I've quickly become addicted to longform (10+ minute) nonfiction youtube videos, whether it be a comprehensive analysis of Neverwinter Nights or 24 minutes on the advanced features of the laserdisc. Most, if not all of the content creators have Patreon pages, and I even contribute to a few. The content is so niche it's unimaginable that Netflix or any other content behemoth would develop their own version of it.
I'm exactly the same. Some favourites I've collected over the years:
3Blue1Brown - math essays
AlfieAesthetics - Bushcraft, botany and survival skills with some fun english humour mixed in
CNLohr - fun hardware hacking livestreams
Eliminator Performance - mechanical troubleshooting and maintenance vlogs
Engineering Explained - Automotive engineering explainers and mini-lectures
FearlessFront - Mechanical engineering, welding, and vehicle hacking
How to make everything - multi-skill projects on making things from scratch as much as possible
Kurzgesagt - Philosophy and science essays
Lie Likes Music - Music essays
Mathologer - Advanced (to me) Maths essays
Matthew Cremona - Woodworking
Matthias Wandel - Woodworking
Nativlang - Essays on the history of spoken and written language
Nerdwriter1 - Essays on Art, philosophy, and the sciences
Nightmare Masterclass - Essays on fringe culture
Numberphile - Mini-lectures on Maths
Polyphonic - Essays on Music
Primitive Technology - Vlogs on primative/ancient building techniques
Rick Beato (specifically his "What makes this song great" series) - Essays on what separates iconic music from the rest
Strange Parts - Hardware hacking projects, mainly based in Shenzhen, China
The Drug Classroom - Scientific essays on recreational drugs
This Exists - Essays on cultural oddities and internet culture specficially
Uri Tuchman - Very intricate woodworking and engraving
Wendover Productions - Video Essays on a variety of subjects including economics, travel, geography
Wisecrack - Essays which examine pop culture through a philosophical lens.
Alec Steele - A hyperactive Brit makes swords in Montana
Invitica - essays on ancient civilizations
Wintergarten - a Swede in France making a musical marble machine to millisecond precision. Good project management tips are included.
Man At Arms ReForged - Baltimore swordsmiths make ridiculous videogame sized swords that are mostly unusable.
EDIT: A few others
Bon Appetite's "Brad Makes": A New Jerseyian mumbles his way through fermenting anything edible. Frequent field trips ensue.
Kiwami Japan: A very very strange Japanese man makes the same knife, over and over, from various materials such as jello, underwear, and pasta. ASMRy.
Primitive Technology: The journey of a mute, nearly naked QLD programmer in the forest and his attempts to make a nuclear reactor from local mud. Turn on English subtitles.
Contrapoints: A trans PhD dropout comments on current issues through the lens of grad-level philosophy and copious innuendo. Impeccable set design and pacing.
You can't mention Brad from Bon Appetite and not mention "Half-sour Saffitz"! She recently got brought back onto the team to continue her "Professional chef makes oreos/twizzlers/twinkies etc" videos.
Yes! Brad's "it's alive" and Claire's "Gourmet makes" are both great. I started making Kombucha and Sauerkraut because of Brad's video on the subject. Giardiniera next!
He tends to over-explain things and perhaps looking too deeply into things that aren't there. He does have a substantial following, so there must be a lot of people who like that style.
What's to stop Netflix from overnight coming out with "Netflix Communities" which'll just be their community-edition YouTube + Patreon and/or ads, similar to how YouTube is moving into Netflix's and Amazon's space with YouTube Originals?
There's a lot of disruption potential there given how large of a percentage Google keeps for itself from YouTube ad revenue.
Amazon is already heading in this direction with Prime Video. In fact they already have different streams you can pay to subscribe to like Starz and HBO and some pretty niche ones like Curiosity Stream that I think is only $1.99/month or something like that.
There doesn't seem to be the right niche. Maybe if they restricted it to fiction and documentaries but Vimeo already has that niche covered. Maybe Netflix could acquire Vimeo. btw imo Vimeo has a lot of excellent videos. They're more open to trying new things so sometimes they have something really good or deep that you would never find on YouTube or Netflix.
One thing that can't be discounted is I would use the Netflix version of this over all the others for the simple fact of already having Netflix open on all my TVs or having a shortcut on my remote for it. It might not be in the consumers best interest for one app to have so much power, but I dream of a day when I can use only one for 90% of the things I want to view.
I don't necessarily agree with this. If I want to watch well produced online content, I do not think Youtube.com. I do think that Netflix and amazon Prime video have "traditional" studio created content that has high production value. That said, I watch youtube and Netflix almost equally, but for different reasons.
Youtube is great for short videos, interviews and niche interest. IF I want to watch scripted drama like NARCOS, I can't find anything close to that on Youtube. At this point, I dont think that they are competitors. The content is not even close to being equal. Im not even saying one is better or worse, they just are too different to call them competition.
>I don't necessarily agree with this. If I want to watch well produced online content, I do not think Youtube.com (...) Youtube is great for short videos, interviews and niche interest. IF I want to watch scripted drama like NARCOS, I can't find anything close to that on Youtube.
That's orthogonal though, since people don't split equally their viewing habits based on content types.
So if, e.g. younger generations, watch less "scripted drama like NARCOS" and more "short videos, interviews and niche interest stuff", then Netflix has a YouTube problem, regardless if they have all the "well produced online content".
What remains to be seen is whether the demographic trends here are due to fundamental differences in what gen Z kids are interested in, or whether it's just a function of the fact that YouTube is free, and Teenagers don't have money, and your parents can't see what you've been watching like they can if you use their Netflix login.
It would be like looking at transportation data and concluding that since teenagers tend to take the bus or ride bikes to get places, the auto industry will be doomed in 20 years.
> If I want to watch well produced online content, I do not think Youtube.com
I do. Historia Civilis is presently my favourite channel. Production quality is nothing to write home about, but the quality is fantastic. Moreover, I don’t walk away feeling like I crapped away thirty minutes—I learned something.
There’s two things I adore about Historia Civilis. One is the way he represents terrain and units on a battle field in battle related episodes. It might not look fancy but it gets the job done. Normally I struggle to imagine unfamiliar terrain so this helps a lot. The second is he passes the Gell-Mann test for me. There are certain sections in history I know really well because I’ve read multiple books on it and he gets those absolutely right. So when I watch an episode on an era I’m unfamiliar with, I’m confident he’s done his due diligence.
The quality of a news source passing a simple test of credibility by presenting an accurate account of a topic the reader is deeply familiar with.
For instance, if you are a Computer Scientist and you find yourself agreeing to a layman explanation of the halting problem while reading a NYTimes article (targeting a general audience) then the article passes the Gell-Mann test.
There is a ton of quality on YouTube, some of my favorites are Redlettermedia, Baz Battles (focused on historical battles) and Lemmino, his short form documentaries are extremely well edited.
Historia Civils is one of my favorite channels as well. Excellent content.
I think a bigger thing, is that any of the youtube channels could just start posting to an alternative. I too enjoyed Historian Civilis, as well as Baz Battles and Kings and Generals.
In the later two cases they probably post twice as much content on patreon or other distribution channels.
I think that highlights the risk of lower scale production videos. They can be posted in more places to be "profitable", which means the distribution channels are necessarily more dynamoc / easier to come by.
They are competitors - for your eyeballs. Just because they don't provide precisely the same service doesn't make them non-competitors.
Youtube competes with Netflix the same way your shower length preference competes with Netflix. The disconcerting (if not narcissistic) elephant in the room being that service providers are viewing any activities that cause you to spend time away from their service as "competition" at all.
I don't really understand this. Netflix cares about how much you watch it ONLY if it means you will stop your subscription. In fact, as long as you keep your subscription their interest is that you watch as few as possible to minimize costs, right? So a few addictive shows that make you need to keep Netflix are betters than keeping you on Netflix all day every day.
If Netflix cannot be replaced by Youtube, it is not a real competitor.
Saying otherwise leads to weird useless definitions of competition. We would have to say everything is a competitor of everything else, and then how is that interesting to know?
No, it leads to the only valuable definition of competition: competitors are products that serve the same need. Netflix and Youtube are entertainment. They compete with each other, as well as TV, video games, and a bunch of other things. They also serve other needs (e.g. education). But there are (many) other needs that they don't serve (e.g. nutrition (you can't eat Netflix), healthcare, human relationships, etc.).
Not quite, at least from what Netflix has publically stated about its content strategy. Each time Netflix produces content, they view that content as having very diminished value for the customer that has already watched it, but that new content has made its subscription offering more value to the next potential customer. With this line of thinking, Netflix probably doesn't want you to every "finish" its catalog. I think there are exceptions given what Netflix paid to keep Friends. But, my guess says they found that most content does not get repeat viewership, which is much different than music for instance.
>So a few addictive shows that make you need to keep Netflix are betters than keeping you on Netflix all day every day.
Not really, as you're more likely to drop the service you're not on "all day every day" than otherwise. And the fewer the addictive shows the more chance you'll get addicted to something else next year on another service (or just download the stuff).
yes but if you have a subscription and you watch nothing algorithms probably tell them that sooner or later you will stop to have a subscription. There is probably a sweet spot where you are most likely to keep your subscription even without watching much. This would really be what must watch original content would be about. If you have netflix only for showing your kid BabyBoss, then that is when it might be good for them. (until that kid hits the teenage years)
Not exactly. Makers of woodworking tools consider football a bigger competitor than other woodworking tool manufactures. If you buy a nice tool from a different brand - well there is a chance you will buy from them latter. If you get addicted to football and quit doing woodworking you won't buy from them at all.
Ok but how do you compete against football? In competing against another tool maker, analyse what people like about their tools that your tools do not have, improve your tools is pretty easy. also variations of this strategy. But you cannot analyse what your tool does not have that football has and replicate it because essentially your woodworking tool has nothing that football has and football has nothing your woodworking tool has.
There's plenty of content on YouTube that's at the highest level of professional production. It's 0.01% of what's on YouTube, compared to 100% of what's on Netflix, so you will not find it by just going to YouTube.com and clicking random links... but there's still many human lifetimes of high-end content on YouTube.
True. I can account for India here. There are some channels which nake scripted web series releasing 1 episode per week. Some of them even have 1-2 seasons . Mostly 5 episodes. And they are really popular among youngsters. Basically,these shows touch upon common middle class family relatable stuff,or college youngsters themed series. Most of them have a different sponsor each time. Sometimes its a car company (for a road trip based series),or a yoghurt brand, once Xiaomi was also a sponsor. And they hire veteran actors who are quite popular on traditional TV soap operas. But, i do feel that Youtube hasn't done enough for them. Personally i love Youtube for its educational content.
Fair point. I think Captain Disillusion is a good example of this, his production value is extremely high with regards to visual effects for what is a fairly niche subject matter.
Captain Disillusion is nowhere near the quality of a Netflix show. I love the guy and support him on Patreon, but at the end of the day, it’s a garage version of myth busters. It still has that “youtuby” feel of a guy doing a thing in his spare time.
The budget is incredibly low; look at his Patreon. Compare this to the millions of dollars that go into a film considered “low budget”.
If CD is YouTube’s high quality content, then that is exactly the point GP was making.
but Youtube also has very low quality suggestions, so in practice it ends up proposing the same topics over and over again. And god forbid you watch anything political.
YouTube recently suggested Impulse to me (sci-fi/drama) out of the blue. Just the first 3 episodes for the rest you needed premium. It definitely looked like a show you would find on Netflix or TV in terms of production.
I watched the first couple of episodes of that and while I do enjoy it I wouldn't pay a monthly for a YouTube Premium subscription just to watch one show. The other show that it keeps suggesting to me is Origin which looks interesting too, but it's still not enough.
Comparing YouTube to Netflix is like comparing apples to oranges. However, at the end of the day I'm not gonna eat another orange when I already ate a lot of apples.
Interestingly there's no mention of HBO here (nor in sibling comments), a very high production value content which imo is running circles around Netflix and Prime.
They don't have to produce the same type of content to be competitors. They are competing to produce video content you spend time on, albeit different types.
But YouTube is hinting they are considering making "TV show" style content, what with most of their YouTube Red exclusive content being of that format. While I find none of it interesting, except Mind Field by VSauce, they clearly have the idea on their radar.
Irrelevant. Books, video games, films, youtube, netflix (et al), mobile games, even social media all compete for the same thing: time. People don't have infinite time, if it's filled up with watching youtube videos it can't be filled up watching netflix, regardless of the quality of the content.
>if it's filled up with watching youtube videos it can't be filled up watching netflix...
Correct.
And that's pretty convenient for Netflix' bottom line if that person is paying the monthly fee, but using only, say, a quarter of the netflix bandwidth of a heavy user.
The modeling to figure all this out is a lot more complex than just "are they watching?"-"are they not watching?". We need access to Netflix' internal data to determine viewing patterns, license fees, bandwidth costs, etc, but I suspect that people using Netflix more than a certain amount in a month end up costing netflix money instead of making netflix money.
And you constantly assume bandwidth is the only per user cost that Netflix is paying. It's one cost, that definitely affects decision making, but there are others.
For instance, if you try to license certain types of content, you'll find that the licenses will tend to work in the following fashion:
-Estimate how many people will use content.
-Resolve differences, if any, between your estimate and content owner's estimate.
-Settle on per user fee.
Then there are other licenses that are kind of pseudo per user. For instance:
-How many people tix to your last tour Mr or Ms Comedian?
-Well Mr Digital Property Licensing Hardass, we sold X tix.
-Great!!! We'll give you X dollars because we know from analytics that (factor * X) people will view your content over the life of this license.
These things are a lot more complicated than just "Are people watching?" - "Are people not watching?".
Likely Youtube can do things like weigh bandwidth costs heavier in their models, therefore prioritizing eyeballs. Any eyeballs, because they make money from ads. You try to run something like Netflix using the same modeling factors and you'll go under in fairly short order. There are just a lot more expenses, and the revenue is from a source with a different behavior. So you don't want eyeballs, you want the right eyeballs for the content that you've paid to provide. That means you need to be cold, hard, and calculating. Not every viewer will be equally profitable to you.
> If I want to watch well produced online content,
That's probably the main question - in how far people actually care about quality / production quality. YouTube's unique angle is originality and cartering towards highly personalized interest topics.
In the past few years, I have found myself drifting away from playing mainstream AAA game titles, and more towards indie games, which I find to have higher quality for me. But how can this be, since they have such lower budgets and production values? They make up for it with a combination of individual creativity and unfiltered vision, which are more difficult with a big budget provided by producers demanding their money back. Smaller productions also have the flexibility to target niche or unproven markets, which means I am able to find works more ideally suited to my preferences.
In case the metaphor isn't clear, this is a similar dynamic to Netflix vs Youtube.
I've bought several movies on youtube. My family has netflix, but I don't like to watch tv, so I really dont care... On the other side, sometimes I read something about a movie, and I just want to watch that movie... If it's not available on netflix, I go straight to youtube and buy it or rent it... Also, I always listen music on youtube. It's just a differente market...
My mom love the tv, and watches tv 10 hours a day straight (yeah, its unhealty, but she is 66 y/o, so if thats her will, she can do whatever she wants), and she loves netflix, and amazon prime, and claro video, and youtube...
Again though, Netflix is not there to grab a user's attention, Netflix is there to grab a user's money. We shouldn't conflate these two base motivations.
If netflix gets you to pay the monthly fee, while at the same time you only use a quarter of the bandwidth of most other netflix users...
well, I'd imagine that's a win for netflix.
Again, we'd need more of Netflix' internal data, but I wouldn't be surprised if a full modeling would reveal that netflix wants to optimize viewing time to be something less than 100% of some break even viewing level. I have to believe that people using Netflix more than a certain amount in a month end up costing netflix instead of benefiing netflix.
But again, we really need access to their internal data to say that for sure.
Bandwidth is cheap, when the users are actually paying customers. Churn, on the other hand is very expensive. I bet Netflix prefers heavy users over those who watch two movies a month: the latter people are much more likely to cancel the service.
It's been said before, but we'd need the internal data regarding viewing patterns, license fees (which are per user in many cases), bandwidth costs, etc etc, but I'd take your proposed wager. Without hesitation. I can think of very few scenarios where the amalgamation of these per user costs is lower for a heavy user. (Not saying it can't happen, just saying based on what I know, I'd feel pretty confident betting that it doesn't happen.) Additionally, throwing in what I know about consumer behavioral patterns, I'd wager even their light users are extremely unlikely to cancel Netflix.
Often enough sleep provides fantastical entertainment content indistinguishable from reality. Every genre, from comedy to horror. Only thing is, you can't choose what content you want to experience. (At least, not to my knowledge you can't pick what content you want?)
>>Only thing is, you can't choose what content you want to experience.
Also most dreams are forgotten once a person wakes up. So that's like a lot of entertainment, and you never tire out of seeing dreams with the same theme.
It wouldn't expect it to mean much. You're probably just not waking up during your dreams and staying in bed to ruminate over them. Dreams don't go into recallable memory unless you hold onto them when you're waking.
If it bothers you, you can always try sleeping in new and interesting places/positions every night. That seems to be a common trigger for lucid dreams, sleep paralysis, and other unforgettable dream experiences.
What the story is driving at is that people end up spending a lot of time on YouTube, when they could have spent it on Netflix, as its CEO has desired. Spending 60 odd minutes of 80 odd minutes one frequents the web for watching video on YouTube is massive.
The thing is that it's a bit more complicated than that. The business models are different. Even if we don't do the full analysis we can see that someone spending 60 minutes on youtube instead of netflix means that netflix is not paying for that 60 minutes of bandwidth. Netflix doesn't have ads paying for everything, they have to pay for everything other ways. So that business becomes about more than just blindly getting eyeballs. You want the right eyeballs, based on the content you pay to offer. That implies some fairly complex modeling.
Now of course we'd need more information than Netflix would likely provide us to do a full analysis, but my sense from what we can know is that this guy is likely close to correct about what his enemy is.
>Even if we don't do the full analysis we can see that someone spending 60 minutes on youtube instead of netflix means that netflix is not paying for that 60 minutes of bandwidth.
The bandwidth would be insignificant to Netflix compared to churn. Not to mention, with edge caches at telcos and so it, it would be already paid.
I agree. Netflix aims to be a sort of global tax on TV and Movie based entertainment. Their business model runs up against biological constraints (with regards to the desire for perpetual growth).
Just like everyone else, they’re nailing down exclusives. I was going to buy my son the latest season of Thomas & Friends in digital (those Amazon Prime $1 digital store credits for delayed delivery do come handy), but apparently the only venue to do so is YouTube.com.
> “I think one of the main reasons YouTube is so successful in emerging markets is that it is more mobile-centric." explains Michael Goodman, Director of Television & Media Strategies at research firm Strategy Analytics
I think he can be wrong here. It is because it is free my friend. People already pay enough for their phones, internet packages in emerging markets comparing to their monthly salaries. As soon as their income increases, you will be able to see a hike in subscriptions.
I think, It depends. As far as I know YouTube Premium is only for removing ads and music streaming. If there are movies and quality professional content on YouTube Premium, then Youtube will have a bigger advantage since both amateur and professional content creators will be on the same platform. But right now, Netflix is the place to watch most of the desired pro content when it comes to both films and tv series.
I'll be honest: I probably watch more Youtube than Netflix. But, and this is a big but: I'll continue paying for Netflix long after I stop paying for Youtube.
Why? Netflix is quality content that I watch when I plan on sitting in front of the TV. In contrast, I only watch Youtube for a few minutes here and there.
A different analogy is live TV versus a DVD. Youtube is more like live TV: lower-quality, news, commentary, interactive. Netflix is well-produced narratives.
Netflix has a threshold level of quality. There's probably plenty on there I wouldn't want to watch, but nothing that I'd deem offensively bad.
YouTube, however, I find to be increasingly toxic. There is some amazing content on YouTube, which is often superior to traditional media, but I find I need to wade through increasing levels of garbage to get to it.
As a platform, YouTube's incentives don't serve the user as well as they could.
A prime example was a video with millions of views on a very popular channel about 9/11 conspiracies. Did the YouTuber believe them? No. But cranking out a 10m+ video every day is more important than what he believes.
Then you look at high quality channels who put out a video once a week, or even month, and they are forced to rely on Patreon (which is a great platform!).
Not sure what the solution to this would be, but I feel similarly on the wading through garbage to get to the good stuff.
There's stuff on YouTube that I just can't see existing, or getting noticed, on alternative platforms. A great example would be a channel called 'Primitive Technology'[1]. It's superb, and I really enjoy each video despite having no real interest in the subject!
But, this is 0.01% of YouTube. The rest is horrendous political videos pitched at the level of 4chan, vloggers aimed at 13 year olds, and millions of shaky footage of unboxing items.
I wouldn't mind so much if there was a suitable way to curate a decent feed (without signing in and giving my life history to google). I generally only find out about the decent content on YouTube via word of mouth off-platform.
A bigger question is if Netflix can continue to thrive in a world where all the large media companies create their own Netflix-like streaming services. Disney has their own coming soon, apple, Amazon, Facebook, Hulu, Comcast, etc etc. Content costs continue to rise, and competition will be fierce.
Netflix has a great head start and knows its audience well. But much larger companies are knocking on its door.
IMO Netflix has done well in this regard by transforming themselves into a content company rather than a content delivery service. Recently most of my favorite shows on Netflix have been 1st party titles, and I can't think of another content producer who's output is as varied and as high-quality as Netflix at the moment. Maybe Disney has the IP and the raw muscle to pull this off, but they will have to prove it.
I actually think competition is good for the space. As I said, I think Netflix is really good now, but if they became an uncontested monopoly in the streaming space, I would fear that quality would suffer.
I think both would do better if they actually recommended me something I wanted to watch.
Like why doesn't YouTube put on the front page a user's new video who I'm subscribed to (Applied Science), pressed the dumb bell icon, and have watched literally every video of (which are always over 10 minutes)? I can't think of any more clear indication of "I want this" than that.
Netflix does similar things. Pushing their own content. The difference is that YouTube actually has more content that I want to watch.
Huh, I wonder what causes that. Because I'll watch some of the political comedians (like Trevor Noah and others) and then that takes over my feed for a few days.
I do like viewing new content, but it seems like the algorithm encourages showing stuff I'm not subscribed to (like the above comedies) as opposed to stuff I am subscribed to. I also frequently get suggested videos I've seen before. Like even the same day. And I do have history enabled.
That does show me only stuff I've subscribed to. What I'm asking for is mostly what exists, but when something I've subscribed to posts new content,put that on the home page so I can't miss it
Same. I end up watching some of the stuff from homepage everyday. Plus YouTube's recommendations after you have watched a video is very effective, at least in my experience.
Because it is called "Recommended" and it is the first thing you see when you go to the website. I'm not asking for stuff I've already seen, but when one of those YouTubers posts something new. Show me that. Front and center.
Netflix content is weak. The catalog outside US is terrible.
YouTube ads are annoying yet original content is not worth the price for Premium. At a price point of $12 it's ridiculous. Music catalog is sub-par and not worth the switch from Spotify.
Both seem to be more dedicated to push PC propaganda than matching what viewers want. Original content is quite bad save for some exceptions (Wild Wild Country, Cobra Kai).
Months ago I canceled my Netflix account and hope some alternative site to YouTube comes up.
On the other hand, it was good for me. I've been listening to more audiobooks instead. Money better spent.
I'm just amazed somebody can come to this conclusion.
20 years ago you had to go to the shop, buy ONE film for $15 from a limited shelve, bring it back home, put it in a device you bought specifically for that film format and that does only that, navigate through a dubious UI, be forced to watch ads, then eventually get to the film. If you didn't like it... too bad.
Now for the same price, you have access to thousand of movies __and__ TV shows. No ads. Instant watching. Most of them were release on TV or on theater so basically same quality than other channels.
And people complain ?
I mean I do think the general level of quality of movies and TV shows is going down, but it has nothing to do with netflix. The good/sucks ratio is plummeting much the same on every medium (and I think it's because of us voting for crap with our money, like for most things in our society).
Well, I guess it's beautiful some people arrived at such a level of comfort in their life that they consider that amazing commercial offer to be not up to their standard.
> PC propaganda
While their original content do try to target specific niches including PC and SJW trends (it makes sense IMO), there are plenty of excellent content on netflix that don't follow this trend. Just opening my front page: Ajin, Rick and Morty, black mirror, battle royal, altered carbon, lastman, dirk gently, breaking bad, american beauty, pulp fiction, drive, trainspotting, house of cards, david chapelle, mad max furry road...
Yes, things like Sabrina, disenchantmenent, etc are pandering to a certain crowd. So what ? You can just click on something else. There is a lot of something else.
You're forgetting rental stores. My local grocery store had a rental section for $2/movie, and the selection was way better than Redbox, and the titles didn't rotate out as quickly as Netflix. I would typically watch 4-5 movies a month (one a week), which would cost me ~$10/month.
Now, I spend ~$10 per service for access to streaming content, and the selection is still worse than my grocery store was. Yes, there are more titles, but fewer good titles, especially since I'm not really into long series. I pay twice as much for half the quality.
So now my choices are only watch relatively new releases at Redbox (selection sucks), pay a ton to "rent" online (who thought $5/movie was a good idea?), or sign up for "unlimited" service(s) with mediocre selection.
Maybe I'm being nostalgic, but it seems we've moved backwards since moving on from video rental places.
Is $2 vs $5 really that much different? You saved the time you spent going to the rental store and using a DVD. Plus, $5 to rent practically any movie on demand without trailers is pretty good IMO.
Just because something is better now than in the past does not mean that it cannot be improved. We cannot be placated with what we have but must constantly strive to move forward. That is how human progress is built.
But I noticed that many people were happy with the previous situation, and a lot are not with the new one, despite it being by all objective attributes, better.
I believe the issue here is perception, expectations and ability to enjoy. Not netflix which does an incredible job.
In a world of abundance and lack of attention, the public is bound to be unsatisfied.
It's not sane, IMO, if your brain think it is still hungry when you live in the most amazing all-you-can-eat buffet of all time.
Ironically, I've never gone to blockbuster and failed to find what I was looking for on the shelves. Meanwhile, staples that brought me to Netflix disappear regularly. I've been a subscriber to Netflix since it was a mail order service, and that original hope that there would be one repository with all the content--literally online blockbuster--never materialized, and I fear at this point it never will.
I wonder why Spotify was able to easily and immediately license practically everything; it's not like Columbia and Atlantic records are exclusive to one service or another like with video content producers.
It's not better by all objective attributes. The attributes that have improved may be the most important ones (and God how I hated those FBI warnings), but Netflix customers complain about two things: Time spent browsing the library, and that they're unhappy with what they actually select (which is obviously partly their choice, partly Netflix' UI).
Put differently, I've worked for several streamers. One of them explicitly mentions its small library as a feature. Just 30 films, so you will not spend twenty minutes looking for something to watch. Those 20 minutes are a feature and Netflix is worse than many DVD shops were in that respect.
I'm the first to agree the netflix UI has huge flaws.
It's still miles better than going to rent a VHS in a mall.
It's still miles better than buying a DVD online.
It's still miles better than having to download the movie on eMule.
And you do have a small library sample on netflix. It's your front page.
Now people either complain there is nothing to watch (front page not interesting anymore after a while), or too much too watch (the size of the entire lib is overwhelming).
Wait, what ?
Besides, honestly, when you have a full life, where do you get the time to exhaust the netflix offer ? How many hours of video a week must you consume to arrive at a stage where "there is nothing to watch on netflix" ? Because in that case, not only the $15 have been paid for a 1000 times, but also, again, the problem is clearly not netflix.
Which remains me I'm spending too much time on NH today, so, gotta go :)
Nothing requires you to add apples and oranges in the same way as I do. Your most important feature may be my totally unimportant feature, and that's neither your fault nor mine. And as usual gripes are louder than happy purrs.
I was happy with the DVD shop I primarily used; the owner's selection was much better suited to me than Netflix' is. (No I'm not a Netflix customer, but I've used it in a professional capacity.)
> I mean I do think the general level of quality of movies and TV shows is going down
I'd say it's the opposite, at least for TV. We're in the golden age, as they say. There are so many damn good shows out there.
And if you compare modern remakes to the old school versions, usually the difference in quality is drastic. Been watching She-Ra, and the old one is basically garbage compared to the remake. Same thing for Ducktales: the new one doesn't just have better animation, it's way smarter too (and I loved Ducktales as a kid).
~20 years ago my parents bought us(me) a new computer. A Pentium 2. For almost the exact same price(not adjusted) as the fairly well specced gaming computer i bought last year.
Prices drop for a lot of stuff. Thinking youtube for $15/month is expensive doesn't seem wierd to me. But i think its worth it just to avoid ads.
They're not competing against 20 years ago, the value proposition has changed. (Although 25 years ago there was "57 Channels And Nothin' On").
They're competing against a giant glut of content. Whats the marginal value in watching the latest hot Netflix show over everything else at my fingertips on the internet? Is there something inherently better about the 22-minute format? A movie's 3-act structure? Or a miniseries carefully crafted with plenty of plot climaxes but no plot resolution so you sit there and binge it? Do those shapes of entertainment earn a special place that commands a premium? Does the spectacle enabled by their production budgets?
I actually think they do have an edge, the social act of watching something together with people in the living room. But that's it.
At least contextually I will personally complain that the whole business model of making content to then profit off of (be it in $15 3D tickets, $100 blu ray box sets, or 5 cents of Netflix revenue) permanently as being incredibly amoral and culturally destructive.
We have the Internet. People give away data in their posession for free to the order of exabytes a year. As a species, we have the capability to host the total sum of all information produced by our kind in kind. We just chose to silo anything dating back to the 1920s in corporate coffers as a means to rent seek forever on properties the creators are either long dead or long gone from the studio that continues to profit off their work forever.
Well on the TV side, Friends, for example. Netflix is coughing up $100M to keep it for another year because people are flipping their lids about losing it. Also, you're taking the definition of "classic" far too literally. There's any number of movies from the 80s, 90s, 00s, etc. that Netflix just doesn't have or shuffle in and out of the service within a matter of months that are of far greater appeal than something Netflix cooked up in the span of six months. That's the difference between "lots of content" and "lots of content that people want to see."
> I think more people want to watch "Thor: Ragnarok"
Again, say bye-bye to that one in the near future when Disney's streaming service starts, and in its place we'll get some Netflix junk that no one's ever heard of. See the problem here?
I'm french, we have one of the weakest offer in the netflix world. It's still way, way more content I could (sanely) consume in my entire life.
I think the problem comes from something else.
Regularly I watch movies with friends: they can't appreciate many good movies anymore. They need fast attention catching stuff. Otherwise they get bored, they loose focus (even watch their phone), and it snowballs since they miss pieces of the movie used to construct it that eventually gives it life.
I see plenty of netflix watchers that do it on the side, while browsing the web, in the background of a social activity, or even watching another movie (!).
You cannot taste "Scott Pilgrim", "The Shawshank redemption", "12 monkeys", "Forest Gump", "Pain and Gain" and "Life is beautiful" if you watch them the way you gulp "Rogue 1", get drunk on "Avengers" or skim "Transformers". Just like you don't eat a burger and osters the same way if you want to enjoy both of them.
In fact, you can't appreciate anything special that way. The problem here is not netflix. It's that the way many people consume things now will always leave them unsatisfied.
Also, there is a quantity effect. You can now watch more than you should, and many do. But it will make you numb.
And to finish on a more positive note, the fact we have watched so many things now also educated us more to what's quality and what is not. It's fair we have now higher expectations.
There was always ways to consume things on the side. I remember way before Netflix (around 2003) I went through a phase of about six months where every day I would come home from work, put a playlist of Mr. Show on my computer (a single TV show that only had 30 episodes), and play Dynasty Warriors 3 for 2 to 3 hours. I probably rewatched Mr. Show at least 10 times in that six months.
And after the first time I mostly didn't look at it anymore, it was just the audio I chose to play while I was playing the game, and since I'd already seen the whole series, it was predictable and didn't distract too much from the game playing.
I don't find watching TV to be that virtuous, and usually when I'm doing it I'm feeling guilty for not doing other things. So yeah, I'll do that as a 'side thing' and not feel too bad about it.
However, it's gotten more difficult than it used to be, as I used to think that TV wasn't too good and was an easy to skip medium, now I think there's just waaaay too much good stuff, I just have to actively choose not to watch it (like so far I've managed not to watch any Marvel TV shows on Netflix, but it's always there tempting me).
It's also usually the only leisure activity we can do together in the evenings during the week that my girlfriend feels like doing, so that's how I keep up with Game of Thrones, West World, Silicon Valley, Doctor Who, and whatnot. But I might be designing something on the computer while we're watching them.
I wish it were easier to write with TV on in the background though. I'm getting way, way behind on that.
Have you considered that nothing really changed with how much attention people give to movies? You are only looking at your friend's behavior, and assuming that the story would change if you lived in another decade. You can't rule out that even in the days where movies were only shown in a theater, that maybe 10% of the audience was paying enough attention to truly appreciate the film and not distracted with other thoughts. Being an active and engaged watcher is difficult work, and it can be as hard as analytical reading for many people. Cell phones and the internet also didn't invent trite, low effort, distracting content; that stuff is as old as writing.
When I subscribed in Canada a couple of years ago, I was struggling to find good content. Today, I find it more annoying that I can't keep up with what's coming out.
The user interface makes it hard to discover and track stuff that interests me. It's weird, because the UI is actually OK, but it just can't handle the volume of new stuff coming out every week. Only the stuff that Netflix wants me to find out about trickles onto the main view.
Living in Brazil right now. I'm pretty satisfied with Netflix. It's not as good as when they started with Starz, but it's got a lot of content in both English and Portuguese, and most everything is subtitled and lots of the content is dubbed (as opposed to content I've bought from Google play which annoyingly doesn't even have the option to buy in another language, so I can't invite friends over to watch).
I'm in Sweden and Netflix has gotten much much better of the past few years. Sure there are a few movies that are on Netflix in the US but Viaplay (the other big streaming service in Sweden) here. But at the same time there are movies and shows that are on Netflix here, but Prime or Hulu in the US. These days I doubt there are that many shows/movies which are available for streaming in the US, but not here.
I am not "white" but rewriting everything due to PC culture is idiotic. We must learn from the good and the bad. Also attacking men, family, and fatherhood at every chance is getting old. Simpsons did it, already, and long ago. And even they are under attack for being racist.
Don't get me wrong. Make your content and do your thing. Just stop shoving it down everyone else's throat. For example, YouTube Impulse which is more about MeToo than sci-fi.
Do the content creators get paid in this case? I'm all for blocking ads when it's some giant corporation that gives me no other choice but when I'm watching someone's videos they made in their basement and put a huge amount of work into I'd rather they were paid for the effort.
That's why I have YouTube Premium - best of both worlds.
I agree that I want content creators to get paid, but I really hate advertising.
I also pay for YouTube Premium and like their new subscriber feature, but also don't mind ads when they are embedded in the content and the content creator gets to pitch the product in their style. One notable example on YouTube is Binging With Babish.
I have never clicked on an ad in my life, and contrary to the advertiser's intention, being forced to sit through their advertisement makes me actively dislike the advertiser. From my perspective, advertisers should be happy that I'm blocking their ads.
I'd pay for premium if I felt the compensation ratio was fairly balanced towards creators, but it isn't. Ironically, while I listen to most of my music on youtube, but when I really like something I buy it on bandcamp because they treat artists fairly.
I pay $16 a month for the family YouTube plan and get add free viewing, shut off screen playback, and downloadable videos plus Google Play Music. Best thing I have ever subscribed for.
I find it's worth cancelling the subscription from time to time since every three months or so I reach the point where I've seen anything worth paying for.
The fact I can do this without any hassle is what I like about Netflix although, I suspect, the cost is low enough that a lot of people don't bother?
> I agree 100% with the rest of your comment but I genuinely don't understand this claim?
It is a dog whistle for "I'm a bigot". A good technique to filter trash is to stop reading when you see somebody use "SJW" in a non-ironic way. It basically means they aren't worth talking to.
> Music catalog is sub-par and not worth the switch from Spotify.
Youtube has virtually every song ever made for free, a much larger catalog than Spotify. I can't think of anything that's on Spotify but isn't on Youtube. I never understood why people pay for Spotify subscriptions.
As I grew a family my YouTube time went from mostly desktop to almost all phone/tablet. Can't Adblock that stuff. I'm betting lots of people watch YouTube on mobile devices.
Funny just had the same discussion on here a week ago, but there are many workarounds, my choice being downloading the Firefox app and installing an AdBlocker. Also lets you continue playing with the screen off.
> Music catalog is sub-par and not worth the switch from Spotify.
Definitely not true for the electronic music I'm into. Songs are always posted first to YouTube on the official channels and curators, and much later released properly on Spotify.
Totally agree. I don't go near netflix any more and I watch youtube with youtube-dl + VLC.
The only subscription services that actually persists for me is Apple Music. And that's because the catalogue is pretty decent, the price is decent, it mostly just works (unlike Google's offering) and it stops me having to manage my entire family's music which is very time consuming. That has value. Other two, not so much. No more than television.
Does anyone ever feel irritated by "amateur" produced videos that approach the quality of professional studios? Sometimes it's distracting when there's too much work done on the video, and you can tell there's additional people helping out behind the camera and you never get to see them as part of the video.
Basically amateur/gonzo level videos feel more truthful than the highly edited videos.
Not exactly Youtube but pretty much all professionally produced porn made since ~2005 is like this. They call it "professional amateur" or some buzzword like that. You've got a camera crew complete with lighting, sound and makeup filming the actors screw at some producer's vacation house and it's all done professionally but they try and make the final product look like it's just the actors and cameraman.
I don't think those numbers can only be reached with helpers.
How much effort camera/editing is really depends on the genre. E.g. for gaming channels, camera work basically doesn't exist, so it's "just" editing (which again highly depends on the style). At the lower level of "professional YouTuber", having to pay someone else vs doing it yourself would also make quite a difference for making the financials work out or not. Actually, I'd guess in gaming the most common external help would be a chat moderator for live streams.
> after literally one year of work we are finally finished with one of our biggest videos so far!!!
This would not fall into the category of "amateur" churning out a high quality video a week. These are maybe amateurs that did a considerable amount of work (with the help of others?).
I have very different expectations from YouTube than I have from Netflix, and my viewership patterns are very clear.
If I have 20 minutes to kill, I'll follow some food vlogger on YouTube.
If I have more time, I'll opt for something that requires "deep" engagement like Narcos
But I'll admit that there are times I wish Netflix had a stronger library of shows I can watch without thinking too much about them. Like The Office, but original to Netflix
>> If I have 20 minutes to kill, I'll follow some food vlogger on YouTube.
There's a lot of time waster content on Netflix now compared to before. They have a bunch of 20-30m reality TV shows (some of which are pretty good), and they have some even shorter form content as well (for example, Mike Tyson Mysteries).
It feels like nearly all of the high-quality shows these days are very heavy. Few good comedies, which I prefer for unwinding after a long day. Narcos is a great show, and I love watching it with my wife. But if I'm tired and spent, I'd rather watch IT Crowd for the umpteenth time.
I watch a fair bit of YouTube personal interest stuff (Magic: the Gathering and Chess channels). Same to a lesser extent with Twitch. I realised while reading this that I don't think I've ever sat down and watched YouTube with my wife. I watch a lot of Netflix stuff with my wife, and it's the only video platform I let my kids have access to. Beyond that, I torrent stuff generously.
In my head, I'd probably reflexively claim that I'd never pay for YouTube, but then I'd realise I'm paying almost as much on Patreon to _one_ video creator as I am to Netflix each month.
I must admit I've managed to get to this point without ever really thinking these things competed - YouTube is quite personal, Netflix is good for family, and you have to torrent if you want to watch anything new.
I used to watch 3-4 hours of Netflix every evening, then I started actually subscribing to YouTube channels and now I have 2ish hours of subscription content to watch every single day of the week. n=1 but I don't doubt it! I even contribute to several via Patreon.
I dunno, YouTube's catalog of originals is so tiny it can be watched during free trial. Even if Netflix catalog is smaller outside US it's still huge, originals are great and I'm willing to pay for it.
I get disgusted by thinking why does Netflix want people to not sleep. Why auto-play in 5 sec? Isn't this morally wrong, like dangling cocaine in front of a drug addict.
I agree that people have free will but designing products so that people waste days just watching TV is very very sad IMHO.
Well I do, that's part of why I stopped watching broadcasts altogether.
The autoplay-next-thing can be disabled in the settings though, although it'll still auto-play a trailer after 15s if you complete a movie or whole series, which I loathe since it's a real mood killer after movies (I very much enjoy chilling or discussing while credits roll).
> that's part of why I stopped watching broadcasts altogether.
For me it was not because of linear programming, but because the ads became ever more obnoxious and interrupting - first it was simple ad blocks. 5min, nice, take a pee. Then the stations increased the loudness of ad spots, well fuck your ears if you decided to not take a pee. Then stations started putting layers of ads above the content and the last fad before I decided to tv-exit was that stations PiP-ed the content right in the middle of action scenes or whatnot - at 25% of screen estate, and the rest 75% was ads. Also, quality of content that was not US cinema radically decreased - Germans who know the Galileo of pre-2000 know what I mean... it's all about the TV form of clickbait, aka "eyeball-baiting", now.
I hardly think so. Youtube is a casual Netflix. Unless YouTube comes up with epic tv shows it won't be a serious competitor to Netflix.
But that being said, Youtube is a den of self made videos like Honest Trailers, how it should have ended.
Also sleep can't be a competitor. It is a bad thing if your product is so addictive that people go crazy over it. This is the reaosn why most apps these days let users track their times spent on the app. Because if people are severely addicted, they will not stay addicted for the rest od their lives. They will dump the site. I did the same to Prime, facebook and Instagram.
Cobra kai and impulse were pretty good. But YouTube said they will be investing less in original content recently so I don’t know what will happen with good content like this...
Netflix on the other hand every time I think I’ll cancel, comes out with a bunch of new shows to watch and I seem to enjoy.
I would watch Youtube a lot more if the ads did not interrupt the video in the worst places.
I mean, there are places where there is a scene transition and they are perfect for an ad. And there's the middle of an interesting explanation you don't want to interrupt.
Youtube ads always interrupt the flow of the video. In many cases that makes me close the player and do something else.
And many channels already have ads as part of their normal content.
It seems Youtube has the content, but the huge and obnoxious amount of ads reminds me of old fashioned TV.
I'm not sure what your music provider is but I pay for Google Play precisely because it includes a completely ad-free YouTube experience. Combine that with my smart TV and I basically just flip back and forth between YouTube and Netflix when I am watching TV. Some of the longer form YouTube content is great on a large television.
I watch YouTube a lot compared to any other TV or entertainment. Both TV and Netflix seem to have got obsessed over the idea of the "box set".. dragging a story out to 20 hours+ when I'd rather just get a novel story in a short time and then move on to something else. I just haven't got the time for most shows Netflix considers good nowadays when I can watch lots of 10 minute videos that are more entertaining in a variety of ways.
Sad you get downvoted. I too think YouTube is the future of content consumption. I am perpetually amazed how much reasonably high quality stuff exists on youtube. Damn near 100% of the screen time I have control over is youtube videos. If I was single and living alone, all I would need is youtube.
I prefer Netflix, unless I need to see a HowTo or a product review. My 6yr old daughter prefers anything on Youtube over Netflix. We also had cable which she wouldn't hardly watch at all so we returned her cable box.
Yeah I don’t think the modern minute-by-minute generation who live on their phones are interested in dedicating an entire hour or two per show. Even Youtube with its 10-min videos seem long now. Netflix might need to create some ‘microshows’ to keep the younger generation’s attention.
One of youtube’s greatest value adds for me is the competition to convey a point quickly.
For the past 10 years I’ve found advanced topics explained extremely well in 3 minutes for free, much better than a university professor ever could. The incentive models are not competitive fast enough in Academia
Imagine if Netflix had this kind of content, possible subsidized for high quality
