Hacker News Reader

Comment by yumraj | Hacker News Reader

Talking of Netflix, genuinely curious about something...

I know that they have a leadership position today and supposedly hire great engineers, pay them very well and are doing very well in the stock market.

But, in view of numerous other streaming services, purely in today’s context, do they have an engineering edge that is a key strength that will help them keep their leadership position or is that engineering edge no longer relevant and leadership in streaming services would simply be determined by who has the content.

View on HN

It's no longer the question of "engineering edge". People will subscribe to Disney+ even if it only offers 720p streams with long buffering times. Even now in some countries (I'm writing this from Sweden) Netflix is 70% Netflix content, 5% a small number of fairly recent movies, and 25% a hodgepodge of movies not more recent than 2005. For the sole reason that the main content hoarders, ahem, rights holders have stopped their broad licensing deals with Netflix (Disney, WB etc.) and are openly hostile towards Netflix.

If you don't have content, your technical edge means nothing. Netflix understood this the moment Disney (or was it WB?) announced they would cancel their licensing deal with Netflix a few years back, and Netflix started pumping billions of dollars into producing its own content.

Netflix has plenty of content. Just enjoy what's there.

And I'm really enjoying punishing Disney for taking their ball home.

My budget for entertainment is already 100% allocated to to Netflix, and Disney has lost my entire family (2 adults, 3 kids), both now and possibly into the next generation as well.

Outside the US Netflix was pretty bad even before WB and Disney left the platform. Now it's bordering on ridiculous. Same with Amazon Prime, see my other comment [1]

I would "just enjoy what's there" if there was sufficient content. There's enough to go back to it once every two or three months, maybe.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24405780

Content is one thing but engineering is really important to properly deliver that content, no one wants to buffer videos, have bad UX ect ...

I (partly) agree with you on that. As an user, I want:

1 - speed and quality - 1080p, no buffer

2 - Good interface - netflix has great interface, Prime video is ok-ish, Crunchyroll is so damn hard to navigate

3 - just works, everywhere - Netflix has an app for most devices, works on any browser, and streams to chromecast and smart tvs. Prime doesn't cast to chromecast, doesn't work between android and smart tv app (I can't control TV on my phone). Crunchyroll... well... nope. Pirate websites have a better player than crunchyroll...

Guess which service I don't pay for?

Prime and Crunchyroll have the same problem as Netflix: they don't own (much) of the content they offer. And are entirely at the mercy of the content hoarders like Disney and Warner Brothers.

Just checked. In Sweden the featured videos in Amazon Prime are: Shrek (2001), Red (2010), Twilight (2008), Top Gun (1986), Life of Pi (2012) etc. with a hodgepodge of Amazon's own content and recent-ish movies ranging from Madea's Farewell Tour to Amazon's Chemical Hearts to SCOOB!

Yeah, nah. I get the same crap with Netflix.

Although with crunchyroll, what I want is exactly content that they don't own. People subscribe to crunchyroll to see seasonal anime produced in Japan.

But I agree with you on that, and this is a bummer for Amazon here in Canada. They have: old movies/shows, Indian movies, old Indian movies.

I still like Prime because of a few originals, and because I personally like old shows and movies. But I can't really recommend to a lot of people

I realised that it's probably more cost-effective for many people to just rent movies from iTunes than to pay for streaming services. The situation is more dire with series though.

Engineering edge gave them first mover advantage. It's irrelevant now unless those engineers invent something new.

I would say engineering edge is still extremely relevant, in the form of the recommendation engine, especially as content increases.

Netflix doesn't just have to have enough content, it has to surface that content to the viewers that find it interesting. The streaming service that does this best will likely keep the most engagement.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com