(no subject)

[melannen]

I recently got access to Netflix (Just a borrowed account, I'm not paying for it - which was a good choice, given that so far what I've done is a) watch part of Blue Planet, b) lose the password, c) get the password back a year later, d) finish Blue Planet, e) decide it was time to watch all of Guardian and Buzzfeed Unsolved on Youtube.)

I thought it might at least be useful if I needed to do a last-minute canon review of something for fandom purposes, because I had somehow gotten the impression that Netflix had All The Things. It does not have the things. It does not, in fact, have any of the things that were high-up on my To Watch Someday list other than Blue Planet and Parks & Rec. (It seems to be particularly bad at anything older than two or three years that isn't a cartoon? Which seems odd! Seems like 'license a whole bunch of ancient stuff that isn't even in syndication anymore' would be the easy first step.)

Also I realize that all search results are full of the same dozen Netflix Originals because they want to promote Netflix Originals, but it gives the impression that there is nothing left other than Netflix Originals and all the licenses are fleeing.

So I did a little experiment and looked up all the movies in this year's Yuletide tagset that I've kinda been meaning to watch, to see how many of them were on Netflix.

There were 11, nearly all of which were kids' animations.

Then I looked up how many were available on DVD for free with no waiting list in my local library system, and there were 44. (Of which 14 are right on the shelf at the branch down the street from my house.)

In fact, I don't think there were any that Netflix had and the library didn't.

(The library doesn't have Blue Planet, but that's about it so far.)

So anyway there is your daily fable of Modern Life.

Comments

[seekingferret]

I think Netflix used to have More of the Things, but has slowly seen a lot of things drift out of its library, because the rightsholders have been trying to set up their own competitors to Netflix so when licensing agreements expire they haven't been renewing them. Netflix still has enough value to me between liking some of its original shows and being a reliable source of brainless shows to watch serially when I need that escapism.

[melannen]

They've been making very good originals, from what I've heard, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were deliberately trying to transition to mostly their own stuff. If you like their originals & watch a lot of new TV and have strong feelings about quality it's probably still worth the subscription. And still better than paying the local cable monopoly for fifteen sports channels you won't watch and still not getting the weather.

It's just... not what I expected, and for someone who mostly watches very old stuff and random documentaries for background noice, the library's (extremely limited) streaming service or the streaming I get with our PBS membership is apparently just as good.

The fact that everybody thinks that the way to set up a competitor to Netflix is to pull their content and put it in its own separate walled garden is one of the many ways we are still doing media distribution very, very wrong...

[seekingferret]

one of the many ways we are still doing media distribution very, very wrong...

PREACH

[cesy]

+1

[sholio]

Netflix is good for marathoning TV shows, but there is a pretty huge element of "if you want to watch it on Netflix, you will have to watch something from the small library of stuff Netflix has and not just pick whatever you want to watch." Netflix does still have tons and tons of stuff on DVD, which is why we've kept the DVD side of our account. And we get our money's worth out of it - heck, just the several series of Defenders-adjacent Marvel shows I've watched in the last couple of weeks probably paid for our year's subscription if you consider the alternative having to buy them on DVD. But yeah, it kind of amazes me how it's gone from ten years ago, Netflix was the place where you could get ALL THE TV (all the old shows! all the DVDs ever!) to being a place where you just kind of look for what Netflix has and see if there's any overlap with the stuff you want to watch.

[melannen]

It kind of amazes me that all the old shows and movies are gone - surely nobody thinks somebody is going to switch to their service just because they're the only one to have Hogan's Heroes or Perry Mason or Singin' In The Rain? Surely it makes more sense to let everybody have the license to shows like that?

Those few remaining Blockbuster stores may be glad they stayed open if things continue like this!

[sholio]

The cyclical nature of technology is so fascinating to me. When I was a kid in the '80s, fiber optics had become a widespread thing and therefore phones had finally gotten to the point where they were completely reliable and had crystal clear sound (most people my parents' age could remember when long distance calls had lousy sound quality). Now we've swung back around to accepting lousy sound quality and dropped calls as a standard side effect of carrying our phones everywhere.

And the same thing kinda seems to be happening with media. DVDs opened up this whole astonishing world of being able to never miss an episode of a show and see ALL the old movies and shows, and then streaming took it to a whole new level ... and now the various streaming sites are turning into walled gardens, DVD services are either going away or have an incredibly limited selection (e.g. Redbox), and you're stuck with either piracy or getting to see whatever limited selection of shows are on the media site you subscribe to. It's definitely a weird thing.

[stellar_dust]

Watch Stranger Things!

[melannen]

Stranger Things is supposed to be good though! Good takes brain. If had brain, would be reading book instead.

If you have recs for things on Netflix that are a) not anxiety-inducing, b) don't need brain, c) are in the Yuletdie tagset and d) are less than 10 hrs total, I'm listening, though.

I think Round Planet is next on my queue since it fits those requirements. :P

[stellar_dust]

dude i dunno most of what I watch is tv shows. But i have watched some of Bill Nye Saves the World, that doesn't take a lot of brain. And oh, if you haven't watched Galavant yet, that's fun and only two short seasons, I dunno if it's on the tagset though.

I heard the new Queer Eye is good, and a lot of people I know suddenly swear by Bob Ross for some reason, but I haven't watched either of those.

also sometimes things will go away for a while and then come back. Old stuff like Breakfast at Tiffany's or Singing in the Rain or old Doctor Whos have been on there before, then disappeared, then come back. Things leave and appear at the beginning of the month, so if you feel like it, you could check for stuff on the 1st, or there are blogger/journalists who post a list of the new & departing netflix offerings every month that you can look at.

[melannen]

Does Bill Nye Saves The World talk about how if he doesn't save the world we are all doomed? Not sure I'm there for that.

... that seems like a lot of work to use a subscription service you're paying for. Why don't they have a "new on netflix this month" page?

[stellar_dust]

Not really, it’s just a silly science show. Each episode has a theme, some of the topics are more depressing than others. But i can only really handle bill nye in small doses, ymmv. He does a thing where he has a young scientist on to explain their work every eposide, which is pretty cool.

Yeah. I think they mightve used to have such a thing but theyve turned even the web interface into basically an app now so theres not much in the way of meta info anymore.

They do have all the older star trek and most of the recent star wars though, at least till disney starts their own thing.

[lannamichaels]

Oooh thank you for pointing that out. Round Planet is hereby this year's "did not realize that was in the tagset, despite having reviewed the tagset" fandom. ;) Round Planet is excellent.

[thawrecka]

I signed up for Netflix Australia last month and found the exact same thing - though, lucky for me, I want to watch all the kids cartoons it offers. We'll see how long I keep up the subscription once I've run through all those cartoons I want to watch. Even new release movies they don't seem to keep for long - there was a film from 2017 I wanted to watch that they didn't have.

[melannen]

They have all the MCU movies *except* the ones I haven't seen and wanted to backfill...

They do seem to be pretty okay on cartoons? They have a lot more older cartoons, it seems like (and even a few classic anime.)

[thawrecka]

They seem to have all the 80s She-Ra and He-Man, which I'm sure someone somewhere is delighted by, and they have all the cartoons my nieces watch. Even then, they don't have all the cartoons I want. idk about else but in Australia a different streaming service has Adventure Time, which I did want to marathon, so that's a hassle.

[kalloway]

I use my SO's family account and I've appreciated the documentaries and foreign films, along with anime and cartoons. Apparently it's pretty good for horror movies, too, but that's more SO's thing than mine.

I'm pretty sure all the Disney stuff is leaving when licenses expire, because Disney wants their own service.

I just saw an article about how piracy is on the rise after actually dipping, citing too many content providers and people not wanting to have a gazillion accounts just to watch a handful of shows.

[reginagiraffe]

Every time I hear about the eventual death of physical DVDs/books that people buy, I hear about crap like this, or the bullshit where Amazon was deleting ebooks from peoples' accounts, and I think, you'll pry my undeleteable, permanent media from my cold dead hands.

[aethel]

YUP, and the show I got Netflix for (Leverage) was pulled from Netflix before I could finish it.

It does have a few of the things I want to watch, so I haven't cancelled my subscription yet...

[lannamichaels]

Netflix's move to becoming a tv station has basically lost them their good streaming stuff, I wonder at what point they'll start to promote DVDs again, or if they'll just complete their evolution into tv.

I honestly don't understand why corporations make the decisions they do, but that's why they pay me the small bucks. :P

But ditto on the libraries. The one time I had a netflix account, it was to get DVDs of the Sharpe movies that my library didn't have.

Thanks for a helpful framing.

[jesse_the_k]

Netflix's move to becoming a tv station

Ah! ...or to becoming a network :,)

[duskpeterson]

The problem of finding any decent collection of videos is one of the reasons I just don't watch videos. It's like living back in the era of small public libraries and no interlibrary loan.