Discussion
GenerWork: Cue up people shouting about how this is horrible and that they're totally going to cancel, only to be followed by Netflix making even more money next quarter.
iAMkenough: Also, more people getting into pirating their content.
GenerWork: I've been out of that scene for a long time, hasn't Netflix implemented a bunch of anti-piracy methods, or are people just recording HDMI/DisplayPort output and saving it?
GrayShade: It's easier to torrent stuff than to get 4K in Netflix on Linux.
bonyt: Can't even get 4K on most streaming services on macOS now...Netflix lets you in Safari[1]; Disney+ limits you to 1080p[2]; and Hulu limits you to 720p[3].[1]: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/55764 ("Mac computer with an Apple processor or Apple T2 Security chip").[2]: https://help.disneyplus.com/article/disneyplus-video-quality ("Please note 4K streaming is not available on computer browsers").[3]: https://help.hulu.com/article/hulu-video-quality ("Hulu.com streams in quality up to 720p").
lelandbatey: Reading around a bit, yes to Netflix adding anti-piracy measures, maybe to folks recording HDMI/DisplayPort.Apparently, Netflix is using steganography/content watermarks in their 4k content itself to trace users who are pirating. This is from a totally unsourced Reddit thread[0] but they do reference a real company which claims to do this watermarking[1]. The claim is that in addition to Netflix requiring 4k content to be available only on platforms with Trusted Execution Environments[2], Netflix also encodes each ~10 second "chunk" of the video stream into at least 2 different versions: an Y and a Z version. Then, they serve each customer a unique series of chunks when that customer streams their content, e.g. YYZYZZZYZYYZYZYYZZYZYYZ. Then when content leaks, Netflix can examine each chunk of the leaked content to extract the ID of the user who streamed the content. Apparently, Netflix can encode a lot more than just the userID, they can also encode stuff like the individual device ID, the TEE key ID, etc.I know you might be thinking "I could do something to defeat that" and you're probably right (e.g. take streams from multiple users and intercut them so that the bits of the watermark through time are being constantly shuffled), but I'll also bet that there's many layers of steganography we don't know about, and unless you get them all, you'll not escape scot-free.[0] - https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/1rqkyjg/with_a_lot_...[1] - https://irdeto.com/video-entertainment/irdeto-anti-piracy[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_execution_environment
jmyeet: Speaking from experience, I had Netflix for years without thinking about it, starting at $8/month. At that price I didn't care if I watched it or not. Then it went to $10, $12, etc. Once it got to $15-16 (I forget), I cancelled it.I now sign up for 1-2 months a year to catch up on shows I like and just rotate which streaming services I have. Yes, this is anecdotal.It's hard to find data on how common rotating streaming services is. I would guess not common. I found this from 2021 showing the number of streaming services the average US household has [1]. It's worth noting that this was based on lockdown-era data.The number if still quite high. I still have 3-4 mainly because my ISP gives me 1 and Amazon Prime bundles it. Were it not for those, I'd probably stick with 2. This is imperfect data because is it the same 4 or are some or all of these rotated? We just don't know.Most of the data around this is how streaming is cannibalizing satellite and cable. But at this rate Netflix will cost $30+ in 10-15 years. Will it still have growing revenue and the same subscriber numbers? There is price elasticity here.[1]: https://www.thewrap.com/u-s-households-with-4-streaming-serv...
partiallypro: I cancelled Netflix long ago, they started cancelling their best shows (like 1899, etc) and producing absolute garbage. I mean just look at the quality of early/peak Netflix to now. Stranger Things is a great example, the decline is visible not just in the story but in the visuals. The documentaries are also bad now, I watched the "Manosphere" at someone's house, and while you can agree with the premise that these people are deranged, it was clearly a cash grab and didn't really move the needle. Then the catalogue has been gutted, and it's just mostly garbage now. Just awful stuff.The last truly remarkable series they had was Dark. Everything since has slid into being for low attention span people on their phones, and for that reason I no longer give it my attention, or money. I guess it's working out for them, since they keep printing money...but I think it won't last forever. Look at Disney, the decline can come quick once the cracks turn into fault lines.
edgyquant: I can’t lie It’s a pretty neat way to track who’s recording
awongh: What would be great is if the EU makes some kind of regulation (it worked for usb-c?) about some kind of interoperable streaming platform pricing that forces a kind of standardization across platforms and allows at least a little bit of customization.Let me opt into or out of ads, and let me "switch channels" across multiple different streaming services on a standardized interface with predictable pricing. Is that so crazy?The issue is the Netflix doesn't really have that much more of a compelling catalog than anyone else, their tech is not a differentiator anymore, I might like the stuff on there right now more than Disney+ but that might change later.The fact that what's keeping anyone on Netflix is only a slightly bothersome switching cost is probably bad news for them long-term.
culopatin: Why do we need to regulate how companies make their products if people are not forced to use them or are a basic necessity? Don’t like Netflix? Too expensive? Don’t buy it. Vote with your wallet.
hbn: Pirating is honestly, by-far the least painful experience to watch things.I recently started watching a series, and I figured I'd check if it's on any streaming services I have access to. I found it on Prime Video, but when I clicked into it, it needed some other separate subscription to a service I'd never heard of to watch it. And even then, it had like, seasons 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, and 8 of the 9 total seasons. If there was any chance I'd subscribe to watch it before, I definitely wasn't now. I couldn't even figure out where the remaining seasons are available to be watched legally. It's especially hard to find this information in Canada because searching "X where to watch" just gives you results of where things are available in America, which has completely different licensing deals.So I found a torrent for the complete series and I've been watching it pain-free. Piracy tends to be my default now. It even has the advantage that I can frequently find a Bluray rip rather than a reduced bitrate internet stream. Anything I really like and I want to support the creators, I purchase a physical release, or official merchandise or something.
stronglikedan: > Pirating is honestly, by-far the least painful experience to watch things.No it's not. It's just the cheapest. Except for a few outliers like you describe, streaming is an order of magnitude less painful.
brailsafe: Only if you don't know about it, but otherwise it's literally two clicks, not even sign-in required
Cyph0n: Yes, this is what Netflix is doing.But the only real world impact is that the device that was used to stream that 4K content gets blacklisted at the hardware level.To workaround this, piracy groups try to batch 4K rips because they know that the device will be burned soon after they upload the content. They then acquire another’s device, and so on.There are some interesting discussions in this HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46803451
adrianN: In the general form you post your question there are several answers, for example because the price of anarchy is too high (charger plugs), or the products at dangerous (drugs), or to avoid externalities. Whether there are good arguments in the case of streaming is a different question.
goldenarm: Customer resentment is slow to build up, but once the inertia is visible it's usually too late.
micael_dias: It’s 2 clicks with tools like Stremio. I use Plex with the arr stack and sure it has more configuration needed upfront but once that’s done you no longer need to figure out which streaming service has what. Plus things like realdebrid mean you don’t even need storage anymore.
horsawlarway: nah, it's definitely a better UX if you do it right.There are "shitty" ways to do piracy (usually the sketchy streaming alternatives). But the media management and playback tooling is genuinely great right now.I still buy most of my media, but I pick up cheap physical copies of things and put them on a NAS for playback through jellyfin.It's... MILES better than netflix/amazon/hulu/etc. No ads, no bullshit, no marketing, no "self-promotion that's totally not an ad, wink wink". Just your media.Playback is per-user, it keeps all your stuff just fine, you can resume later from wherever you left off, I can shuffle series (great for kids shows like Arthur or magic school bus), and it's never offline, down, or unavailable.---Basically - you're very confused. I have "streaming" it just comes out of my own equipment, playing my own content. All the affordances are there and it has none of the bullshit.
retrac98: I remember signing up to Netflix to watch house of cards back in the early 2010s and being absolutely blown away.I don’t think there’s been a single show on Netflix I’ve genuinely looked forward to in the past couple of years. It’s like they completely gave up on quality content and just shovel out the most mediocre slop. I’m amazed people still pay these ever increasing prices.
mdasen: In the early days, Netflix benefited from other media companies not recognizing streaming for what it was: their replacement. They licensed content to Netflix cheaply without thinking about how it would impact DVD sales or cable tv subscriptions.It's kinda like how IBM didn't see the value in software and that let Microsoft become Microsoft.
gruez: >you'll not escape scot-free.What are they gonna do? Ban your account? You don't need to go through KYC to get a netflix account, so what's preventing you from using a prepaid card to sign up for another account?
miduil: Good for them, I cancelled my subscription simply because Linux support is so awful. It's impossible to watch in 4k, and even with 1080p you frequently get automatically downgraded to lower res bitrate whenever the window isn't focused. Absolutely daunting.
coro_1: You know it's funny. Awhile ago I subscribed only to watch Stranger Things, I paid for the 1080 HD plan.4K is clearly incentivized. Any how, I called to complain at the time. My opinion is the picture instantly got notably better when I tried standard HD again. There seems to be different degradations of 1080 and 4K.
BeetleB: I'll admit it's a bit of a pain to initially setup, but it's a one time pain. With Plex + arr services already set up, it's definitely easier to pirate than use a streaming provider.Now, if I want to pirate, I just go to my browser, search for a movie/TV show, tell it to download, and it ensures it shows up seamlessly in Plex.The benefits:- Searching is easier- One interface (Plex) vs many streaming interfaces, each with its own quirks.- You don't have to worry that they'll take the show away while you're in the middle of Season 3.Plex is pretty easy to set up. The arr services, though, were a royal pain. If there's some automation that sets it all up for you on your machine, though, then it would be a game changer.I'm fairly pro-streaming services. I want the content producers to get paid when I watch. However, Apple TV's royal screwups[1] drove me to the edge and I decided to go through the painful process of figuring out all the *arr services.If the streaming services don't make it a pain, I won't even think about pirating.[1] Locked out because I couldn't confirm the CVV of a card that I had reported lost almost a year prior. All the attempts to change the card/account failed. Even with a new account, once you'd enter an updated CC, it would tie it to my old account because it would realize I'm the same person.I didn't just get locked out of Apple TV. I got locked out of all Apple services until that CC expired. I could not even apply for a job at Apple unless I confirmed the CVV. Thank God I don't use Apple devices!
denysvitali: Severance (Apple TV) and Fallout (Amazon Prime) are pretty amazing TV shows that came out somewhat recently. Nothing on top of my mind came out of Netflix for which I really felt the need of resubscribing.I miss the quality of TV shows we reached with Mr. Robot, Silicon Valley, Utopia (UK), and Westworld :(
Supermancho: * Silo (Apple TV)* Pluribus (Apple TV)* Paradise (Paramount+)* Landman (Paramount+)* A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (HBO Max)First few seasons Netflix keeps it together before crapping the bed:* Witcher (Netflix)* Stranger Things (Netflix)* Mindhunter (Netflix)
lostmsu: I also really liked Foundation on Apple TV
pllbnk: There's barely anything worth watching on Netflix anymore but somehow their stock is rising and they manage to increase subscription prices. I had been subscribing on and off for the past few years but recently almost never because anything worth watching (for me anyway, although I don't have some weird intricate taste in media content) is elsewhere.
epistasis: Well they'd have to lose a huge percentage of people for this not to be profitable quarter over quarter. But it likely cuts in to future growth substantially.And with what seems to now be an unavoidable economic storm as in-transit tankers dock and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz starts to be felt, there might be a larger than normal amount of people looking to cut costs in the coming year.Or maybe not, people seem to have stopped responding to economic pressure by cutting costs in the US! When vacations got super expensive, people still spent, and increased their complaining. We will see what happens in 2026.
yibg: Netflix is more resilient to economic downturns than you'd think. For many people it's a higher ROI for entertainment when compared to a lot of other alternatives. e.g going to bars / restaurants / movie theaters.
snovymgodym: I pretty much declared streaming show bankruptcy after sitting through Severance season 2 last year.I know a lot of people liked it and maybe I'm just cynical, but to me it seems like every "serious" streaming show eventually falls victim to the "stretch a 2 hour movie's plot across a 12 - 16 hour season" strategy. They know it works because enough people binge watch or feel compelled to finish a series they've started.At this point, if I'm watching a show then it's something where the episodes are sufficiently satisfying self-contained stories (e.g. something like Star Trek, X-Files, sitcoms). If I want something with a more involved plot, then I'll watch a movie. These formats are better because the limited runtime requires the creators to be intentional about what they dedicate screen time to. Meanwhile in a modern "story-driven" streamslop show it's painfully obvious when they're just padding out the runtime with fluff to make it to 8 episodes.Of course there are exceptions to this, and there are stories for which a miniseries or a long-form series is the ideal video medium to convey them. But what happens so often is that you get 1-2 seasons of compelling storytelling followed by N more mediocre seasons that keep getting made because enough people keep watching. And the latter are just not worth the time investment.
