4 ms·

During a pandemic which has forced a huge number of people to stay at home and is currently crashing the economy and costing hundreds of lives per day, it could

by joppy 7y ago

During a pandemic which has forced a huge number of people to stay at home and is currently crashing the economy and costing hundreds of lives per day, it could help to be a little more sympathetic to measures like this. They might not be perfect, because everyone is having to react so quickly to what is going on, but we can appreciate that this is not a normal event and the vast majority of companies have never planned for it (random ISPs, for example). If this article [1] from Netflix is to be believed, 4K uses five times the bandwidth of HD, and is surely an easy target for something that can be traded off while not affecting people's moral wellbeing too much. Suffering a video quality decrease would seem a small price to pay for not causing further problems, and perhaps once this is all over, or at least we've stopped flying by the seats of our pants, we can see if people should receive refunds of a few dollars a month. [1] https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306

csunbird 7y ago
Except, people are PAYING for that upgrade.
- john_alan 7y ago
  You can't fix stupid. It's amazing how wonderfully liberal and thoughtful people are with other people's money.
- hollander 7y ago
  Two or four euros per month. Call the army! I would start a class action suite. /s This stupid selfish attitude is not helping. Netflix will probably issue a statement that they will refund all those affected. And if you don't like it, downgrade! You probably have plenty of time if this is an issue for you.
  - csunbird 7y ago
    What I am telling here is, if you are unable to meet the criteria that you are getting paid for, then you need to refund the difference. They are not doing that. It is not about being selfish here, think more about it.
    - VadimPR 7y ago
      It's quite sad to see such an attitude in these difficult times.
      - wongarsu 7y ago
        It's not like Netflix is struggling though this pandemic. Their subscriber numbers are probably skyrocketing right now. Saying "Internet infrastructure can't handle the current load, we have to restrict service" is fine, but you would expect them to do right by the customer. Not announce the cuts via national news outlets, see how much backlash they get and then decide if they should make concessions to their paying customers.
      - merb 7y ago
        well it's sad for people to be in favor of netflix. as others pointed out, netflix will probably make a huge amount of money within the timeframe of the virus. thus reducing the quality for people that PAY for that quality without reducing their invoice is basically a scam. especially because of the pandemic people are short on money. of course people could just downgrade their subscription, unfortunatly some people are not that tech savy as others, so they do not even know what the news is about.
        hollander 7y ago
        NOW NOW NOW!!! WE WANT IT NOW!!! /s Give them some time! They just decided this.
      - throwawaylolx 7y ago
        The attitude of excusing any behavior in a mass panic while shaming those who call out dodgy behavior is only making this entire thing much worse.
  - ptx 7y ago
    If two or four euros is so little as to be entirely negligible, and if anyone who would care about throwing such a small amount of money away deserved to be ridiculed, why does Netflix ask for it? They could just let the customer keep the money since it doesn't matter, right? If fact, everyone could just send me this silly sum that doesn't matter and they shouldn't complain about.
    - neuronic 7y ago
      Exactly, this is less than a single one of the overpriced Starbucks coffees that those same people probably purchase without spending a single thought on it. Being empathetic to these measures is the right call, although I do find that much more important for brick & mortar businesses than Netflix.
  - 8fingerlouie 7y ago
    > Two or four euros per month. Times a million or 10 or 50. Add to that the 25% savings on internet egress, which last I checked was still how commercial internet is financed. The cost of actually providing the content to the consumers is on the ISP which hosts an Open Connect box.
- mcv 7y ago
  I agree it would make sense for Netflix to give discount to the subscription for the duration of this measure.
john_alan 7y ago
You're so understanding. I'd like to sell you a subscription service if you're interested?
Cthulhu_ 7y ago
While in principle I agree that luxuries like Netflix should be secondary to core internet services, at the same time I'm worried about the slippery slope that is net neutrality. I mean we've had a lot of slippery slopes recently, things like the government Demanding access to location data. I never agreed to share this information with my government. I did not agree to have my ISP or Google or etc to share this data.
noir_lord 7y ago
Couldn't agree more, I have the HD Netflix account and I literally couldn't give a flying fuck if they drop to SD. I'm far more worried about my mum than whether TV is SD for a month during a global pandemic. Fuck me people are ridiculous at times.
- kkarakk 7y ago
  It's not either or...

by joppy 7y ago

csunbird 7y ago

Except, people are PAYING for that upgrade.

john_alan 7y ago
You can't fix stupid. It's amazing how wonderfully liberal and thoughtful people are with other people's money.
hollander 7y ago
Two or four euros per month. Call the army! I would start a class action suite. /s This stupid selfish attitude is not helping. Netflix will probably issue a statement that they will refund all those affected. And if you don't like it, downgrade! You probably have plenty of time if this is an issue for you.
- csunbird 7y ago
  What I am telling here is, if you are unable to meet the criteria that you are getting paid for, then you need to refund the difference. They are not doing that. It is not about being selfish here, think more about it.
  - VadimPR 7y ago
    It's quite sad to see such an attitude in these difficult times.
    - wongarsu 7y ago
      It's not like Netflix is struggling though this pandemic. Their subscriber numbers are probably skyrocketing right now. Saying "Internet infrastructure can't handle the current load, we have to restrict service" is fine, but you would expect them to do right by the customer. Not announce the cuts via national news outlets, see how much backlash they get and then decide if they should make concessions to their paying customers.
    - merb 7y ago
      well it's sad for people to be in favor of netflix. as others pointed out, netflix will probably make a huge amount of money within the timeframe of the virus. thus reducing the quality for people that PAY for that quality without reducing their invoice is basically a scam. especially because of the pandemic people are short on money. of course people could just downgrade their subscription, unfortunatly some people are not that tech savy as others, so they do not even know what the news is about.
      - hollander 7y ago
        NOW NOW NOW!!! WE WANT IT NOW!!! /s Give them some time! They just decided this.
    - throwawaylolx 7y ago
      The attitude of excusing any behavior in a mass panic while shaming those who call out dodgy behavior is only making this entire thing much worse.
- ptx 7y ago
  If two or four euros is so little as to be entirely negligible, and if anyone who would care about throwing such a small amount of money away deserved to be ridiculed, why does Netflix ask for it? They could just let the customer keep the money since it doesn't matter, right? If fact, everyone could just send me this silly sum that doesn't matter and they shouldn't complain about.
  - neuronic 7y ago
    Exactly, this is less than a single one of the overpriced Starbucks coffees that those same people probably purchase without spending a single thought on it. Being empathetic to these measures is the right call, although I do find that much more important for brick & mortar businesses than Netflix.
- 8fingerlouie 7y ago
  > Two or four euros per month. Times a million or 10 or 50. Add to that the 25% savings on internet egress, which last I checked was still how commercial internet is financed. The cost of actually providing the content to the consumers is on the ISP which hosts an Open Connect box.
mcv 7y ago
I agree it would make sense for Netflix to give discount to the subscription for the duration of this measure.

john_alan 7y ago

You're so understanding. I'd like to sell you a subscription service if you're interested?

Cthulhu_ 7y ago

While in principle I agree that luxuries like Netflix should be secondary to core internet services, at the same time I'm worried about the slippery slope that is net neutrality. I mean we've had a lot of slippery slopes recently, things like the government Demanding access to location data. I never agreed to share this information with my government. I did not agree to have my ISP or Google or etc to share this data.

noir_lord 7y ago

Couldn't agree more, I have the HD Netflix account and I literally couldn't give a flying fuck if they drop to SD. I'm far more worried about my mum than whether TV is SD for a month during a global pandemic. Fuck me people are ridiculous at times.

kkarakk 7y ago
It's not either or...