6 ms·

Netflix has ~160 million subscribers. So, they're saying they need to be a third of the size of Netflix to break even. Since "break even" isn't all that interes

Netflix has ~160 million subscribers. So, they're saying they need to be a third of the size of Netflix to break even. Since "break even" isn't all that interesting to investors, for it to be profitably worthwhile, I'd imagine they need to essentially become as big as Netflix. It seems unclear how feasible that may be. The only thing keeping me wanting to use Netflix is quality content, which has been in decline recently. Given all of the recognizable brands under the Disney name, maybe people will switch. At a technical level, I question their ability to pull off offering a service as large as Netflix with high availability. Netflix offers very competitive compensation to their engineering talent.

crooked-v 7y ago
A key thing drawing me from Netflix to Disney+ is that the latter is willing to actually just give me lists A-Z of all available shows and movies. I'm sure there have to be others who feel the same way.
- fluidcruft 7y ago
  Yeah, what is it with Netflix and making it impossible to find something to watch anymore? It's like you open it up and not only do all the lists change and it's not easy to find things, but they also run around changing the cover images of the series you've been watching so you don't even recognize it at first and you're hunting around to find it again.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    They are clearly engaging in user hostile behavior hoping that the number of users who cancel due to being inconvenienced is less than the number who are retained/gained by being fooled into thinking there is more than there is.
    - cududa 7y ago
      I mean I think it’s more over engineering idiocy. I was staying with my cousin for a week and Was amazed at the content Netflix recommends/ surfaces him versus me. So much cool stuff that he had, versus the relative genre stuff I get in my own account
      - takeda 7y ago
        Do you know whose account is older, yours or your friend's? I'm wondering if their algorithm thinks it knows you well and thinks you won't like these shows and maybe your friend's account is newer so it tries to experiment more?
      - gknoy 7y ago
        Our smart TV lets us swap between our five (!) profiles. Each has different trackings and recommendations (other than Star Trek TNG, which apparently three of us have watched ;)) You might consider making a new profile ("cududa2" or something) and see if that has more diverse recommendations. Try adding / watching some of the ones that are novel compared to your other list, and see if that helps. I agree, though, I'd really like to have a _full listing_ of shows.
      - lotsofpulp 7y ago
        Originally, on AppleTV, when I opened the app, the first thing I’d click would let me resume watching what I was watching previously. Then, one day, it changed so they I had to scroll up or down to find the row of “continue watching”, and it wasn’t even one row up or down, I had to make an effort to look for it. I would assume this was due them wanting me to see what else they had, or maybe feel like having to scroll would make it seem like they had a lot. Or maybe it was incompetence. Either way, I saw no reason for them to inconvenience me, so I canceled Netflix.
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    As well as the annoyance of snippet videos auto-playing as you're trying to browse titles, without an explicit user action for "show me a snippet of this".
    - crooked-v 7y ago
      Note that Disney+ does this as well by default, though there's a setting to turn it off.
  - dwoozle 7y ago
    Netflix is trying to draw your attention away from the fact that they are constantly losing licensed content by conditioning you to expect a random assortment on each open. Because Disney owns its content they want to condition you to trust that the content you want is always there whenever you want to watch it. The UXs match the business models.
    - papln 7y ago
      Specifically, they are trying to (a) spam you with Netflix options to find some Netflix content that you will get hooked on so you stop looking for non-Netflix content, and (b) give you the appearance of inifinite available content by making the content you haven't watched look different every time you see the cover image. The mistake is in breaking the illusion by also rotating the cover look of content you've already watched.
  - bduerst 7y ago
    The Netflix UX is a balancing act between finding things that you know you want to watch and "discovering" new content to watch. Netflix faces the same challenge that Facebook does with the news feed in that they're trying to combine two functions into the one interface that the users are familiar with.
    - 8ytecoder 7y ago
      I don't know when product managers are going to realize that one size doesn't fit all. Different people use Netflix differently and usually even the same people use it differently at different times. There should be an option to switch between these modes. Netflix, for example, could easily have multiple modes. A discover based on my past preferences/popularity mode and a categorical listing mode. The problem is them blending these two together and then prioritizing their content arbitrarily over other better recommendations.
      - tedsanders 7y ago
        They do have these modes, though, right? The home page is for discovery based on your past preferences/popularity. And there are TV and movie pages in which you can display shows by genre or even A-Z. Disclosure: I work at Netflix and would like to make it better for everyone who uses it.
        durden0 7y ago
        Huh, you are correct, never realized that was possible. You have to dig a little to get to it (change view format and then select from sorting options) but it's there.
        takeda 7y ago
        I think you guys need to make it a bit more obvious that other options are available besides the home view.
        gknoy 7y ago
        How do we access these other modes? I've never noticed it on either the Windows app, nor my Android device -- despite spending several minutes looking for it right now, after reading your comment that they exist. When I go to Hamburger -> Anime, or Hamburger -> TV shows, it has the same style of semi-logical groupings of categories as I see normally: Crime shows, action shows, classic shows, suggestions for me, etc -- but there seems to be no affordances to affect ordering, nor menu items that would reflect that. The settings menu is useless, as it consists only of links to the account details, privacy statement, and terms of use. I really hope that the answer isn't "Log into our website instead of using our native app!", though perhaps the feature warrants such an experiment. In the Android mobile app, which has recently seen some excellent improvements, I'm unable to find an alphabetical listing as well. One can select genres, and TV shows vs movies, but there are no affordances for sorting, only a wall of categories to scroll through.
  - jumbopapa 7y ago
    Check out Reelgood [1]. It aggregates all of the streaming services and allows you to filter on genre, IMDB, and Rotten Tomatoes. I don't have to waste time looking through a bunch of junk to find something worth watching anymore. [1] - https://reelgood.com/ https://reelgood.com/
    - JBlue42 7y ago
      That looks interesting. I've been using instantwatcher for a while. It does Netflix well. The Amazon side is frightening in the amount of 'content' they host and I guess the API for Amazon Prime doesn't break things into usable subcategories as well as Netflix.
- tedsanders 7y ago
  Netflix has had A-Z sort for years. On web, click on TV Shows / Movies, then click on the four box icon, and then change it from 'suggestions for you' to 'A-Z' or 'Z-A'.
  - papln 7y ago
    1. Not on iPad or Android. Yes on desktop Web 2. That's well hidden! Thanks for the tip!
  - odysseus 7y ago
    When I scroll, it won’t show me anything past the letter K. It’s also displays a grid of boxes with artwork instead of a simple easy-to-scan text list. From third party sites that index Netflix content, looks like they have a little under 3000 movies, most of which I’ve never heard of. Versus Disney+, which seems to have over 600 movies with quite a few big titles.
- shantly 7y ago
  You know you're screwing up UX when just pulling an 8 or 9 year old copy out of the repo, making it pass tests, then deploying, would result in an immediate, massive improvement. Though as other commenters note, making the interface nicer for the user is, apparently, contrary to their interests, or they'd stop doing the exact opposite so much.
shyn3 7y ago
This is a good video on the technical advantages at Netflix, just from the way their platform is built [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmM4V33ReCw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmM4V33ReCw
phd514 7y ago
On the engineering compensation factor, I interviewed with BAMTech (the successor to MLB [Major League Baseball] Advanced Media and the underlying video streaming platform for Disney) a few years ago. Their comp was considerably lower than Netflix. I got the impression they expected you to be willing to work for less because you were working on something related to MLB.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  > willing to work for less because you were working on something related to MLB This part I don't get. The intersection of people who love MLB but are the best talent you're looking for, may not be aligned. If you want great engineers, you shouldn't care whether or not they particularly like MLB. It's a weird hiring funnel. Not all projects demand the best talent, but if Disney Plus wants 60 million subscribers, they should be poaching Netflix, or at least hiring that level of talent.
  - gamblor956 7y ago
    Importantly, they also worked a lot fewer hours than the Netflix engineers did and probably got to go home every night and weekend. Netflix pays very well but also works its tech workers hard.
    - decafninja 7y ago
      I'm sure this depends on the team, but I've actually heard from someone who works there that Netflix views working overtime consistently as a red flag? As in, everyone is supposed to be a superstar engineer, and not being able to finish your work in 9-5 makes you look bad?
      - peferron 7y ago
        I can't speak for everyone at Netflix, and as you mention it may depend on the team, but in my team I don't think anyone cares. Why should it matter how many hours someone works a week, as long as they do a good job overall?
mizzao 7y ago
The main cost for Netflix is content, not engineering. They spend billions developing new shows. Disney has tons of existing material they can just monetize, so huge advantage there.
- dhagz 7y ago
  And from the look of it, EVERYTHING is there. So far only a couple of things I haven't been able to find, which were either super-niche (an old Christmas sing-along video I watched as a kid), or Song of the South.
  - chrisan 7y ago
    Almost everything, some films are still under contract and may be a while before D+ can in house them. Solo and The Last Jedi are still under Netflix for now
  - scrumbledober 7y ago
    There are some things that should remain in the Disney vault...
    - odkamkfn 7y ago
      Song of the South is a pretty good movie, and people should stop lying about it.
- paxys 7y ago
  Disney isn't going to be able to sustain the subscriber numbers they want just by offering their back catalog, regardless of how good it is. They need to constantly release new content to keep people hooked, and shows like The Mandalorian and all the MCU ones are going to be as expensive to produce as what Netflix spends.
  - statguy 7y ago
    >> They need to constantly release new content to keep people hooked They already do that.
empath75 7y ago
people who have kids are going to get disney, no matter what.
- papln 7y ago
  This is a myth that needs to die, for the sake of frugality and for the sake of open culture that Disney is trying to hostile takeover via copyright abuse.
- Porthos9K 7y ago
  Parents who actually love their children will avoid Disney like the plague.
- standardUser 7y ago
  Most kids I know watch YouTube primarily, followed by Netflix. Kids freaking love YouTube.
  - mcv 7y ago
    They do. Kids-wise, we'd be fine without Disney+ and Netflix. My youngest is a big fan of Thomas the Tank Engine, but even on Youtube, he doesn't want to see the actual Thomas shows, but videos of people playing with Thomas toys. No idea why this is such a popular thing, but my oldest watched people play Mario at that age. And now he watches people play Minecraft. I don't get it. Go play these things yourself, but apparently kids love to watch others play, and there's tons and tons of that on Youtube.
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
  FWIW, my sister's kids (3 and 2) aren't the least bit interested in Disney.
rospaya 7y ago
A third of those subscribers are in the US, the rest is worldwide, and it took Netflix years to get the content rights for other countries.

crooked-v 7y ago

A key thing drawing me from Netflix to Disney+ is that the latter is willing to actually just give me lists A-Z of all available shows and movies. I'm sure there have to be others who feel the same way.

fluidcruft 7y ago
Yeah, what is it with Netflix and making it impossible to find something to watch anymore? It's like you open it up and not only do all the lists change and it's not easy to find things, but they also run around changing the cover images of the series you've been watching so you don't even recognize it at first and you're hunting around to find it again.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  They are clearly engaging in user hostile behavior hoping that the number of users who cancel due to being inconvenienced is less than the number who are retained/gained by being fooled into thinking there is more than there is.
  - cududa 7y ago
    I mean I think it’s more over engineering idiocy. I was staying with my cousin for a week and Was amazed at the content Netflix recommends/ surfaces him versus me. So much cool stuff that he had, versus the relative genre stuff I get in my own account
    - takeda 7y ago
      Do you know whose account is older, yours or your friend's? I'm wondering if their algorithm thinks it knows you well and thinks you won't like these shows and maybe your friend's account is newer so it tries to experiment more?
    - gknoy 7y ago
      Our smart TV lets us swap between our five (!) profiles. Each has different trackings and recommendations (other than Star Trek TNG, which apparently three of us have watched ;)) You might consider making a new profile ("cududa2" or something) and see if that has more diverse recommendations. Try adding / watching some of the ones that are novel compared to your other list, and see if that helps. I agree, though, I'd really like to have a _full listing_ of shows.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      Originally, on AppleTV, when I opened the app, the first thing I’d click would let me resume watching what I was watching previously. Then, one day, it changed so they I had to scroll up or down to find the row of “continue watching”, and it wasn’t even one row up or down, I had to make an effort to look for it. I would assume this was due them wanting me to see what else they had, or maybe feel like having to scroll would make it seem like they had a lot. Or maybe it was incompetence. Either way, I saw no reason for them to inconvenience me, so I canceled Netflix.
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  As well as the annoyance of snippet videos auto-playing as you're trying to browse titles, without an explicit user action for "show me a snippet of this".
  - crooked-v 7y ago
    Note that Disney+ does this as well by default, though there's a setting to turn it off.
- dwoozle 7y ago
  Netflix is trying to draw your attention away from the fact that they are constantly losing licensed content by conditioning you to expect a random assortment on each open. Because Disney owns its content they want to condition you to trust that the content you want is always there whenever you want to watch it. The UXs match the business models.
  - papln 7y ago
    Specifically, they are trying to (a) spam you with Netflix options to find some Netflix content that you will get hooked on so you stop looking for non-Netflix content, and (b) give you the appearance of inifinite available content by making the content you haven't watched look different every time you see the cover image. The mistake is in breaking the illusion by also rotating the cover look of content you've already watched.
- bduerst 7y ago
  The Netflix UX is a balancing act between finding things that you know you want to watch and "discovering" new content to watch. Netflix faces the same challenge that Facebook does with the news feed in that they're trying to combine two functions into the one interface that the users are familiar with.
  - 8ytecoder 7y ago
    I don't know when product managers are going to realize that one size doesn't fit all. Different people use Netflix differently and usually even the same people use it differently at different times. There should be an option to switch between these modes. Netflix, for example, could easily have multiple modes. A discover based on my past preferences/popularity mode and a categorical listing mode. The problem is them blending these two together and then prioritizing their content arbitrarily over other better recommendations.
    - tedsanders 7y ago
      They do have these modes, though, right? The home page is for discovery based on your past preferences/popularity. And there are TV and movie pages in which you can display shows by genre or even A-Z. Disclosure: I work at Netflix and would like to make it better for everyone who uses it.
      - durden0 7y ago
        Huh, you are correct, never realized that was possible. You have to dig a little to get to it (change view format and then select from sorting options) but it's there.
      - takeda 7y ago
        I think you guys need to make it a bit more obvious that other options are available besides the home view.
      - gknoy 7y ago
        How do we access these other modes? I've never noticed it on either the Windows app, nor my Android device -- despite spending several minutes looking for it right now, after reading your comment that they exist. When I go to Hamburger -> Anime, or Hamburger -> TV shows, it has the same style of semi-logical groupings of categories as I see normally: Crime shows, action shows, classic shows, suggestions for me, etc -- but there seems to be no affordances to affect ordering, nor menu items that would reflect that. The settings menu is useless, as it consists only of links to the account details, privacy statement, and terms of use. I really hope that the answer isn't "Log into our website instead of using our native app!", though perhaps the feature warrants such an experiment. In the Android mobile app, which has recently seen some excellent improvements, I'm unable to find an alphabetical listing as well. One can select genres, and TV shows vs movies, but there are no affordances for sorting, only a wall of categories to scroll through.
- jumbopapa 7y ago
  Check out Reelgood [1]. It aggregates all of the streaming services and allows you to filter on genre, IMDB, and Rotten Tomatoes. I don't have to waste time looking through a bunch of junk to find something worth watching anymore. [1] - https://reelgood.com/ https://reelgood.com/
  - JBlue42 7y ago
    That looks interesting. I've been using instantwatcher for a while. It does Netflix well. The Amazon side is frightening in the amount of 'content' they host and I guess the API for Amazon Prime doesn't break things into usable subcategories as well as Netflix.
tedsanders 7y ago
Netflix has had A-Z sort for years. On web, click on TV Shows / Movies, then click on the four box icon, and then change it from 'suggestions for you' to 'A-Z' or 'Z-A'.
- papln 7y ago
  1. Not on iPad or Android. Yes on desktop Web 2. That's well hidden! Thanks for the tip!
- odysseus 7y ago
  When I scroll, it won’t show me anything past the letter K. It’s also displays a grid of boxes with artwork instead of a simple easy-to-scan text list. From third party sites that index Netflix content, looks like they have a little under 3000 movies, most of which I’ve never heard of. Versus Disney+, which seems to have over 600 movies with quite a few big titles.
shantly 7y ago
You know you're screwing up UX when just pulling an 8 or 9 year old copy out of the repo, making it pass tests, then deploying, would result in an immediate, massive improvement. Though as other commenters note, making the interface nicer for the user is, apparently, contrary to their interests, or they'd stop doing the exact opposite so much.

shyn3 7y ago

This is a good video on the technical advantages at Netflix, just from the way their platform is built [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmM4V33ReCw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmM4V33ReCw

phd514 7y ago

On the engineering compensation factor, I interviewed with BAMTech (the successor to MLB [Major League Baseball] Advanced Media and the underlying video streaming platform for Disney) a few years ago. Their comp was considerably lower than Netflix. I got the impression they expected you to be willing to work for less because you were working on something related to MLB.

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
> willing to work for less because you were working on something related to MLB This part I don't get. The intersection of people who love MLB but are the best talent you're looking for, may not be aligned. If you want great engineers, you shouldn't care whether or not they particularly like MLB. It's a weird hiring funnel. Not all projects demand the best talent, but if Disney Plus wants 60 million subscribers, they should be poaching Netflix, or at least hiring that level of talent.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  Importantly, they also worked a lot fewer hours than the Netflix engineers did and probably got to go home every night and weekend. Netflix pays very well but also works its tech workers hard.
  - decafninja 7y ago
    I'm sure this depends on the team, but I've actually heard from someone who works there that Netflix views working overtime consistently as a red flag? As in, everyone is supposed to be a superstar engineer, and not being able to finish your work in 9-5 makes you look bad?
    - peferron 7y ago
      I can't speak for everyone at Netflix, and as you mention it may depend on the team, but in my team I don't think anyone cares. Why should it matter how many hours someone works a week, as long as they do a good job overall?

mizzao 7y ago

The main cost for Netflix is content, not engineering. They spend billions developing new shows. Disney has tons of existing material they can just monetize, so huge advantage there.

dhagz 7y ago
And from the look of it, EVERYTHING is there. So far only a couple of things I haven't been able to find, which were either super-niche (an old Christmas sing-along video I watched as a kid), or Song of the South.
- chrisan 7y ago
  Almost everything, some films are still under contract and may be a while before D+ can in house them. Solo and The Last Jedi are still under Netflix for now
- scrumbledober 7y ago
  There are some things that should remain in the Disney vault...
  - odkamkfn 7y ago
    Song of the South is a pretty good movie, and people should stop lying about it.
paxys 7y ago
Disney isn't going to be able to sustain the subscriber numbers they want just by offering their back catalog, regardless of how good it is. They need to constantly release new content to keep people hooked, and shows like The Mandalorian and all the MCU ones are going to be as expensive to produce as what Netflix spends.
- statguy 7y ago
  >> They need to constantly release new content to keep people hooked They already do that.

empath75 7y ago

people who have kids are going to get disney, no matter what.

papln 7y ago
This is a myth that needs to die, for the sake of frugality and for the sake of open culture that Disney is trying to hostile takeover via copyright abuse.
Porthos9K 7y ago
Parents who actually love their children will avoid Disney like the plague.
standardUser 7y ago
Most kids I know watch YouTube primarily, followed by Netflix. Kids freaking love YouTube.
- mcv 7y ago
  They do. Kids-wise, we'd be fine without Disney+ and Netflix. My youngest is a big fan of Thomas the Tank Engine, but even on Youtube, he doesn't want to see the actual Thomas shows, but videos of people playing with Thomas toys. No idea why this is such a popular thing, but my oldest watched people play Mario at that age. And now he watches people play Minecraft. I don't get it. Go play these things yourself, but apparently kids love to watch others play, and there's tons and tons of that on Youtube.
SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
FWIW, my sister's kids (3 and 2) aren't the least bit interested in Disney.

rospaya 7y ago

A third of those subscribers are in the US, the rest is worldwide, and it took Netflix years to get the content rights for other countries.