I find it interesting that they lay the blame at the cost, when from their own descriptions it sounds to me like the blame might just as well be convenience? We know from examples like cellphones that people sacrifice quality for convenience, and (just to give anecdotal evidence) I ended up going back to cable because I never managed to teach my wife how to find all of her various shows on the panoply of apps and networks they were scattered across. I ended up giving up, and paying more, just so I didn’t have to always be there to find freaking Outlander or The Handmaid or Ms. Maisel for her. Convenience ruled.
True, and I suspect a large chunk of the remaining cable subscribers fit into this category. I think the issue is that the folks for whom this argument carries the day are becoming more scarce. Younger folks tend to be less willing to pay that “convenience fee.”
Plus, there’s stuff you simply can’t get without the streaming service…Netflix originals, etc. When you’re already paying big bucks for either cable or rival streaming services, and you want to watch the new hot thing that’s only available on a different service, then good ol’ Bittorrent starts to look pretty good.
Apple attempted to solve this dilemma with its TV App, and it actually works really well. Unfortunately not all content providers got on board with it. Hulu did, Netflix did not. So frustrating.
Yes, that’s been the holy grail of OTT streamer boxes for years now. Roku took its swing with universal search as did TiVo. Google tried to deep-link and integrate with everything on the homescreen on Android TV, but nobody bit. And Apple has its TV app, which again didn’t get full buy-in.
Most successful is probably FireTV, which lets you subscribe to various channels inside Amazon, they made integration mandatory for that.
A bunch of apps tried to do it too, like FanTV. They failed also.
What I really want is how my TiVo worked back in 1999. I want to subscribe to various shows, and have a constantly updating “Now Playing” list that shows the programs I want to watch in reverse chronological order, regardless of which service they originate from. Nothing does that across the board.
What really drives me crazy is when BitTorrent is genuinely the ONLY solution. Try finding entire seasons of Rick and Morty anywhere on either free or subscription TV. Try finding Season 4 of Gotham. Good luck.
Media piracy has grown extremely mature over the past couple of years. There are programs where you do subscribe to specific shows, and then they are automatically downloaded, properly formatted, with subtitles, etc. And then you watch then with Kodi or Plex. It’s a bit involved and techie to setup initially but pretty much hands-off after that. This offers a dramatically better experience than any of the OTT services.
I use www.justwatch.com to see where I can stream or rent/buy movies and tv series. You can also setup a watchlist or look at new items that have just started streaming based on IMDB and rotten tomatoes criteria. I find it works really well.
Hulu.
I was going to say, there is a way to do exactly what you describe, it’s just that it requires piracy.
I have (access to) a Netflix subscription yet I prefer to download their shows because the app’s interface is so bad. Auto-playing video with sound. Screw that.
That’s the problem in a nutshell. The legitimate experience is far inferior.
Yeah, Netflix’s app interface is dreadful. But that is equally true of most online services I’ve looked at.
I’d swear I checked there, but I’ll assume you are correct.
Hulu is too damned expensive for what you get, though.
Netflix is uniquely bad. Amazon Prime’s UI is slow and clunky, but at least it doesn’t autoplay videos with sound. Jesus, Netflix sucks.
Amazon’s is way harder to browse though. Especially 4k content.
I hate this, wish there were a way to turn it off. Who even wants this functionality?
Executives who value engagement over satisfaction.
Nobody. The entire internet is uniquely aligned in hating the Netflix UI. It is, in this respect, worse than Hitler.
Most of the shitty changes they’ve made to the Netflix UI, including autoplaying videos with sound, are not present in the Windows 10 app. Just saying.
Pretty sure the mobile app doesn’t do this, nor does Netflix through the mobile Roku app. I just queue up videos on mobile and stream them through the Roku or Chromecast. I’m also fairly certain I can do a search across channels on my Roku: Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Amazon Prime, and Google Play. With Amazon and Google trying to knock each other out at the expense of their customers, Roku sneaks in and is definitely the way to go for cord cutters. You get a physical remote and a great app.
I watch netflix on my big-ass TV. I know this is actually becoming increasingly unusual.