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I have one point which I really feel exemplifies the entire Netflix experience: before you sign up, they do not give you a list of what's available to watch. S

I have one point which I really feel exemplifies the entire Netflix experience: before you sign up, they do not give you a list of what's available to watch. Seriously, check out their website. It's basically a landing page which says "give us your money". The prices aren't even displayed. There is no list of shows, save for a few measly screenshots of featured/well-known titles. There is a search box which lets you search for titles, but nothing like a catalogue of offerings, which is the absolute bare minimum I'd expect to see before purchasing a service. I really cannot fathom why anyone would willingly give their hard-earned money to a company which doesn't even tell you what you're getting in exchange.

shermantanktop 3y ago
They could show you, but that's no guarantee of anything. They rotate their content, and presumable the studios pull their content off. If they have movie X today, there's no assurance that it'll be there next week. It's a subscription to a service, not to specific content. I don't see how it could be any other way. Netflix could definitely make it easier to see what is on now, though. Amazon has a much larger catalog and you can browse it before signing up.
- 3abiton 3y ago
  But he's not asking for consistency, but rather transparency.
  - shermantanktop 3y ago
    I read it as "show me what I'm getting" - which is totally reasonable. I'm just pointing out that it is a very perishable answer.
- realusername 3y ago
  > They rotate their content, and presumable the studios pull their content off. If they have movie X today, there's no assurance that it'll be there next week. That's also why I think piracy will always win, the studios are just too greedy to make it work. When you do a rug pull on a show just even once, you lost some legal customers forever instantly, those people will have a tainted view of the platform.
prawn 3y ago
If you search "dune streaming" in Australia, the top result (besides Google's little bits) is Netflix with the page title "Watch Dune". If you visit that page as a subscriber, it doesn't say they don't have it. It just has the metadata and a "Remind me" button. If you visit in incognito, you get a 'not found' error. Maybe they have it for another locale. Maybe they used to have it. Maybe they will have it in the future. But you're left to guess.
- Anon4Now 3y ago
  You could try using Yandex instead of Google. They're more than happy to list free options on the first page of results.
- danaris 3y ago
  A few years back, we were watching the Lucifer series—which, after being cancelled on whatever network it was on, was picked up by Netflix for its last...2 seasons, I think. One day, it just...disappeared. One of Netflix's own shows (we were, by that time, watching the episodes they had produced). Every source I could find said that Netflix carried it. But when I searched for it on Netflix, I couldn't find it. A few months later, it reappeared, as mysteriously as it had vanished. Of course, by that time I'd simply downloaded the remainder of the series and we'd watched it through Plex. I live in America.
  - prawn 3y ago
    Another great thing is when you search for something they don't have, they refuse to say they don't have it. They just try to convince you to watch some off-brand equivalent, or genre-adjacent movie instead. I've recently been watching through the Terminator movies with my son. Netflix had the first film, and then has Genisys. Prime has Terminator 2. Disney Plus has Dark Fate. Terminator 3 and Salvation are on Binge (which we'd just cancelled) and Stan.
shiroiuma 3y ago
Well this approach (the part about not listing the shows/movies carried) worked just fine back in ~2012 when Netflix had pretty much everything. These days... not so much.
wraptile 3y ago
Content hiding has become a really popular technique. Recently I reviewd Google's app of 2023 called Imprint and it purposefully hides all content counts to the point where some courses end abruptly with "get notified when next chapter is released". I emailed the team for content counts and got a firm no on that. Just like with Netflix you can't browse the entire lists of content. All you have a is a search bar and some curated lists which give an illusion of content breadth. Not a fan of these dark patterns to say the least.

shermantanktop 3y ago

They could show you, but that's no guarantee of anything. They rotate their content, and presumable the studios pull their content off. If they have movie X today, there's no assurance that it'll be there next week. It's a subscription to a service, not to specific content. I don't see how it could be any other way. Netflix could definitely make it easier to see what is on now, though. Amazon has a much larger catalog and you can browse it before signing up.

3abiton 3y ago
But he's not asking for consistency, but rather transparency.
- shermantanktop 3y ago
  I read it as "show me what I'm getting" - which is totally reasonable. I'm just pointing out that it is a very perishable answer.
realusername 3y ago
> They rotate their content, and presumable the studios pull their content off. If they have movie X today, there's no assurance that it'll be there next week. That's also why I think piracy will always win, the studios are just too greedy to make it work. When you do a rug pull on a show just even once, you lost some legal customers forever instantly, those people will have a tainted view of the platform.

prawn 3y ago

If you search "dune streaming" in Australia, the top result (besides Google's little bits) is Netflix with the page title "Watch Dune". If you visit that page as a subscriber, it doesn't say they don't have it. It just has the metadata and a "Remind me" button. If you visit in incognito, you get a 'not found' error. Maybe they have it for another locale. Maybe they used to have it. Maybe they will have it in the future. But you're left to guess.

Anon4Now 3y ago
You could try using Yandex instead of Google. They're more than happy to list free options on the first page of results.
danaris 3y ago
A few years back, we were watching the Lucifer series—which, after being cancelled on whatever network it was on, was picked up by Netflix for its last...2 seasons, I think. One day, it just...disappeared. One of Netflix's own shows (we were, by that time, watching the episodes they had produced). Every source I could find said that Netflix carried it. But when I searched for it on Netflix, I couldn't find it. A few months later, it reappeared, as mysteriously as it had vanished. Of course, by that time I'd simply downloaded the remainder of the series and we'd watched it through Plex. I live in America.
- prawn 3y ago
  Another great thing is when you search for something they don't have, they refuse to say they don't have it. They just try to convince you to watch some off-brand equivalent, or genre-adjacent movie instead. I've recently been watching through the Terminator movies with my son. Netflix had the first film, and then has Genisys. Prime has Terminator 2. Disney Plus has Dark Fate. Terminator 3 and Salvation are on Binge (which we'd just cancelled) and Stan.

shiroiuma 3y ago

Well this approach (the part about not listing the shows/movies carried) worked just fine back in ~2012 when Netflix had pretty much everything. These days... not so much.

wraptile 3y ago

Content hiding has become a really popular technique. Recently I reviewd Google's app of 2023 called Imprint and it purposefully hides all content counts to the point where some courses end abruptly with "get notified when next chapter is released". I emailed the team for content counts and got a firm no on that. Just like with Netflix you can't browse the entire lists of content. All you have a is a search bar and some curated lists which give an illusion of content breadth. Not a fan of these dark patterns to say the least.