I think that’s a terrible idea. Amazon has the most user unfriendly search feature. (Actually Apple+ was pretty shit too, with content you’d have to pay for included in their search, but my subscription ran out last year so I am not too familiar with how it currently works.) If I am searching streaming movies through a service I pay a monthly fee for, I do not want to see results come up that are not included within that monthly fee that I’d have to pay extra for. I suspect most people feel the same way which is why Netflix has never done that.
Here is an illustration of what I’m talking about. Here is a list of the nine 2020 nominees for Best Picture, and how you can watch them (this is an old article but I think the options are still valid). Only two of them can be seen on Netflix, and that is only because they are Netflix productions (so they are exclusive to Netflix).
Similar story for 2021, with Power of the Dog exclusively on Netflix, and CODA is exclusive to Apple. Otherwise, all Best Picture nominees are available for a fee on multiple streaming platforms.
So if you like Netflix content, you should be happy with Netflix. Each year there is less and less Netflix content that I care about, and their non-Netflix content is either bad, or so old that if I had wanted to see it, I’d have seen it by now. So in my case I am considering dropping it. Maybe I am not typical. But then again, maybe I’m like the million people who dropped it last quarter.
I dropped it a few months ago. I may re-join for a month or so, watch a couple of things I’ve heard good things about and cancel again.
It’s clear that Netflix is no longer providing the type of content (e.g., streaming theatrical movies from the major studios) that would make you happy, @CookingWithGas. As several of us have noted, it’s probably not a matter of them being ignorant about the appeal of that content, but that they no longer have the rights to that content in the U.S.
Netflix’s business model clearly had to change, when they started losing streaming rights to popular movies and shows, as the content creators started creating their own streaming platforms, specifically to compete with Netflix. For people who are happy to just have a ton of content to watch (some good, some not so good), and don’t care about specific, non-Netflix-produced, movies or TV shows, they’re probably still a fine choice.
They may be “unwilling” to offer those movies at a premium price (like Amazon does), but even if they were willing to do that, I’m not at all convinced that Netflix could secure the rights to, say, Disney programming to stream, at any cost, because Disney sees Netflix as a direct competitor to Disney+.
So, yeah, if Netflix is making you unhappy, drop 'em. Use Amazon Prime.
Yeah, at this point Netflix isn’t a blanket substitute for cable, it’s more like a specific cable channel. Either you’re interested in what that channel shows or you’re not. Same with the rest of the streaming services. But with the added benefit of view-on-demand so you can rotate services/channels as desired and catch up on your favorite things in a month then move along to the next monthly sub.
My impression is that @CookingWithGas isn’t looking for a blanket substitute for cable, but for a blanket substitute for the now-vanished video rental stores, where you could walk in and rent any movie you wanted to watch.
And that’s not limited to just Netflix.
Want to watch the recent “Hawkeye” show from Disney+ on Amazon Prime? Or “WandaVision”? Or one of the other recent Marvel TV shows? Can’t even rent those from Amazon. Might show up later. Maybe. The new Doctor Strange movie? Sure, that’s available for rent/purchase, while you can watch it for ‘free’ (excepting the monthly fee) on Disney+.
And of course we’ve seen examples of first run movies being available for a fee simultaneous or soon after a theatrical release (HBO Max has done this a few times, I think).
Amazon can’t just show what they want and send a share of the rental fees to Disney. They need to negotiate a license to show content. And that contract is going to specify what content can be shown and the time windows for which it will be available.
With smaller players, they have leverage to have them accept Amazon’s standard licensing terms. But for a Disney? That’s going to involve a lot of negotiation, and Disney so far seems unwilling and unlikely to accept any terms for their TV shows. They want to keep those in-house for now.
The old “Blockbuster” model where you could get any movie you wanted from a single store is gone. And probably never coming back. Amazon Prime and Apple+ get close but even those can’t get licenses to some popular titles. Expecting Netflix to try to compete on somebody else’s terms doesn’t make sense for Netflix. They believe (probably rightly) it would cost them more to even try than they’d ever recoup.
But the problem is, there are plenty of other services that already offer that. Google, Amazon, Apple, Vudu, your cable company, etc. Why rent from Netflix when you can rent from all these other services?
Except that even that model didn’t allow you to get any movie you wanted at a single store. Even if you leave out the issues with physical media ( I can’t get the movie I want if all the copies are checked out), one of the advantages to Netflix’s original DVD service was that it had a bigger selection than any brick and mortar video store - they had something like 100,000 titles and it made sense for to them to have a copy or two of some obscure film that would be rented 50-100 times a year across the entire country while it wouldn’t make sense for most of the tens of thousands of places you could rent videos from to have a single copy of that sort of movie.
I get that but a movie like Dune is available on Amazon Prime Video, Google Play and Vudu. So it’s not like Warner Bros. has a lock on it.
It’s just that I would prefer one-stop shopping rather than having to hop around to multiple services. I don’t watch Black Mirror and I don’t need to watch Dirty Harry again. So maybe I’ll catch Power of the Dog and then afterwards save $20 a month.
This is not a net improvement for lots of people, and it’s pretty easy to see why. I don’t want this feature because it would clutter my search results with things I don’t want to pay for. I’m on the Netflix app to watch Netflix movies that I already paid for. If I want to rent a movie, I can go use a different app. A few moments time to choose the app that lets me rent movies for a fee the relatively few times I want to do that is so much better than having to go past them in search results every time I search on Netflix.
What if we just segregate it into another service instead? The cost of switching from one website or app to another to make a video rental is very small compared to the cost of everyone who uses Netflix and doesn’t want to rent movies for additional fees dealing with this.
Netflix has managed to make a great product by focusing on their core product and not adding other features that are readily available elsewhere.
No, but, again, WB (and the other major studios) are clearly no longer willing to give Netflix (which is, still, the biggest streaming service in the U.S.), those same streaming rights.
Warner Bros. does have a lock on deciding which services will be able to stream their content.
I absolutely get this, and I agree. There’s probably going to be a shake-out/consolidation in the years to come, because there are just way too many streaming services now.
For viewers who just want “something good to watch,” and aren’t seeking out particular shows or particular movies, a service like Netflix is just fine these days. But, if you’re wanting some specific content, and that is now spread over multiple owners, it’s a pain in the backside.
In addition to that, a lot of people already have something that is functionally the same - sure , I can’t search for a movie in Netflix and find out that’s it’s not included in my subscription and but I have the option to pay for it. But when I’ve searched using the search function of my Roku or Firestick rather than that of a particular service , I will often get multiple ways to watch including services I don’t currently subscribe to and ways to rent/buy - for instance, I can watch Won’t You Be My Neighbor for free on Netflix, rent it for $3.99 on Amazon Prime ( you have 48 hours to watch it ) or buy it for $14.99 from Amazon Prime (will remain available to you indefinitely subject to licensing restrictions).
Many streaming TV platforms have implemented something like this at the OS-level, rather than each individual app implementing it.
If you want to watch a particular thing, you can search for it on your Apple TV or Roku or whatever device, and it will show you a variety of ways you could watch it, some via subscription, some via pay-per-view.
I think this is a good thing, and it should generally satisfy the desire to not have to go hunting through a bunch of individual walled silos. But I also want the Netflix app to remain a walled silo in which only free-with-membership Netflix things are available.
While that does help, it doesn’t eliminate the need for having multiple subscriptions and multiple apps, if the programs that interest you are coming from several different providers.
I know I want Star Wars and Marvel stuff; thus, I have to have a Disney+ subscription. My wife knows she wants Magnolia Network shows, thus, we have to have a Discovery+ subscription. And, so on.
Sure, but there’s never going to be a single-price all-content subscription.
One used to be able to get pretty close (a two-provider solution), through a cable TV subscription, and a Netflix account for mail-order DVDs (or, earlier still, a Blockbuster card). But, that genie isn’t going back into that bottle.
Rather than video rental stores, the real world situation is like mixing the options we used to have, i.e. having cable TV but also an antenna for broadcast but also hopping over to the Blockbuster for new releases but sometimes springing for PPV. And maybe paying for the Sports cable package or the HBO package. Or canceling those if you wanted to save the money. And then Netflix came and DVD by mail was a thing. And then Redbox. And now streaming.
And if you don’t want to shell out for those, you just weren’t going to be able to watch some things.
There’s never been a time when you could have all possible content from a single provider. Whether that was video rentals or cable/satellite TV or, it just never existed. You’d have your cable TV subscription but still head out to Blockbuster (and/or your local mom and pop video rental place). Or get PPV. And still go to the cineplex. That’s still true today, though the details on how you can find content are now obviously different.
That option largely still exists. But it’s a lot less convenient than the multi-provider streaming option we have now.
Good point. I guess this is the modern analogue of requesting the ability to pick and choose which cable TV channels you got.