> I think the issue is that people who are paying for an account they are sharing are likely to keep the account active so their family members can continue watching. When the family are cut off, they cancel.
That's the case for me indeed. I myself basically stopped watching Netflix, somehow the content doesn't do anything for me anymore.
But I shared my account with family and they watch it. If this gets to us, and I'm the only one who can watch it, I'm for sure cancelling. The family members with whom I'm sharing the account are very unlikely to get their own account either.
(Sharing accounts is a great form of stealth giving to family members who would otherwise not be able to afford such "luxuries". It's much easier to say "hey, I got one free account on my Spotify plan, would you like to use it? Otherwise, it will go to waste" as opposed to awkwardly offering money directly)
Interesting you say that the content doesn't appeal to you anymore. I feel the same way. My observation is that, for the most part, most of Netflix's original content is reality TV and comedy specials.
They don't even seem to be bothering to create great content like Stranger Things anymore. We are at the enshittification of Netflix stage.
You have to love that under "Why was X cancelled" they basically just compliment the show runner and actors for their work or cite "creative differences", rarely do they actually provide an actual explanation, such as "The show had to few viewers".
It's also becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Shows get canceled before they can conclude, so I don't watch any Netflix shows now until after the final episode airs. But the final episode never airs because there weren't enough people watching the show while it was in production.
But then why do the rug pull of making one or two seasons of a good show and then killing it? That serves to piss off everyone who took the time to watch and get interested in the show. If Netflix only wants to make reality tv they should just own that.
I stopped even considering Netflix shows with only one or two seasons because they almost always get killed mid-story. Which means I pretty much never watch Netflix now. Out of state relatives using the account is the main thing keeping me subscribed, so when that sharing gets cut off it'll be the end of my subscription.
Short seasons are perfectly valid and have existed since before Netflix. I remember watching British TV shows in which a season consisted of six half-hour episodes, and feeling that more (and more interesting) things had happened in that time frame than a USA season of 24 one-hour episodes.
These days that’s even more of a plus. When someone recommends something to watch the first thing I check is how many seasons it’s up to, then the number of episodes, then the runtime. Shows with too many seasons of too many too long episodes are immediately ignored.
And they have so many (non-'original') where they only have a few series available at the end or in the middle. I don't understand the licencing/purchasing decision that can lead to that. Seems to happen far too often for it to be different studios/licencors, obviously that happens sometimes.
BBC's QI is one example. I understand new series not being available on Netflix (in the UK) as the BBC now have their own subscription platform. But it's not just that, because Netflix don't have the earliest ones either, just a seemingly random set in the middle, perhaps even non-contiguous.
I found that to be one of the drawbacks of Netflix, and all other streaming services. A story that could easily be told in 100min or a few hours takes 10+ hours to slog through. Excessive sequences of characters getting high, or repeating tasks, or irrelevant side quests to pad the content time statistics, or make people feel like their monthly fees are worth it.
Yes, this is especially true for successful shows. They can be told in 2-3 seasons but they end up as 5 seasons. The pace of storytelling crawls to a halt in the middle seasons typically.
I almost feel it is a problem with the thumbnails. Everything looks so unappealing. I've liked a few Netflix shows in the past year (heck if I could name them though), I have a profile on my brother's account, but I primarily watch through an IPTV service. When I browse in the Netflix app I cannot find a single thing I want to watch.
Their entire business model is that there is value in the long tail of possible choices. The paradox of choice is not a complete description of human behavior.
It is outdated. Streaming is now cable, which means the business model should revert back to be cable like. Get a couple of killer titles that carry the brand... Disney is doing this well with the Marvel titles. one ends, a new one starts, and they start putting ads of the "new" thing.
I feel the same way, it's becoming harder and harder to find something interesting. Just the other night we opened it up and couldn't find anything in 5 minutes browsing and just went to watch TV instead. That's not the experience you want your users to have.
their catalog isn't as good as it used to be. They've cut a ton of content for seemingly zero reason recently (including their own shows like westworld).
What I like best about HBO is that they have an A-Z listing of every show they have (something people have been asking Netflix for since day one of their streaming service) and how peaceful it is to use their platform.
You can browse without anything auto-playing, you can pause a show for more than 3 seconds and ads don't start rapidly flashing on the screen, and shows don't jump to more ads immediately as credits start rolling so you can actually let an ending sink in without having to scramble for your remote.
HBO max is just much nicer to use than netflix.
I also really like their "last chance" section because things are leaving all the time and that gives you some warning.
What? Has this changed recently? I mainly use their AppleTV app, and sometimes their web app. With the AppleTV app, there are a bunch of thumbnails that look like DVD covers. When you swipe over to one of them, at first nothing happens, but just as you're about to move to the next one, the one you're on expands shoving everything to right off the screen. Moving one-to-the-right, then causes everything to collapse down again for a second, until the newly selected thing suddenly expands for no reason. It's incredibly spastic and makes it very hard to get to a specific item.
I could have sworn it auto-played a preview, too, but I might be misremembering that.
If that's changed recently (I haven't browsed the app since "The Last of Us" ended), then great! But using it for the past year or two has been a non-starter. I just look up their shows in the search section of the AppleTV and add them to my Up Next queue so I can avoid interacting with their app at all costs.
Hulu and Netflix seem to not be so painful to use. AppleTV+ used to be perfect but a recent update made it equally unusable. I set the Home Row on my AppleTV to be my "Up Next" queue, and now only interact with the TV app from the home screen. It has less functionality that way, but it also has none of the suckage.
It doesn't help that their software changes so much from device to device. It's been pleasant to use on phone, PS5, and roku but I haven't tried apple+
Even when you're using the same device they A/B test on us. Netflix recently introduced a weird sound effect as their main ad loads (it plays after their usual intro sound effect) but other's I've spoken to hadn't heard it.
I'm watching korean drama and fantasy, also chinese or spanish, they've got a different way of story telling, and I find the aesthetic appealing, can recommend sysyphus, or so, sci-fi and time-travel
Cold case files, the first 48, unsolved mysteries, any cooking show - "reality TV" is a huge market. It's not all toddlers and tiaras and big brother, those were just the "huge, impossible to ignore" ones.
My situation exactly. We're sharing a 4 screen account with 3 friends and no-one even watches netflix every month - we just liked the idea of having access, in case we want to watch something. We already decided, when netflix doesn't allow low-use sharing any more, we'll just cancel and forget about it.
That's the case for me indeed. I myself basically stopped watching Netflix, somehow the content doesn't do anything for me anymore.
But I shared my account with family and they watch it. If this gets to us, and I'm the only one who can watch it, I'm for sure cancelling. The family members with whom I'm sharing the account are very unlikely to get their own account either.
(Sharing accounts is a great form of stealth giving to family members who would otherwise not be able to afford such "luxuries". It's much easier to say "hey, I got one free account on my Spotify plan, would you like to use it? Otherwise, it will go to waste" as opposed to awkwardly offering money directly)