As Netflix has moved away from carrying lots of other people's movies to largely producing their own in-house TV shows, it feels like they barely have enough content to need an algorithm to curate it. They just show the same new Netflix originals over and over in ever category.
I'm sure Netflix has piles of data that shows this is the best strategy. It just seems like a differentiated curation strategy doesn't matter that much in this battle. It will come down to who is producing the most popular original content most consistently.
That's not been my experience. My recommendations (mostly Anime and Sci-Fi) is vastly different to my wife's (mostly American comedies with a strong emphasis on romcoms). The kids have a children's profile so theirs is vastly different again.
It's fair to say our individual viewing habits are vastly different to the others. Maybe if there was more overlap you might not notice any difference with the recommendations.
It feels to me like the balkanization of streaming services was inevitable and Netflix getting into the content game was just a logical response to remain relevant. If the catalog is what garners subscribers then a streaming service without its own catalog is basically fucked in the long term.
This balkanization is a good thing. I'd far rather have the choice between many competing providers each offering a service at £8/month, than have the choice to take or leave a single expensive all-in-one subscription, like cable.
It's also good that market forces are driving content-creation.
Competition is good, but each of the competitors are creating their own shows. This potentially requires you to buy multiple services to view all the content you want.
I would prefer the competition to not be content but on UI, speed, downtime, viewing suggestions, etc.
The best part of cable was that you could get any channel regardless of your provider. You could have Spectrum, AT&T, Direct TV or whoever and get any channel you wanted.
The problem was that you usually could not do al la carte and when you could it would not be cheap enough to justify losing all the other channels.
Imagine if you had to pay for Time Warner cable to get CNN, AT&T to get HBO, and Comcast to get NBC.
It’s just the opposite now. You use to have to pay for cable to get HBO, CNN and NBC (if you didn’t live in a good coverage area.) and you were stuck paying sports fees, broadcast fees, franchise fees, etc.
Now you can get HBO a la carte, NBC prime time either for free on their website or with no commercials or with Hulu for $12.
Really there is little on network TV that I care to watch anymore. Between Netflix ($5 with Tmobile), Hulu w/ no commercials, Amazon Prime, AppleTV+ (free for now), and Disney+ (Mostly for the kids), I have plenty to watch. I sign up for other services (Starz, CBS, DCUniverse) occasionally to binge and then cancel.
I didn't mean to suggest that you couldn't currently pay for whatever you want a la carte. It is of course better that you don't have to pay for cable but worse that you have to pay multiple content providers (Netflix, Hulu, CBS, HBO) to get the shows you want.
When you pay for Spectrum you get TBS, CW, Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, etc. When you pay for AT&T you get the same channels. It doesn't matter your cable provider, you would have access to pretty much any channel you wanted.
With Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, HBO, etc you have to pay for all of the services to get the content you want. This is beneficial for people who only want shows on a few streaming services but bad for people who now have to pay 10 different companies.
Ideally all the content creators would work together and make their content available to all of the streaming companies at a reasonable price even if they had their own streaming product. Paying for Netflix would provide the same shows as paying for Hulu.
Each of the streaming companies would then allow you to pay a set price for all the content like a traditional cable company (and their current business model) or allow you to pay for the shows you want. If you only want 5 shows you shouldn't have to subscribe to Netflix, Hulu and Disney+. You could pay Netflix and get all 5 shows instead of paying 3 different companies. Since you don't care about the other shows you shouldn't have to pay for the streaming company to obtain / keep the rights of those shows or to pay for them to create content you don't care about.
This is a pipe dream and will likely never happen.
It would be good if they had the same content but compete with the UI (in such case Netflix would win, and HBO would loose, as they have the worst possible UI), streaming content etc.
After critical mass of number of movie providers one will just go back to piracy.
There is only so much one can stand. If the market is spread to thin then pirating content will be less frustrating than getting it on streaming service (if you have to subscribe to 8 of them).
Not as bad as some others I have tried. Disney Plus gets on my last nerve at times. Just try to rewind like you would in other apps with a bluetooth remote.
Most (all?) of that exclusive content only gets produced because of exclusivity, I’d think. I.e. we get a greater number of shows because of exclusivity.
The gaming industry has move (largely) away from exclusives and that has been a net improvement for content.
I suspect the pendulum will swing away from exclusive content for television shows. Producers might make more money up front from the deals, but the long game favors those who establish brands with broad market appeal, and the way to do that is to get your content in front of as many eyes as possible.
The exclusives fight in gaming is ramping up again with the cloud streaming services. Google's Stadia and Nvidia are racing to lock up content. Microsoft is about to launch out of beta as well and each service will compete on their library.
Huh? The most popular console (Nintendo) is almost entirely exclusive games. Playstation and XBox are less exclusive than they've been, but not by much (FF7 Remake was PS4 exclusive as well).
Ten+ years ago, it was common for best selling games of the year to be a console exclusives. Today is much more rare.
The Switch may be the most popular console, but it's install base is a small fraction of PS4+XBone+PC+Switch. So even Nintendo exclusives purchased by the majority of owners can't sell as many units as the latest Call of Duty. Heck, even the The Witcher 3 has sold more units than the best selling Switch game.
Sure, permanent exclusives are generally only first party. Bungie/halo was one but thats because MS at the time didn't have enough first party studios.
If only the prices were lower to reflect that competition. There seems to be a tacit agreement that streamers will pay 6-12 USD a month per service. Netflix began at $8 with almost all popular content available (which could be streamed).
Can you even watch that much content? I would expect that you only keep 1-3 subscriptions at the same time, and juggle between the different platforms when you want to watch some exclusive content. Like, Netflix for 1-2 month to watch some exclusives, then you cancel until the next time something seems interesting enough.
I don't want to have to manage it on this level, the metagame kills the experience. I wish movies and tv had compulsory licensing like music, because the pick your music service and they have access to almost everything is much better for consumers.
Somewhat related: it's curious that Netflix are so coy about their catalogue. Without signing in, they refuse to show what they offer in your region. You have to make do with a third-party listing site like JustWatch.com
Throw in one of the streaming services that support 'live' cable TV and that hikes up the prices, plus adding things like HBO, Showtime, etc to a Hulu subscription, and you get there rather quickly.
Personally I try to keep the number of services I'm subscribed to to a sane minimum.
It makes a lot of sense IMO. They can immediately make more money in the short term, and after their competing product is ready they can negotiate more favorable terms with Hulu or not renew their agreement, which will direct a portion of people that discovered their content through Hulu to their own platform.
Yeah but how many of them are good? I can probably count the amount of Netflix original movies that I've heard discussed with one hand. And when it comes to stuff like Bird Box, the talk doesn't really even go with the quality.
I think Netflix is going with the Blumhouse method of production[1]. They're giving a bunch of money to people and let them make stuff that (some) people will like.
Some of will be bad, most average and a tiny bit will make huge piles of money (bring new users).
The problem I have with this is that my available energy for finding the good stuff in a sea of mediocrity is pretty minimal. As a result I find myself not trying new stuff at all.
If most of the time when I tried something new it was good I'd probably do it more often.
I don't think it is as subjective as you might think. If it was you'd expect lists like the imdb top movies of all time to be constantly in flux. Instead, they're remarkably stable.
If you would have said one individual's taste is subjective or subject to more variance I might be able to agree, but with more data points it seems humans are able to more or less define good from bad objectively. Anything with 10,000 or more votes on imdb is likely within 5% of its final value with very few exceptions.
Personally I find anything over 7.4 on imdb watchable, over 7.8 quite good, over 8.4 incredible, and if it hits 8.9 or higher it's likely one of the best movies of all time.
So my definition of "good" is somewhere above a 7.4.
Duck Dynasty is widely popular with almost 9mm viewership. It has a rating of 6.3. Breaking Bad has 1.5mm viewership and an IMDB score of 9.5. If you're Netflix, do you make invest money into a show like Duck Dynasty or like Breaking bad.
Ya, I didn't cover them but there's certainly exceptions. Kids shows is a great example of a genre targeting a demographic which is likely under represented by the voting community - adults. Imdb is best viewed through the filter of "what do adults want to watch or think is good".
I remember watching duck dynasty, great kids show and I loved it, but I doubt it holds up for adults. Batman beyond on the other hand won an Emmy and still falls into the "kids show" genre but is very watchable for adults who can appreciate animated content.
So to answer your question, Netflix needs both as they represent very different audiences.
A few other exceptions that I didn't mention are comedies and horror. Ratings for these skew lower than average as they aren't meant to compete with Shawshank for greatest of all time, simply to entertain or scare. As such neither of these genres tend to attract serious directing, writing and acting talent and in turn, audiences tend to view them more as "fun" than serious.
You or I might love to watch pineapple express, hilarious comedy, but still vote it as a 6.9 because it doesn't hold a candle to Shawshank.
Duck dynasty isn’t a kids show. It’s a show that covers a family that makes duck calls. It’s the most popular non-fiction tv show ever created. I assume most people on hackernews haven’t seen an episode. I personally never watched it as it doesn’t appeal to me.
I remember watching duck dynasty, great kids show and I loved it, but I doubt it holds up for adults.
Duck Dynasty is a reality TV show, not a kids show.
I can't tell if you know that and are making a jab at them or not. If you are, then I think you're proving the point well, because you think it's clearly not a show for adults, while it was the most-watched nonfiction show in history. Clearly, tastes vary widely.
Yeah, mustly rings true. There's actually very little I want to watch. Archer has become crap, and I've watched Rick and Morty and Arrested Development too many times already.
> I can probably count the amount of Netflix original movies that I've heard discussed with one hand.
This directly contradicts my experience.
I just checked my shows tracker and I have watched 32 shows (no movies included) that I would consider to be of some entertainment value and/or quality. I've discussed at least half of those with people, if not closer to 75%. I'd be happy to drop some recommendations if you give a genre or some preferences :)
That's very odd, because my experience and everyone I've ever seen commenting on it is the exact opposite: it seems like there's 80 new shows a week on Netflix and it's impossible to keep up. Every time I hear about a new show that's interesting there are 5 other ones up by the time I get around to watching it.
I am suspecting this strategy is a profit maximizing move. Instead of recommending 3rd party movie that cost high licence fees, Netflix is directing its users to its own content, where the cost is fixed. Netflix wants vast library to attract users but Netflix doesn't want them watch and only pay subscription.
Not to mention the utter crap they produce. Seriously, I can't say I have endured more than 3-5 good series or movies they have produced. I have started to watch a lot of them but instantly the low quality is a clear indication on what's to come.
Most of the stuff they produce are super political when they don't have to be, very bad writing or acting often with a great base story that could have been something great but filled with characters doing completely stupid things.
Some also have a really fucked up message due to the extreme woke-ness like "In the Shadow of the Moon". A movie which starts of pretty good and interesting and then quickly enters a downhill path to the extreme ideologies that seems to fuel companies like Netflix.
I'm sure Netflix has piles of data that shows this is the best strategy. It just seems like a differentiated curation strategy doesn't matter that much in this battle. It will come down to who is producing the most popular original content most consistently.