4 ms·

One of the reasons I don't buy any online versions of movies from Amazon anymore is because of their UI (the other reason is that I just don't trust them). The

One of the reasons I don't buy any online versions of movies from Amazon anymore is because of their UI (the other reason is that I just don't trust them). Their web UI for videos lets me scroll through cumbersome graphical tiles of my movies in A-Z, Z-A, or oldest-newest -- that's all. On the firestick, I can't search them except via Alexa, which tries to sell me a different copy of the same movie, or to sell me other movies. I can scroll only in order of newest-oldest purchase order. The more titles I have, the worse the experience is. Fuck 'em and their dark patterns. I'm happier going old-school and buying blue-rays from the criterion collection.

zorked 5y ago
Heh. I am so sick of all the movie apps and how hard it is to find which one has what, plus the fact that they all only have American superhero movies, that I started renting discs again. Turns out there's someone in my country that rents movies via snail mail. I suspect it's just someone with a very large collection trying to recoup some of the money spent on it. It works really well.
- eplanit 5y ago
  I love it -- the fellow countryman picked up, dusted off, and re-used the good business model that Netflix discarded so long ago. It's great.
  - b3morales 5y ago
    FYI you can still get discs from Netflix if you want them; they just don't make it very easy to find. Go to dvd.com
  - blacksmith_tb 5y ago
    Hmm, they didn't discard it so much as bury it alive[1], though? 1: https://dvd.netflix.com/ https://dvd.netflix.com/
    - kencausey 5y ago
      In my relatively recent experience they are letting it die just by not replacing content that they once had. That said, I am probably underestimating how difficult it is to find replacements.
samb1729 5y ago
My Prime Video experience on Apple TV in the UK mirrors this. I knew exactly what I wanted to watch but I simply could not figure out how to get the app to show it to me. The search feature returned and endless feed of results, none of which matched. Let's take a live example tested while writing this comment. I searched for "Stand-up comedy", and I see 9 results on my TV right now: - The Grand Tour - The Grand Tour presents: Lochdown - The Grand Tour (again? must be a different season?) - The Grand Tour (yes, again) - The Tomorrow War - The Office - The Office (again) - The Office (again) - The Office (again) And just for fun, let's list the next 9: - The Office (again) - The Office (again) - The Office (again) - The Office (again) - The Office (again) - Borat 2 - South Park - South Park (again) - South Park (again) It's baffling to me that table-stakes features like this can be completely neglected for a product which is obviously a massive capital investment. I do think I understand now why it is that my friend with Prime Video watches The Office almost all of the time... Edit: Apparently searching for "stand-up comedy live" or simply "comedy live" does show the type of content the search implies. I'd be keen to have someone explain what non-live stand-up comedy looks like to justify the difference in interpretation. Perhaps they could also tell me about how "stand-up" carries zero usable information...
- Spooky23 5y ago
  The ranking is probably influenced by the cost to Amazon and likelihood that you get hooked.
  - chha 5y ago
    Not so sure. I accidentally forgot to unsubscribe from the Prime emails way back, so once a week I get an email recommending shows I've already seen. Such as TGT, South Park, the individual presenters from TGT and so on. Oh, and they're also kind enough to remind me about their app...which is the one I'm already using to see their shows... I'm leaning more towards laziness and lack of creativity.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  I can't watch The Office. Too much like the real office.
egypturnash 5y ago
God this is every media app, try organizing your e-books in a pleasing fashion someday. You just can’t.
- amelius 5y ago
  This is what you get when every App has to invent the File System all over again.
  - handrous 5y ago
    My kingdom for a widely-supported cross-platform standard for file metadata and tagging.
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      How large is it, and does it come with any good-looking princesses?
      - handrous 5y ago
        I'd tell you, but I was keeping all that info in extended attributes and lost it all when I switched filesystems.
- ttepasse 5y ago
  It's even worse when media apps are coupled with a store and the cloud. I'm using Apple's iBooks/Books.app as an ePub reader on Mac OS. Searching the library always lands you in the Store portion of the app. The app always forgets the sorting order of the library. And 90 % of the time my epubs are not on the device but uploaded into iCloud; even the placeholder entry is missing its thumbnails. The best way to use Books.app as an ePub reader is to store the books in the file system and delete them from Books.app after reading. But because Books.app is there and free there aren't quality alternative ePub reader for Mac OS anymore.

zorked 5y ago

Heh. I am so sick of all the movie apps and how hard it is to find which one has what, plus the fact that they all only have American superhero movies, that I started renting discs again. Turns out there's someone in my country that rents movies via snail mail. I suspect it's just someone with a very large collection trying to recoup some of the money spent on it. It works really well.

eplanit 5y ago
I love it -- the fellow countryman picked up, dusted off, and re-used the good business model that Netflix discarded so long ago. It's great.
- b3morales 5y ago
  FYI you can still get discs from Netflix if you want them; they just don't make it very easy to find. Go to dvd.com
- blacksmith_tb 5y ago
  Hmm, they didn't discard it so much as bury it alive[1], though? 1: https://dvd.netflix.com/ https://dvd.netflix.com/
  - kencausey 5y ago
    In my relatively recent experience they are letting it die just by not replacing content that they once had. That said, I am probably underestimating how difficult it is to find replacements.

samb1729 5y ago

My Prime Video experience on Apple TV in the UK mirrors this. I knew exactly what I wanted to watch but I simply could not figure out how to get the app to show it to me. The search feature returned and endless feed of results, none of which matched. Let's take a live example tested while writing this comment. I searched for "Stand-up comedy", and I see 9 results on my TV right now: - The Grand Tour - The Grand Tour presents: Lochdown - The Grand Tour (again? must be a different season?) - The Grand Tour (yes, again) - The Tomorrow War - The Office - The Office (again) - The Office (again) - The Office (again) And just for fun, let's list the next 9: - The Office (again) - The Office (again) - The Office (again) - The Office (again) - The Office (again) - Borat 2 - South Park - South Park (again) - South Park (again) It's baffling to me that table-stakes features like this can be completely neglected for a product which is obviously a massive capital investment. I do think I understand now why it is that my friend with Prime Video watches The Office almost all of the time... Edit: Apparently searching for "stand-up comedy live" or simply "comedy live" does show the type of content the search implies. I'd be keen to have someone explain what non-live stand-up comedy looks like to justify the difference in interpretation. Perhaps they could also tell me about how "stand-up" carries zero usable information...

Spooky23 5y ago
The ranking is probably influenced by the cost to Amazon and likelihood that you get hooked.
- chha 5y ago
  Not so sure. I accidentally forgot to unsubscribe from the Prime emails way back, so once a week I get an email recommending shows I've already seen. Such as TGT, South Park, the individual presenters from TGT and so on. Oh, and they're also kind enough to remind me about their app...which is the one I'm already using to see their shows... I'm leaning more towards laziness and lack of creativity.
throwawayboise 5y ago
I can't watch The Office. Too much like the real office.

egypturnash 5y ago

God this is every media app, try organizing your e-books in a pleasing fashion someday. You just can’t.

amelius 5y ago
This is what you get when every App has to invent the File System all over again.
- handrous 5y ago
  My kingdom for a widely-supported cross-platform standard for file metadata and tagging.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    How large is it, and does it come with any good-looking princesses?
    - handrous 5y ago
      I'd tell you, but I was keeping all that info in extended attributes and lost it all when I switched filesystems.
ttepasse 5y ago
It's even worse when media apps are coupled with a store and the cloud. I'm using Apple's iBooks/Books.app as an ePub reader on Mac OS. Searching the library always lands you in the Store portion of the app. The app always forgets the sorting order of the library. And 90 % of the time my epubs are not on the device but uploaded into iCloud; even the placeholder entry is missing its thumbnails. The best way to use Books.app as an ePub reader is to store the books in the file system and delete them from Books.app after reading. But because Books.app is there and free there aren't quality alternative ePub reader for Mac OS anymore.