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I notice their front-end engineering (and design). The app experience has always been noticeably better than every other streaming service, which matters to me

I notice their front-end engineering (and design). The app experience has always been noticeably better than every other streaming service, which matters to me It's also possible that savings on infrastructure costs, reduced engineering hours spent on debugging, etc give them a quiet competitive advantage Most engineering is not visible to the end-user

lofaszvanitt 2y ago
Their front end is just plain garbage. It does everything besides helping discovery of content. And people look up to Netflix like it's some miracle thing.
- thereisnospork 2y ago
  It is well engineered and meticulously manicured garbage though. In your example, the harder it is to discover content the easier it is to realize there is nothing new to watch. (Hence the rotating thumbnails, for a trivial example)
  - alexander2002 2y ago
    One thing I hate about netflix that category recommendation also include other category stuff like Trending/Recently watched etc I just want to watch some classical movies so plz show me your whole catalog of such movies I don't use netflix often so this issue is more prominent for me atleast since I am not used to the UI bloat
  - lofaszvanitt 2y ago
    There is always a lot of good things to watch, but you have to dance around the idiotic recommendation system to find the hidden pearls. I'm sure there are a lot of good, talented people working there, but for what, when the frontend team kneecaps their work with the abysmal user interface. And the best part... you chat with the support and they try to force a how to use our webpage shit on you when you want to report an annoying UI issue. It's really mind boggling how a congregation of idiots with their heads up their asses runs that place.
- assimpleaspossi 2y ago
  That you don't like how you have to use the Netflix interface has nothing to do with how it's engineered.
mark_and_sweep 2y ago
Lately, the user experience has gotten much worse for Windows users: In July they removed the ability to download content for offline viewing. So everyone who wants to watch content while travelling, for example, has no other option but to use a competitor like Prime Video. I would also like to point out that those "savings on infrastructure costs" seemingly do not benefit their users: They have repeatedly increased prices over the past few years. I'm also unsure whether they are using their competitive advantage properly. Anecdotally, it used to be that almost everyone I knew was only streaming on Netflix. These days, the streaming services that people use seem much more diverse.

lofaszvanitt 2y ago

Their front end is just plain garbage. It does everything besides helping discovery of content. And people look up to Netflix like it's some miracle thing.

thereisnospork 2y ago
It is well engineered and meticulously manicured garbage though. In your example, the harder it is to discover content the easier it is to realize there is nothing new to watch. (Hence the rotating thumbnails, for a trivial example)
- alexander2002 2y ago
  One thing I hate about netflix that category recommendation also include other category stuff like Trending/Recently watched etc I just want to watch some classical movies so plz show me your whole catalog of such movies I don't use netflix often so this issue is more prominent for me atleast since I am not used to the UI bloat
- lofaszvanitt 2y ago
  There is always a lot of good things to watch, but you have to dance around the idiotic recommendation system to find the hidden pearls. I'm sure there are a lot of good, talented people working there, but for what, when the frontend team kneecaps their work with the abysmal user interface. And the best part... you chat with the support and they try to force a how to use our webpage shit on you when you want to report an annoying UI issue. It's really mind boggling how a congregation of idiots with their heads up their asses runs that place.
assimpleaspossi 2y ago
That you don't like how you have to use the Netflix interface has nothing to do with how it's engineered.

mark_and_sweep 2y ago

Lately, the user experience has gotten much worse for Windows users: In July they removed the ability to download content for offline viewing. So everyone who wants to watch content while travelling, for example, has no other option but to use a competitor like Prime Video. I would also like to point out that those "savings on infrastructure costs" seemingly do not benefit their users: They have repeatedly increased prices over the past few years. I'm also unsure whether they are using their competitive advantage properly. Anecdotally, it used to be that almost everyone I knew was only streaming on Netflix. These days, the streaming services that people use seem much more diverse.