama like NARCOS" and more "short videos, interviews and niche interest stuff", then Netflix has a YouTube problem, regardless if they have all the "well produced online content".
- skohan 8y ago
  What remains to be seen is whether the demographic trends here are due to fundamental differences in what gen Z kids are interested in, or whether it's just a function of the fact that YouTube is free, and Teenagers don't have money, and your parents can't see what you've been watching like they can if you use their Netflix login. It would be like looking at transportation data and concluding that since teenagers tend to take the bus or ride bikes to get places, the auto industry will be doomed in 20 years.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    On the other hand, what teenagers are used to watching, they can take to their adult life. The same way languages and idioms CS students learn in college influence what happens in the enterprise later on. A generation back everybody just watched TV -- kids AND parents. So this is new-ish.
1337biz 8y ago
> If I want to watch well produced online content, That's probably the main question - in how far people actually care about quality / production quality. YouTube's unique angle is originality and cartering towards highly personalized interest topics.
kazagistar 8y ago
In the past few years, I have found myself drifting away from playing mainstream AAA game titles, and more towards indie games, which I find to have higher quality for me. But how can this be, since they have such lower budgets and production values? They make up for it with a combination of individual creativity and unfiltered vision, which are more difficult with a big budget provided by producers demanding their money back. Smaller productions also have the flexibility to target niche or unproven markets, which means I am able to find works more ideally suited to my preferences. In case the metaphor isn't clear, this is a similar dynamic to Netflix vs Youtube.

by S_A_P 8y ago

bayesian_horse 8y ago

Youtube is better at grabbing the users' attention... Not necessarily with better content. Though I learn more from Youtube than from Netflix, in general...

bilbo0s 8y ago
Again though, Netflix is not there to grab a user's attention, Netflix is there to grab a user's money. We shouldn't conflate these two base motivations. If netflix gets you to pay the monthly fee, while at the same time you only use a quarter of the bandwidth of most other netflix users... well, I'd imagine that's a win for netflix. Again, we'd need more of Netflix' internal data, but I wouldn't be surprised if a full modeling would reveal that netflix wants to optimize viewing time to be something less than 100% of some break even viewing level. I have to believe that people using Netflix more than a certain amount in a month end up costing netflix instead of benefiing netflix. But again, we really need access to their internal data to say that for sure.
- jsnell 8y ago
  Bandwidth is cheap, when the users are actually paying customers. Churn, on the other hand is very expensive. I bet Netflix prefers heavy users over those who watch two movies a month: the latter people are much more likely to cancel the service.
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    It's been said before, but we'd need the internal data regarding viewing patterns, license fees (which are per user in many cases), bandwidth costs, etc etc, but I'd take your proposed wager. Without hesitation. I can think of very few scenarios where the amalgamation of these per user costs is lower for a heavy user. (Not saying it can't happen, just saying based on what I know, I'd feel pretty confident betting that it doesn't happen.) Additionally, throwing in what I know about consumer behavioral patterns, I'd wager even their light users are extremely unlikely to cancel Netflix.

InclinedPlane 8y ago

Irrelevant. Books, video games, films, youtube, netflix (et al), mobile games, even social media all compete for the same thing: time. People don't have infinite time, if it's filled up with watching youtube videos it can't be filled up watching netflix, regardless of the quality of the content.

bilbo0s 8y ago
>if it's filled up with watching youtube videos it can't be filled up watching netflix... Correct. And that's pretty convenient for Netflix' bottom line if that person is paying the monthly fee, but using only, say, a quarter of the netflix bandwidth of a heavy user. The modeling to figure all this out is a lot more complex than just "are they watching?"-"are they not watching?". We need access to Netflix' internal data to determine viewing patterns, license fees, bandwidth costs, etc, but I suspect that people using Netflix more than a certain amount in a month end up costing netflix money instead of making netflix money.
- coldtea 8y ago
  You constantly assume bandwidth is a big concern for Netflix.
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    And you constantly assume bandwidth is the only per user cost that Netflix is paying. It's one cost, that definitely affects decision making, but there are others. For instance, if you try to license certain types of content, you'll find that the licenses will tend to work in the following fashion: -Estimate how many people will use content. -Resolve differences, if any, between your estimate and content owner's estimate. -Settle on per user fee. Then there are other licenses that are kind of pseudo per user. For instance: -How many people tix to your last tour Mr or Ms Comedian? -Well Mr Digital Property Licensing Hardass, we sold X tix. -Great!!! We'll give you X dollars because we know from analytics that (factor * X) people will view your content over the life of this license. These things are a lot more complicated than just "Are people watching?" - "Are people not watching?". Likely Youtube can do things like weigh bandwidth costs heavier in their models, therefore prioritizing eyeballs. Any eyeballs, because they make money from ads. You try to run something like Netflix using the same modeling factors and you'll go under in fairly short order. There are just a lot more expenses, and the revenue is from a source with a different behavior. So you don't want eyeballs, you want the right eyeballs for the content that you've paid to provide. That means you need to be cold, hard, and calculating. Not every viewer will be equally profitable to you.

woodycheers 8y ago

What the story is driving at is that people end up spending a lot of time on YouTube, when they could have spent it on Netflix, as its CEO has desired. Spending 60 odd minutes of 80 odd minutes one frequents the web for watching video on YouTube is massive.

bilbo0s 8y ago
The thing is that it's a bit more complicated than that. The business models are different. Even if we don't do the full analysis we can see that someone spending 60 minutes on youtube instead of netflix means that netflix is not paying for that 60 minutes of bandwidth. Netflix doesn't have ads paying for everything, they have to pay for everything other ways. So that business becomes about more than just blindly getting eyeballs. You want the right eyeballs, based on the content you pay to offer. That implies some fairly complex modeling. Now of course we'd need more information than Netflix would likely provide us to do a full analysis, but my sense from what we can know is that this guy is likely close to correct about what his enemy is.
- anongraddebt 8y ago
  I agree. Netflix aims to be a sort of global tax on TV and Movie based entertainment. Their business model runs up against biological constraints (with regards to the desire for perpetual growth).
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Even if we don't do the full analysis we can see that someone spending 60 minutes on youtube instead of netflix means that netflix is not paying for that 60 minutes of bandwidth. The bandwidth would be insignificant to Netflix compared to churn. Not to mention, with edge caches at telcos and so it, it would be already paid.

icebraining 8y ago

YouTube Originals has scripted dramas, though the selection is still tiny, and the UI is a mess, in my opinion. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqVDpXKLmKeBU_yyt_QkItQ/playlists?shelf_id=30&sort=dd&view=50 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqVDpXKLmKeBU_yyt_QkItQ/pla...

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
aequitas 8y ago
YouTube recently suggested Impulse to me (sci-fi/drama) out of the blue. Just the first 3 episodes for the rest you needed premium. It definitely looked like a show you would find on Netflix or TV in terms of production.
- alimbada 8y ago
  I watched the first couple of episodes of that and while I do enjoy it I wouldn't pay a monthly for a YouTube Premium subscription just to watch one show. The other show that it keeps suggesting to me is Origin which looks interesting too, but it's still not enough. Edit: Origin, not Origins.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> If I want to watch well produced online content, I do not think Youtube.com I do. Historia Civilis is presently my favourite channel. Production quality is nothing to write home about, but the quality is fantastic. Moreover, I don’t walk away feeling like I crapped away thirty minutes—I learned something.

oxide 8y ago
There is a ton of quality on YouTube, some of my favorites are Redlettermedia, Baz Battles (focused on historical battles) and Lemmino, his short form documentaries are extremely well edited. Historia Civils is one of my favorite channels as well. Excellent content.
- assblaster 8y ago
  Check out PBS SpaceTime, and you'll quickly lose a day to that amazing content.
nindalf 8y ago
There’s two things I adore about Historia Civilis. One is the way he represents terrain and units on a battle field in battle related episodes. It might not look fancy but it gets the job done. Normally I struggle to imagine unfamiliar terrain so this helps a lot. The second is he passes the Gell-Mann test for me. There are certain sections in history I know really well because I’ve read multiple books on it and he gets those absolutely right. So when I watch an episode on an era I’m unfamiliar with, I’m confident he’s done his due diligence.
- Scriptor 8y ago
  What do you mean by the "Gell Mann" test?
  - sah2ed 8y ago
    The quality of a news source passing a simple test of credibility by presenting an accurate account of a topic the reader is deeply familiar with. For instance, if you are a Computer Scientist and you find yourself agreeing to a layman explanation of the halting problem while reading a NYTimes article (targeting a general audience) then the article passes the Gell-Mann test. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect

manojlds 8y ago

Does sleep have well produced online content?

jerkstate 8y ago
if you do it right: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream
bilbo0s 8y ago
Sleep goes you one better. Often enough sleep provides fantastical entertainment content indistinguishable from reality. Every genre, from comedy to horror. Only thing is, you can't choose what content you want to experience. (At least, not to my knowledge you can't pick what content you want?)
- clarry 8y ago
  Look up lucid dreams.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- Kirth 8y ago
  I haven't been remembering my dreams for almost a decade now. Is this good, is this bad? Does anyone have a similar experience?
  - Retra 8y ago
    It wouldn't expect it to mean much. You're probably just not waking up during your dreams and staying in bed to ruminate over them. Dreams don't go into recallable memory unless you hold onto them when you're waking. If it bothers you, you can always try sleeping in new and interesting places/positions every night. That seems to be a common trigger for lucid dreams, sleep paralysis, and other unforgettable dream experiences.
- 8y ago

B-Con 8y ago

They don't have to produce the same type of content to be competitors. They are competing to produce video content you spend time on, albeit different types. But YouTube is hinting they are considering making "TV show" style content, what with most of their YouTube Red exclusive content being of that format. While I find none of it interesting, except Mind Field by VSauce, they clearly have the idea on their radar.

prostoalex 8y ago

Just like everyone else, they’re nailing down exclusives. I was going to buy my son the latest season of Thomas & Friends in digital (those Amazon Prime $1 digital store credits for delayed delivery do come handy), but apparently the only venue to do so is YouTube.com.

samsonradu 8y ago

Interestingly there's no mention of HBO here (nor in sibling comments), a very high production value content which imo is running circles around Netflix and Prime.

oblio 8y ago
HBO barely streams anything, at a global scale.
codq 8y ago
Agreed. As far as I'm concerned, almost everything on HBO is worth watching. But almost nothing on Netflix is worth watching anymore. The quality bar has lowered so much over the years.

fipple 8y ago

There's plenty of content on YouTube that's at the highest level of professional production. It's 0.01% of what's on YouTube, compared to 100% of what's on Netflix, so you will not find it by just going to YouTube.com and clicking random links... but there's still many human lifetimes of high-end content on YouTube.

joshschreuder 8y ago
Fair point. I think Captain Disillusion is a good example of this, his production value is extremely high with regards to visual effects for what is a fairly niche subject matter.
- Lewton 8y ago
  Still, imagine if he got a Netflix deal(how awesome would that be), the production value would go up
  - bmsleight_ 8y ago
    To me it is perfect expansion for Netflix. Youtube offers a universal service provision, Netflix could carefully cherry-pick the top youtubers and offer them the money.
- nothrabannosir 8y ago
  Captain Disillusion is nowhere near the quality of a Netflix show. I love the guy and support him on Patreon, but at the end of the day, it’s a garage version of myth busters. It still has that “youtuby” feel of a guy doing a thing in his spare time. The budget is incredibly low; look at his Patreon. Compare this to the millions of dollars that go into a film considered “low budget”. If CD is YouTube’s high quality content, then that is exactly the point GP was making.
  - tk75x 8y ago
    For an example of high quality Youtube content, check out Good Mythical Morning.

genidoi 8y ago

They are competitors - for your eyeballs. Just because they don't provide precisely the same service doesn't make them non-competitors. Youtube competes with Netflix the same way your shower length preference competes with Netflix. The disconcerting (if not narcissistic) elephant in the room being that service providers are viewing any activities that cause you to spend time away from their service as "competition" at all.

mijamo 8y ago
I don't really understand this. Netflix cares about how much you watch it ONLY if it means you will stop your subscription. In fact, as long as you keep your subscription their interest is that you watch as few as possible to minimize costs, right? So a few addictive shows that make you need to keep Netflix are betters than keeping you on Netflix all day every day. If Netflix cannot be replaced by Youtube, it is not a real competitor. Saying otherwise leads to weird useless definitions of competition. We would have to say everything is a competitor of everything else, and then how is that interesting to know?
- coldtea 8y ago
  >So a few addictive shows that make you need to keep Netflix are betters than keeping you on Netflix all day every day. Not really, as you're more likely to drop the service you're not on "all day every day" than otherwise. And the fewer the addictive shows the more chance you'll get addicted to something else next year on another service (or just download the stuff).
- davidivadavid 8y ago
  No, it leads to the only valuable definition of competition: competitors are products that serve the same need. Netflix and Youtube are entertainment. They compete with each other, as well as TV, video games, and a bunch of other things. They also serve other needs (e.g. education). But there are (many) other needs that they don't serve (e.g. nutrition (you can't eat Netflix), healthcare, human relationships, etc.).
- bryanrasmussen 8y ago

freddie_mercury 8y ago

> IF I want to watch scripted drama like NARCOS, I can't find anything close to that on Youtube If you step outside of the narrow US/English speaking world this isn't the case. Here's episode 92 of a popular hour-long scripted family show from Vietnam: https://youtu.be/rqdqn5Rfx6w https://youtu.be/rqdqn5Rfx6w You can see that it has 5.7 million views within 5 days of release. That's more viewers than, say, Daredevil gets.

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thedaemon 8y ago
Netflix does not release it's viewer data as far as I understand. You cannot compare that which you have no data for.
- freddie_mercury 8y ago
  You don't need Netflix to release viewer data for other analytics firms to provide the answer.

sebastianavina 8y ago

I've bought several movies on youtube. My family has netflix, but I don't like to watch tv, so I really dont care... On the other side, sometimes I read something about a movie, and I just want to watch that movie... If it's not available on netflix, I go straight to youtube and buy it or rent it... Also, I always listen music on youtube. It's just a differente market... My mom love the tv, and watches tv 10 hours a day straight (yeah, its unhealty, but she is 66 y/o, so if thats her will, she can do whatever she wants), and she loves netflix, and amazon prime, and claro video, and youtube...

httpz 8y ago

Comparing YouTube to Netflix is like comparing apples to oranges. However, at the end of the day I'm not gonna eat another orange when I already ate a lot of apples.

coldtea 8y ago

>I don't necessarily agree with this. If I want to watch well produced online content, I do not think Youtube.com (...) Youtube is great for short videos, interviews and niche interest. IF I want to watch scripted drama like NARCOS, I can't find anything close to that on Youtube. That's orthogonal though, since people don't split equally their viewing habits based on content types. So if, e.g. younger generations, watch less "scripted drama like NARCOS" and more "short videos, interviews and niche interest stuff", then Netflix has a YouTube problem, regardless if they have all the "well produced online content".

skohan 8y ago
What remains to be seen is whether the demographic trends here are due to fundamental differences in what gen Z kids are interested in, or whether it's just a function of the fact that YouTube is free, and Teenagers don't have money, and your parents can't see what you've been watching like they can if you use their Netflix login. It would be like looking at transportation data and concluding that since teenagers tend to take the bus or ride bikes to get places, the auto industry will be doomed in 20 years.
- coldtea 8y ago
  On the other hand, what teenagers are used to watching, they can take to their adult life. The same way languages and idioms CS students learn in college influence what happens in the enterprise later on. A generation back everybody just watched TV -- kids AND parents. So this is new-ish.

1337biz 8y ago

> If I want to watch well produced online content, That's probably the main question - in how far people actually care about quality / production quality. YouTube's unique angle is originality and cartering towards highly personalized interest topics.

kazagistar 8y ago

In the past few years, I have found myself drifting away from playing mainstream AAA game titles, and more towards indie games, which I find to have higher quality for me. But how can this be, since they have such lower budgets and production values? They make up for it with a combination of individual creativity and unfiltered vision, which are more difficult with a big budget provided by producers demanding their money back. Smaller productions also have the flexibility to target niche or unproven markets, which means I am able to find works more ideally suited to my preferences. In case the metaphor isn't clear, this is a similar dynamic to Netflix vs Youtube.