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Netflix have really dissapointed me. I've been a subscriber since before streaming, and have even been content paying the subscription fee during the "breaks" o

by Jenk 3y ago

Netflix have really dissapointed me. I've been a subscriber since before streaming, and have even been content paying the subscription fee during the "breaks" of not using their service for up to months at a time because I so badly want(ed) them to succeed. I also understood the difficult situation they were facing when the producers of content were makkng ridiculous demands on their distribution, or worse, just pulling their content because they were opening their own service or some fuckhead like Murdoch threw money at them to keep an exclusive lock on it. Their streaming model of watching on-demand (i.e., not a weekly release, here's the whole show to watch at your own pace) and their investment in shows that were not the usual low-brow trope-laden predictable shit meant I was actually excited when a new show was announced. My favourite TV-watching moments have been getting lost in shows like Narcos, The Ozarks, or even the seemingly polarising Orange Is The New Black. Now I log in and see nothing but nostalgia tv, trash telly like Love Is Blind, or inexplicably 1/3 of my screen is listing mobile games that Netflix think I would be interested in. .. and I'm genuinely concerned shows like The Diplomat are just going to leave us all hanging. Meanwhile the other streaming services are at least as bad, but typically worse.

rerx 3y ago
Compared to competitors, Apple TV+ currently appear to put much more emphasis on quality over quantity in their original content. I really enjoyed some shows like Severance, For All Mankind, Trying, Acapulco, Foundation. It reminds me of the time when Netflix Originals stood for content to be excited about. What they don't have is a back catalog of licensed films and shows included with the flat rate offering (they all cost an extra fee).
- circlefavshape 3y ago
  FWIW I thought Foundation was incredibly poor
  - jackmott42 3y ago
    I know some people are really irritated by how it differs from the book, but I really enjoyed it, especially "The Empire". I kinda want the bad guys to win, lol
    - Gareth321 3y ago
      Lee Pace and his character arch carried that show. Everything else was terrible. I LOVED the books and felt personally affronted with how they butchered the content. These are some of the best science fiction books every written, and THIS was the best they could do with it? The only way they could have screwed up this badly is writing egos the size of Jupiter and zero oversight.
  - rerx 3y ago
    The first season could have been better, but it has great production values and as far as I can tell they see it as an investment and they are not going to cancel it soon. So for now I'm optimistic about a second season.
    - thaumasiotes 3y ago
      > The first season could have been better, but it has great production values This thought process is how we got to the point where movies stopped having plots.
      - rerx 3y ago
        Many shows have hit their strides in later seasons. IIRC I found Breaking Bad a bit boring in season one. (Granted, probably the writing was already better than season one of Foundation.)
  - polychrome28 3y ago
    It might not been great, but they didn't set out to produce a cheap and fast show.
  - MikusR 3y ago
    It's a weird example of the original material like Cleons being good while stuff from the books being incredibly bad.
    - anotherhue 3y ago
      The acting talent is a factor here. Other than Harris, Pace is incredible. The rest of the cast? Disposable.
  - upon_drumhead 3y ago
    I really enjoyed foundation. I just had to let go of the book series and take it as a new universe and I’m really looking forward to what they do next.
  - regus 3y ago
    I was not a fan of Foundation, however the Cleon story line was awesome, everything was really bad.
- lockhouse 3y ago
  Mythic Quest is hilarious as well.
  - EvanKnowles 3y ago
    It improved suddenly in the third season, I was about to give up.
    - lockhouse 3y ago
      My favorite were the quarantine episodes! Comedy gold.
    - capableweb 3y ago
      I felt the opposite, two first seasons were great, last one not so great. Still a good show though.
  - pjc50 3y ago
    I'm still amazed that a series sposored by Ubisoft can be such a sharp satire about the games industry.
  - conradfr 3y ago
    First season is OK. Same for Ted Lasso.
    - highwaylights 3y ago
      You can't please everybody. Tried with Mythic Quest for two seasons and just couldn't stick with it. Ted Lasso OTOH I'll watch as soon as a new episode pops up.
      - philsnow 3y ago
        I skip most of the Ted Lasso scenes with Mr Gruff and lil' Ms SideBusiness. If you had told me back in season one that I'd prefer watching the scenes with Mr BoringHomeLife, I wouldn't have believed you.
- gandalfian 3y ago
  Severance, I turned the playback speed faster by 20% or something and it actually became much more pleasant to watch with wierdly no adverse effect?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    Severance’s story is good, but has a ton of garbage time, like many or most other streaming shows. I just skip the middle few episodes and feel like I did not miss a beat.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    I really wish YouTube allowed 1.10 playback speed. It’s just fast enough to save you some real time on long video series, but slow enough that you can still absorb difficult subjects. Even slow talkers become fast talkers on 1.25 speed. 1.10 is perfect for most audiobooks.
    - howinteresting 3y ago
      There's a bookmarklet for that: https://andrewsteele.co.uk/stuff/youtube-playback-speed-bookmarklet/ https://andrewsteele.co.uk/stuff/youtube-playback-speed-book...
      - stronglikedan 3y ago
        Only works with web based viewers, unfortunately.
    - hombre_fatal 3y ago
      document.querySelector('video').playbackRate = 1.1
    - alimbada 3y ago
      SmartTube (for Google/Android TV) used to allow this but a recent update has removed the other speed increments and it now only lets you use the usual increments you find on YouTube. :(
- yowzadave 3y ago
  Severance was great! I watched For All Mankind and Foundation, which both had great production values but were hurt by cheesy storytelling and sometimes iffy acting. I'd love to see TV+ try something more experimental.
  - upon_drumhead 3y ago
    They’re releasing their silo series from the dust books next week. I have relatively high hopes
    - indigodaddy 3y ago
      Really looking forward to this one..
    - greedo 3y ago
      Can you ELI5 this?
      - upon_drumhead 3y ago
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silo_(series) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silo_(series) (May have spoilers in the plot section) is being made into a tv series
- tyingq 3y ago
  Interesting. I also like the Apple TV+ content, but my list is completely different. I liked BlackBird, Invasion, Slow Horses, Servant, and Tehran...and mostly didn't like the ones on your list.
- system16 3y ago
  Apple TV+ has really surprised me. They've quickly become my favourite streaming platform, and somehow even got me interested in Major League Soccer (a sport I didn't even follow previously) enough to subscribe to their MLS Season Pass. I really hope they don't fall into the Netflix habit of cancelling shows before they have time to find their groove (Mr. Corman was really creative and just getting good and got axed), and some of their dramas are starting to veer into the forgettable "Netflix Hallmark made for TV" territory.
  - tonightstoast 3y ago
    Mr. Corman was tough to see cancelled but that show was hard to watch. It was scarily depressing and I while I think some people say they want a show like that, I don’t think it pulled the viewership numbers to keep it on air.
    - system16 3y ago
      Very true. It also didn't help that the little promotion they did framed it as a comedy.
- dom96 3y ago
  Agreed. Apple TV in general has that feeling of quality. Another great one there that I'd highly recommend is Slow Horses. I feel like I must mention though: as soon as For All Mankind decided to have a teenager seduce a grown married woman I lost interest. Then to top it off, they continued that plotline into the next season. What a shame.
- anonfunction 3y ago
  Watching on the Apple TV+ app on an Android TV it frequently replays the same episode I already watched or starts at some random time earlier in the episode than when I left off which is a pain to fix using their scrubbing feature which is itself a bad experience.
  - 98codes 3y ago
    Same for Xbox & Windows -- the app is barely serviceable, and I figure that's by design from Apple.
- causi 3y ago
  Apple TV+ currently appear to put much more emphasis on quality over quantity in their original content. Which is a win for literally everybody. The consumer wins because they get a very high amount of enjoyment for their invested time. The service wins because the less time each loyal subscriber spends actually using the service the less their bandwidth costs are.
- zerocrates 3y ago
  Apple has a few great shows but a pretty significant amount of junk too. I don't know that it's all that meaningfully different.
jerrydoughan 3y ago
[flagged]
- dpratt 3y ago
  This extension seems rather interesting, but I suspect you may have harmed your brand more than you helped it by making the above post.
  - jerrydoughan 3y ago
    The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference they say so I'll take that ha! Any suggestions on how to better approach these things? I'm like a fish out of water when it comes to branding, so would be happy to learn from anyone with constructive criticism. Thanks!
- tyingq 3y ago
  I see the plug doesn't seem to be going well, but it interesting to me that Amazon is the only service with something somewhat similar with Prime's X-ray. I know it's easier for them since they have IMDB, but I don't understand why I can't at least have a "Cast/Characters" popup in the other services. Even if it's just the whole cast and not contextual to the scene.
  - jerrydoughan 3y ago
    You make a great point. X-ray is a prime example of the potential for extending and enhancing the viewing experience, even with something as simple as a persistent character/cast sidebar. Netflix has a version of this but as a separate site called tudum that feels more like a information dump. And Disney has disney extras which is primarily behind the scenes videos. I suspect it's harder for them to do in platform-agnostic way. Amazon has the benefit of IMDB as you noted, while Netflix, Hulu et al would have to build from scratch.
ciupicri 3y ago
What nostalgia tv? A lot of 20 - 30 years old TV shows or movies aren't available on Netflix.
- spaceman_2020 3y ago
  Likely talking about shows like Fuller House that just feed off nostalgia and offer nothing new or entertaining
light_hue_1 3y ago
> .. and I'm genuinely concerned shows like The Diplomat are just going to leave us all hanging. This is why I don't pay for Netflix anymore. They cancel every show I enjoy. No other service treats their fans worse than Netflix.
duxup 3y ago
> trash telly It's not just Netflix. Disney+ has a bunch of National Geographic infotainment ... minus the info type shows. HBO is going to end up with Discovery Channel ... stuff. I want some way of telling them "I don't want to wade through crap..."
- warent 3y ago
  > I want some way of telling them "I don't want to wade through crap..." Yarr matey, one way do be not parting ways with coin for said services, instead making a more... equitable re-appropriation
  - ModernMech 3y ago
    I genuinely don't understand this sentiment in 2023. Maybe in 2003 it was reasonable, but if you have the money, just spend it to buy the content you want. I get that there's a lot of "crap" that you don't want to see, but I appreciate some of that, and I'm sure you appreciate some of what I call "crap". I don't see how you go from that situation to justifying not paying for it. There's a price for the content and it's not $0. You can either pay it, or enjoy free things. There's so much content out there. Can you offer a full throated defense of why you feel it's okay to pirate media in 2023, with so many options for consuming media legally, on whatever device, at any time? That was the dream of pirates in 2003, but we've achieved that dream legally today and it's still not good enough for the pirates it seems.
    - doubled112 3y ago
      I don't pirate because I just can't be bothered. It's all too much work for a short temporary experience, but I do remember the promises. Streaming was going to "save us" from the big cable companies. No ads, just pay that small subscription fee and watch what you want when you want it. Now there are a dozen subscription fees, I'm getting ads anyway, and I'm not getting content I want to pay money for. Some are even streaming live TV now, with no way to watch what you just watched again.
      - 3y ago
brucethemoose2 3y ago
Use Reelgood or justwatch to search, and you can still find good stuff. Netflix may have a quality problem, but another one (and a much easier one to fix) is their stupid recommendation algorithm. It shows me nothing but trash and genres (like Love is Blind) I absolutely dont want to see, while I have to use a 3rd party service to dig for gems. I cant help but wonder if thats skewing their own metrics. People are going to watch trash if thats all they present.
- scantron4 3y ago
  Justwatch refuses to show me multi channel searches without amc+, for some reason. Either a really annoying advertising plot or a glitch with my account.
christkv 3y ago
Search for Korean made tv and movies. A ton of brilliant content coming out. Kingdom and D.P to name only two.
mikeryan 3y ago
When Reed Hasting left and Ted Sarandos took over he had a bit of power shakeup and handed over the content reins to Bela Bajaria - who was brought in to head up international over Cindy Holland who was in charge of US content. Holland had brought in House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black, Stranger Things, The Crown, Ozark and Narcos. Holland seemed to focus more on developing fewer shows of higher quality content while Bajaria was more focused on "get all the content, throw it all at the wall and see what sticks" (who saw "Squid Games" coming?). It also aligns, however, with a timeframe of the launch of the studios having their own top tier services such as Disney+, Peacock and even the new HBOMax (MAX now) all of whom are more tightly holding the streaming rights to the studios to which they're associated. This for me aligned with when Netflix started going downhill. I have to say some of their newer content seems better but I'm not sure where its going to go. Right now HBOMax and Apple seem to be the most consistent for fewer, higher quality shows which also more closely aligns with my viewing habits. Netflix we keep mostly for my daughter these days and the few random hits that come through on Netflix.
- whinenot 3y ago
  “I wonder if, say, a bonobo throwing shit at a whiteboard full of titles as a method of deciding what projects to make would have more or less success than all of these other ‘deciders’ who think they know what people want or don’t want.”[0] [0] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/netflixs-big-wake-up-call-the-power-clash-behind-the-crash-1235136004/ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/netflixs-...
  - passion__desire 3y ago
    Why is Netflix not following short high quality 1-3 min videos model which is popular with young crowd? They already have Fast laughs tab which mimics that. Youtube / Creative studios could pitch 1-3 min video ideas which Netflix could greenlight and provide just bare minimum capital to produce. If the final film is good, Netflix could buy the film and release on their platform. Current Trends which are in favour of above idea: 1] Story generation will get cheaper thanks to ChatGPT. 2] Film generation will get cheaper thanks to Stable Diffusion. 3] Short video formats are already very good, engaging. 4] RunwayML and so on.
wnevets 3y ago
> trash telly The executives that ruined regular TV/cable with cheap and trashy TV are bringing that model to streaming.
geodel 3y ago
So Murdoch is fuckhead because he decided not to share content that his companies produce with other streaming providers?
maxboone 3y ago
Not to forget the FOSS commitment from early Netflix.
neals 3y ago
Disappointment can only come from your own expectations. Good doesn't last. I like to have a mindset of using these kind of things while they work for me, until they don't, then leave and not look back. Don't get attached to commercial endeavours.
- babypuncher 3y ago
  I think some people's expectations of Netflix were downright unrealistic. When they started streaming, the platform was paying pennies to license shows that were already in syndication. Programs that had already made their money in first runs on network TV and cable. As streaming became the de facto distribution method for new content, of course the cost of licensing that content ewas going to go up. Streaming licensing fees are no longer just gravy to the studios, they are their primary source of income. The idea that Netflix could somehow afford to bankroll the entire entertainment industry on $15/mo subscriptions is ridiculous. There were three possible outcomes: 1. Netflix becomes the new cable and charges $100+/mo 2. The output of the entertainment industry shrinks until it is sustainable on $15/mo subscriptions 3. Competitors start popping up and fighting for market share
  - Alupis 3y ago
    None of which says "Make a million garbage shows and movies that nobody asked for and few actually enjoy - then raise monthly rates to bankroll these pet projects". Here's an idea - quality over quantity. Make fewer, but better shows and movies.
    - babypuncher 3y ago
      That is Netflix trying to carve out their niche in timeline #3. They think they can compete with the other services by having a little of something for everyone. The poor average quality of their content is why I cancelled Netflix and switched to a mix of HBO, Hulu, and Paramount.
    - itsoktocry 3y ago
      >Here's an idea - quality over quantity. Make fewer, but better shows and movies. What an insight. But how do you determine what's "high quality" and what isn't? You don't think Netflix is trying to measure that?
themitigating 3y ago
"Meanwhile the other streaming services are at least as bad, but typically worse." So then isn't it just good? Cable didn't have on demand and you couldn't share even in the same house. Beyond basic cable channels you needed a cable box for each tv for around $5 a month in the late 80s (around $11 today).
poisonarena 3y ago
>been getting lost in shows like Narcos A Brazilian man speaking mexican spanish as Pablo Escobar, with mexican actors using mexican slang in a show about the colombian drug trade, completely omitting Pablo regularly raped and afterwards executed 13-15 year old girls and other insane stuff.. this was not a popular show in Colombia Netflix has always been unwatchable crap or woke garbage. Time to unsubscribe and pirate
- spaceman_2020 3y ago
  Netflix should be a little ashamed that they revived the cult of Pablo Escobar. The amount of memes and “sigma male” videos featuring Escobar is embarrassing. They turned Escobar into a folk hero, not a scumbag criminal.
  - tayo42 3y ago
    If you came away from narcos thinking Escobar was a good person, you only saw what you wanted to see in that show. Any amount of rape wouldn't change that. He blew up a plane full of innocent people...
DrBazza 3y ago
To succeed they had to make streaming video easier than torrenting it, and cheap enough to attract the casual torrenter. And like every company, v1 was run by the founders that understood their customer base. Of course, we're at v2, with legions of sales, accounts and advertising execs, and layers of management whose performance and pay is based solely on company performance. The other thing that Netflix dropped the ball on was the Spotify-esque "1 site to rule them all". There's now Disney+, Paramount+, Hulu, HBO, in the UK, BBC, ITV, E4, Sky, and so on. Movie + TV companies have always fought each other in a way that record companies never did, but both their products are just bits down a wire in 2023. Competition is coming at them from all sides. I know that they get precise viewing figures for their series, but cancelling some of them is just baffling. No more chance of "Growing The Beard" for shows given the crowded marketplace. I cancelled a year or so ago after they cancelled some of the programmes I used to watch. The only thing left on Netflix for me is Stranger Things and that's not enough to keep me.
- aidenn0 3y ago
  > The other thing that Netflix dropped the ball on was the Spotify-esque "1 site to rule them all". There's now Disney+, Paramount+, Hulu, HBO, in the UK, BBC, ITV, E4, Sky, and so on. Movie + TV companies have always fought each other in a way that record companies never did, but both their products are just bits down a wire in 2023 Netflix didn't drop the ball; it was clearly never going to happen. When Netflix launched their streaming service, I thought it was a dumb idea because I figured it was 10 years tops before all the major studios could run their own streaming services, at which point Netflix would have no content to stream (unlike mailing DVDs, you need permission from studios to stream their content). Most of the movie studios jealously guard the rights to their movies; Netflix got a lot of its early streaming content by sublicensing from Starz, which pissed of the studios (most notably Disney, but there was murmuring from Sony as well). At this point, Netflix invested both in TV back-content as well as creating original content. We are now entering an era in which Studios can potentially have complete control over legal distribution of their content, and they look likely to do so. I'll pause for a moment while you try to buy a copy of the (now 3.5 year old) Mandalorian season 1 on DVD or Bluray... I'm not sure why music ended in the "(almost) 1 site to rule them all" while video did not, but a couple possibly contributing factors: 1. MP3s had a one-two punch of coming practically out of nowhere, and portable players that significantly improved on the walkman/discman experience. Napster wasn't even around that long (2 years, 80M users at peak) but planted pirated MP3s as a big deal. Then the iPod came around and being on iTunes was important to stay relevant. If you're on iTunes, why not be on all streaming and purchasing services at the same time? 2. There is a long history in the US of compulsory licensing of music for various purposes. It doesn't cover on-demand streaming, but does cover satellite, terrestrial radio and "internet radio" services. 3. Retail media sales have long been the public metric of success for music; for film studios it's been retail ticket sales. The music charts even have formulae for translating streams into equivalent purchases of physical media.
Logans_Run 3y ago
Indeed. I enjoyed 'The Mentalist' series (The Pilot and Series 1 in particular) which was also on Netflix if memory serves.
MuffinFlavored 3y ago
> Netflix have really dissapointed me. I don't think your comment is exclusively about the password sharing policy, but I'll pretend it is at a high level: Do they (as a business) deserve to do what is in their best interest (maximize profit)? Why are users "owed" the ability to pay for 1 household and share it with 5 households?
- jayd16 3y ago
  No one is owed but this question is flawed. Users were paying for 5 households. Now they can only use it for one. However you look at it, its a reduction in service or an increase in price.
naet 3y ago
I stopped watching new Netflix shows after they left too many unfinished. I might consider it if it was a finished series, but it was too frustrating to start watching something, have it end a season on a cliffhanger, and then get cancelled before things got resolved. I think they lost a lot of customer goodwill with those frequent cancellations. Even if they didn't want to finish the series, investing in a short special episode to wrap some things up might have kept more of that alive and made me more willing to invest my time in a newer series. I'm not an expert but it really seems like Netflix is doing self inflicted damage with some recent decisions. Maybe an exec failed upwards and ended up in charge of some policies they shouldn't have been trusted with...

by Jenk 3y ago

rerx 3y ago

Compared to competitors, Apple TV+ currently appear to put much more emphasis on quality over quantity in their original content. I really enjoyed some shows like Severance, For All Mankind, Trying, Acapulco, Foundation. It reminds me of the time when Netflix Originals stood for content to be excited about. What they don't have is a back catalog of licensed films and shows included with the flat rate offering (they all cost an extra fee).

circlefavshape 3y ago
FWIW I thought Foundation was incredibly poor
- jackmott42 3y ago
  I know some people are really irritated by how it differs from the book, but I really enjoyed it, especially "The Empire". I kinda want the bad guys to win, lol
  - Gareth321 3y ago
    Lee Pace and his character arch carried that show. Everything else was terrible. I LOVED the books and felt personally affronted with how they butchered the content. These are some of the best science fiction books every written, and THIS was the best they could do with it? The only way they could have screwed up this badly is writing egos the size of Jupiter and zero oversight.
- rerx 3y ago
  The first season could have been better, but it has great production values and as far as I can tell they see it as an investment and they are not going to cancel it soon. So for now I'm optimistic about a second season.
  - thaumasiotes 3y ago
    > The first season could have been better, but it has great production values This thought process is how we got to the point where movies stopped having plots.
    - rerx 3y ago
      Many shows have hit their strides in later seasons. IIRC I found Breaking Bad a bit boring in season one. (Granted, probably the writing was already better than season one of Foundation.)
- polychrome28 3y ago
  It might not been great, but they didn't set out to produce a cheap and fast show.
- MikusR 3y ago
  It's a weird example of the original material like Cleons being good while stuff from the books being incredibly bad.
  - anotherhue 3y ago
    The acting talent is a factor here. Other than Harris, Pace is incredible. The rest of the cast? Disposable.
- upon_drumhead 3y ago
  I really enjoyed foundation. I just had to let go of the book series and take it as a new universe and I’m really looking forward to what they do next.
- regus 3y ago
  I was not a fan of Foundation, however the Cleon story line was awesome, everything was really bad.
lockhouse 3y ago
Mythic Quest is hilarious as well.
- EvanKnowles 3y ago
  It improved suddenly in the third season, I was about to give up.
  - lockhouse 3y ago
    My favorite were the quarantine episodes! Comedy gold.
  - capableweb 3y ago
    I felt the opposite, two first seasons were great, last one not so great. Still a good show though.
- pjc50 3y ago
  I'm still amazed that a series sposored by Ubisoft can be such a sharp satire about the games industry.
- conradfr 3y ago
  First season is OK. Same for Ted Lasso.
  - highwaylights 3y ago
    You can't please everybody. Tried with Mythic Quest for two seasons and just couldn't stick with it. Ted Lasso OTOH I'll watch as soon as a new episode pops up.
    - philsnow 3y ago
      I skip most of the Ted Lasso scenes with Mr Gruff and lil' Ms SideBusiness. If you had told me back in season one that I'd prefer watching the scenes with Mr BoringHomeLife, I wouldn't have believed you.
gandalfian 3y ago
Severance, I turned the playback speed faster by 20% or something and it actually became much more pleasant to watch with wierdly no adverse effect?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  Severance’s story is good, but has a ton of garbage time, like many or most other streaming shows. I just skip the middle few episodes and feel like I did not miss a beat.
- hinkley 3y ago
  I really wish YouTube allowed 1.10 playback speed. It’s just fast enough to save you some real time on long video series, but slow enough that you can still absorb difficult subjects. Even slow talkers become fast talkers on 1.25 speed. 1.10 is perfect for most audiobooks.
  - howinteresting 3y ago
    There's a bookmarklet for that: https://andrewsteele.co.uk/stuff/youtube-playback-speed-bookmarklet/ https://andrewsteele.co.uk/stuff/youtube-playback-speed-book...
    - stronglikedan 3y ago
      Only works with web based viewers, unfortunately.
  - hombre_fatal 3y ago
    document.querySelector('video').playbackRate = 1.1
  - alimbada 3y ago
    SmartTube (for Google/Android TV) used to allow this but a recent update has removed the other speed increments and it now only lets you use the usual increments you find on YouTube. :(
yowzadave 3y ago
Severance was great! I watched For All Mankind and Foundation, which both had great production values but were hurt by cheesy storytelling and sometimes iffy acting. I'd love to see TV+ try something more experimental.
- upon_drumhead 3y ago
  They’re releasing their silo series from the dust books next week. I have relatively high hopes
  - indigodaddy 3y ago
    Really looking forward to this one..
  - greedo 3y ago
    Can you ELI5 this?
    - upon_drumhead 3y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silo_(series) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silo_(series) (May have spoilers in the plot section) is being made into a tv series
tyingq 3y ago
Interesting. I also like the Apple TV+ content, but my list is completely different. I liked BlackBird, Invasion, Slow Horses, Servant, and Tehran...and mostly didn't like the ones on your list.
system16 3y ago
Apple TV+ has really surprised me. They've quickly become my favourite streaming platform, and somehow even got me interested in Major League Soccer (a sport I didn't even follow previously) enough to subscribe to their MLS Season Pass. I really hope they don't fall into the Netflix habit of cancelling shows before they have time to find their groove (Mr. Corman was really creative and just getting good and got axed), and some of their dramas are starting to veer into the forgettable "Netflix Hallmark made for TV" territory.
- tonightstoast 3y ago
  Mr. Corman was tough to see cancelled but that show was hard to watch. It was scarily depressing and I while I think some people say they want a show like that, I don’t think it pulled the viewership numbers to keep it on air.
  - system16 3y ago
    Very true. It also didn't help that the little promotion they did framed it as a comedy.
dom96 3y ago
Agreed. Apple TV in general has that feeling of quality. Another great one there that I'd highly recommend is Slow Horses. I feel like I must mention though: as soon as For All Mankind decided to have a teenager seduce a grown married woman I lost interest. Then to top it off, they continued that plotline into the next season. What a shame.
anonfunction 3y ago
Watching on the Apple TV+ app on an Android TV it frequently replays the same episode I already watched or starts at some random time earlier in the episode than when I left off which is a pain to fix using their scrubbing feature which is itself a bad experience.
- 98codes 3y ago
  Same for Xbox & Windows -- the app is barely serviceable, and I figure that's by design from Apple.
causi 3y ago
Apple TV+ currently appear to put much more emphasis on quality over quantity in their original content. Which is a win for literally everybody. The consumer wins because they get a very high amount of enjoyment for their invested time. The service wins because the less time each loyal subscriber spends actually using the service the less their bandwidth costs are.
zerocrates 3y ago
Apple has a few great shows but a pretty significant amount of junk too. I don't know that it's all that meaningfully different.

jerrydoughan 3y ago

[flagged]

dpratt 3y ago
This extension seems rather interesting, but I suspect you may have harmed your brand more than you helped it by making the above post.
- jerrydoughan 3y ago
  The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference they say so I'll take that ha! Any suggestions on how to better approach these things? I'm like a fish out of water when it comes to branding, so would be happy to learn from anyone with constructive criticism. Thanks!
tyingq 3y ago
I see the plug doesn't seem to be going well, but it interesting to me that Amazon is the only service with something somewhat similar with Prime's X-ray. I know it's easier for them since they have IMDB, but I don't understand why I can't at least have a "Cast/Characters" popup in the other services. Even if it's just the whole cast and not contextual to the scene.
- jerrydoughan 3y ago
  You make a great point. X-ray is a prime example of the potential for extending and enhancing the viewing experience, even with something as simple as a persistent character/cast sidebar. Netflix has a version of this but as a separate site called tudum that feels more like a information dump. And Disney has disney extras which is primarily behind the scenes videos. I suspect it's harder for them to do in platform-agnostic way. Amazon has the benefit of IMDB as you noted, while Netflix, Hulu et al would have to build from scratch.

ciupicri 3y ago

What nostalgia tv? A lot of 20 - 30 years old TV shows or movies aren't available on Netflix.

spaceman_2020 3y ago
Likely talking about shows like Fuller House that just feed off nostalgia and offer nothing new or entertaining

light_hue_1 3y ago

> .. and I'm genuinely concerned shows like The Diplomat are just going to leave us all hanging. This is why I don't pay for Netflix anymore. They cancel every show I enjoy. No other service treats their fans worse than Netflix.

duxup 3y ago

> trash telly It's not just Netflix. Disney+ has a bunch of National Geographic infotainment ... minus the info type shows. HBO is going to end up with Discovery Channel ... stuff. I want some way of telling them "I don't want to wade through crap..."

warent 3y ago
> I want some way of telling them "I don't want to wade through crap..." Yarr matey, one way do be not parting ways with coin for said services, instead making a more... equitable re-appropriation
- ModernMech 3y ago
  I genuinely don't understand this sentiment in 2023. Maybe in 2003 it was reasonable, but if you have the money, just spend it to buy the content you want. I get that there's a lot of "crap" that you don't want to see, but I appreciate some of that, and I'm sure you appreciate some of what I call "crap". I don't see how you go from that situation to justifying not paying for it. There's a price for the content and it's not $0. You can either pay it, or enjoy free things. There's so much content out there. Can you offer a full throated defense of why you feel it's okay to pirate media in 2023, with so many options for consuming media legally, on whatever device, at any time? That was the dream of pirates in 2003, but we've achieved that dream legally today and it's still not good enough for the pirates it seems.
  - doubled112 3y ago
    I don't pirate because I just can't be bothered. It's all too much work for a short temporary experience, but I do remember the promises. Streaming was going to "save us" from the big cable companies. No ads, just pay that small subscription fee and watch what you want when you want it. Now there are a dozen subscription fees, I'm getting ads anyway, and I'm not getting content I want to pay money for. Some are even streaming live TV now, with no way to watch what you just watched again.
    - 3y ago

brucethemoose2 3y ago

Use Reelgood or justwatch to search, and you can still find good stuff. Netflix may have a quality problem, but another one (and a much easier one to fix) is their stupid recommendation algorithm. It shows me nothing but trash and genres (like Love is Blind) I absolutely dont want to see, while I have to use a 3rd party service to dig for gems. I cant help but wonder if thats skewing their own metrics. People are going to watch trash if thats all they present.

scantron4 3y ago
Justwatch refuses to show me multi channel searches without amc+, for some reason. Either a really annoying advertising plot or a glitch with my account.

christkv 3y ago

Search for Korean made tv and movies. A ton of brilliant content coming out. Kingdom and D.P to name only two.

mikeryan 3y ago

When Reed Hasting left and Ted Sarandos took over he had a bit of power shakeup and handed over the content reins to Bela Bajaria - who was brought in to head up international over Cindy Holland who was in charge of US content. Holland had brought in House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black, Stranger Things, The Crown, Ozark and Narcos. Holland seemed to focus more on developing fewer shows of higher quality content while Bajaria was more focused on "get all the content, throw it all at the wall and see what sticks" (who saw "Squid Games" coming?). It also aligns, however, with a timeframe of the launch of the studios having their own top tier services such as Disney+, Peacock and even the new HBOMax (MAX now) all of whom are more tightly holding the streaming rights to the studios to which they're associated. This for me aligned with when Netflix started going downhill. I have to say some of their newer content seems better but I'm not sure where its going to go. Right now HBOMax and Apple seem to be the most consistent for fewer, higher quality shows which also more closely aligns with my viewing habits. Netflix we keep mostly for my daughter these days and the few random hits that come through on Netflix.

whinenot 3y ago
“I wonder if, say, a bonobo throwing shit at a whiteboard full of titles as a method of deciding what projects to make would have more or less success than all of these other ‘deciders’ who think they know what people want or don’t want.”[0] [0] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/netflixs-big-wake-up-call-the-power-clash-behind-the-crash-1235136004/ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/netflixs-...
- passion__desire 3y ago
  Why is Netflix not following short high quality 1-3 min videos model which is popular with young crowd? They already have Fast laughs tab which mimics that. Youtube / Creative studios could pitch 1-3 min video ideas which Netflix could greenlight and provide just bare minimum capital to produce. If the final film is good, Netflix could buy the film and release on their platform. Current Trends which are in favour of above idea: 1] Story generation will get cheaper thanks to ChatGPT. 2] Film generation will get cheaper thanks to Stable Diffusion. 3] Short video formats are already very good, engaging. 4] RunwayML and so on.

wnevets 3y ago

> trash telly The executives that ruined regular TV/cable with cheap and trashy TV are bringing that model to streaming.

geodel 3y ago

So Murdoch is fuckhead because he decided not to share content that his companies produce with other streaming providers?

maxboone 3y ago

Not to forget the FOSS commitment from early Netflix.

neals 3y ago

Disappointment can only come from your own expectations. Good doesn't last. I like to have a mindset of using these kind of things while they work for me, until they don't, then leave and not look back. Don't get attached to commercial endeavours.

babypuncher 3y ago
I think some people's expectations of Netflix were downright unrealistic. When they started streaming, the platform was paying pennies to license shows that were already in syndication. Programs that had already made their money in first runs on network TV and cable. As streaming became the de facto distribution method for new content, of course the cost of licensing that content ewas going to go up. Streaming licensing fees are no longer just gravy to the studios, they are their primary source of income. The idea that Netflix could somehow afford to bankroll the entire entertainment industry on $15/mo subscriptions is ridiculous. There were three possible outcomes: 1. Netflix becomes the new cable and charges $100+/mo 2. The output of the entertainment industry shrinks until it is sustainable on $15/mo subscriptions 3. Competitors start popping up and fighting for market share
- Alupis 3y ago
  None of which says "Make a million garbage shows and movies that nobody asked for and few actually enjoy - then raise monthly rates to bankroll these pet projects". Here's an idea - quality over quantity. Make fewer, but better shows and movies.
  - babypuncher 3y ago
    That is Netflix trying to carve out their niche in timeline #3. They think they can compete with the other services by having a little of something for everyone. The poor average quality of their content is why I cancelled Netflix and switched to a mix of HBO, Hulu, and Paramount.
  - itsoktocry 3y ago
    >Here's an idea - quality over quantity. Make fewer, but better shows and movies. What an insight. But how do you determine what's "high quality" and what isn't? You don't think Netflix is trying to measure that?

themitigating 3y ago

"Meanwhile the other streaming services are at least as bad, but typically worse." So then isn't it just good? Cable didn't have on demand and you couldn't share even in the same house. Beyond basic cable channels you needed a cable box for each tv for around $5 a month in the late 80s (around $11 today).

poisonarena 3y ago

>been getting lost in shows like Narcos A Brazilian man speaking mexican spanish as Pablo Escobar, with mexican actors using mexican slang in a show about the colombian drug trade, completely omitting Pablo regularly raped and afterwards executed 13-15 year old girls and other insane stuff.. this was not a popular show in Colombia Netflix has always been unwatchable crap or woke garbage. Time to unsubscribe and pirate

spaceman_2020 3y ago
Netflix should be a little ashamed that they revived the cult of Pablo Escobar. The amount of memes and “sigma male” videos featuring Escobar is embarrassing. They turned Escobar into a folk hero, not a scumbag criminal.
- tayo42 3y ago
  If you came away from narcos thinking Escobar was a good person, you only saw what you wanted to see in that show. Any amount of rape wouldn't change that. He blew up a plane full of innocent people...

DrBazza 3y ago

To succeed they had to make streaming video easier than torrenting it, and cheap enough to attract the casual torrenter. And like every company, v1 was run by the founders that understood their customer base. Of course, we're at v2, with legions of sales, accounts and advertising execs, and layers of management whose performance and pay is based solely on company performance. The other thing that Netflix dropped the ball on was the Spotify-esque "1 site to rule them all". There's now Disney+, Paramount+, Hulu, HBO, in the UK, BBC, ITV, E4, Sky, and so on. Movie + TV companies have always fought each other in a way that record companies never did, but both their products are just bits down a wire in 2023. Competition is coming at them from all sides. I know that they get precise viewing figures for their series, but cancelling some of them is just baffling. No more chance of "Growing The Beard" for shows given the crowded marketplace. I cancelled a year or so ago after they cancelled some of the programmes I used to watch. The only thing left on Netflix for me is Stranger Things and that's not enough to keep me.

aidenn0 3y ago
> The other thing that Netflix dropped the ball on was the Spotify-esque "1 site to rule them all". There's now Disney+, Paramount+, Hulu, HBO, in the UK, BBC, ITV, E4, Sky, and so on. Movie + TV companies have always fought each other in a way that record companies never did, but both their products are just bits down a wire in 2023 Netflix didn't drop the ball; it was clearly never going to happen. When Netflix launched their streaming service, I thought it was a dumb idea because I figured it was 10 years tops before all the major studios could run their own streaming services, at which point Netflix would have no content to stream (unlike mailing DVDs, you need permission from studios to stream their content). Most of the movie studios jealously guard the rights to their movies; Netflix got a lot of its early streaming content by sublicensing from Starz, which pissed of the studios (most notably Disney, but there was murmuring from Sony as well). At this point, Netflix invested both in TV back-content as well as creating original content. We are now entering an era in which Studios can potentially have complete control over legal distribution of their content, and they look likely to do so. I'll pause for a moment while you try to buy a copy of the (now 3.5 year old) Mandalorian season 1 on DVD or Bluray... I'm not sure why music ended in the "(almost) 1 site to rule them all" while video did not, but a couple possibly contributing factors: 1. MP3s had a one-two punch of coming practically out of nowhere, and portable players that significantly improved on the walkman/discman experience. Napster wasn't even around that long (2 years, 80M users at peak) but planted pirated MP3s as a big deal. Then the iPod came around and being on iTunes was important to stay relevant. If you're on iTunes, why not be on all streaming and purchasing services at the same time? 2. There is a long history in the US of compulsory licensing of music for various purposes. It doesn't cover on-demand streaming, but does cover satellite, terrestrial radio and "internet radio" services. 3. Retail media sales have long been the public metric of success for music; for film studios it's been retail ticket sales. The music charts even have formulae for translating streams into equivalent purchases of physical media.

Logans_Run 3y ago

Indeed. I enjoyed 'The Mentalist' series (The Pilot and Series 1 in particular) which was also on Netflix if memory serves.

MuffinFlavored 3y ago

> Netflix have really dissapointed me. I don't think your comment is exclusively about the password sharing policy, but I'll pretend it is at a high level: Do they (as a business) deserve to do what is in their best interest (maximize profit)? Why are users "owed" the ability to pay for 1 household and share it with 5 households?

jayd16 3y ago
No one is owed but this question is flawed. Users were paying for 5 households. Now they can only use it for one. However you look at it, its a reduction in service or an increase in price.

naet 3y ago

I stopped watching new Netflix shows after they left too many unfinished. I might consider it if it was a finished series, but it was too frustrating to start watching something, have it end a season on a cliffhanger, and then get cancelled before things got resolved. I think they lost a lot of customer goodwill with those frequent cancellations. Even if they didn't want to finish the series, investing in a short special episode to wrap some things up might have kept more of that alive and made me more willing to invest my time in a newer series. I'm not an expert but it really seems like Netflix is doing self inflicted damage with some recent decisions. Maybe an exec failed upwards and ended up in charge of some policies they shouldn't have been trusted with...