I don't have problem with netflix reducing it. I have problem with netflix not reducing price together.
They're essentially painting themselves in glory AT THE PRICE OF THEIR CUSTOMERS.
But really the praise for Netflix is a bit off tone - they're not making any sacrifice at all.
Remember some Netflix clients pay MORE to enjoy higher quality. If Netflix artificially limits that quality, no matter the reason, then they shouldn't be charging that full price.
Netflix is getting the best part of it: charging the same money, paying less for bandwidth, and they excuse themselves because the EU asked them to do it.
It's the ISPs that should be solving this via QoS, but of course it's the ISPs that have the politicians in their pockets. No commissioner is going to demand them to do anything.
We pay for street maintenance and we're locked in our houses.
We pay for government and elections are being postponed.
We pay for healthcare and people are not getting the care they need.
We keep paying, because if we stop after the epidemic there won't be schools, there won't be road maintenance companies, there won't be a functioning government, there won't be hospitals, because they will have run out of money.
4K Netflix? Suck it up, or feel free to sue them. Courts are in lockdown as well so you might have to wait a few years to get your 10$ back.
- video quality
- number of screens
I for example play for both differences. So if they reduce only one for me it is still good.
Their pricing plans are not black and white only about video quality. Each plan increases both video quality and screen numbers.
I have to admit I did cancel my 360 euros/month public transport subscription. Their service is also reduce by a lot. So who am I to judge.
Cancel your membership and stop giving into the bullshit that people are feeding to you. If you want to help, help people, not corporations.
Yeah, right. So if I am to open a gym, or any other kind of business, I should have it in my business plan that I must have a big enough reserve to survive having my shop closed for months with only days notice. How many businesses do you think will pass that test? I think zero.
Maybe society is more than just the economic transactions that take place and maybe that gym should be opened despite failing this new test, because it is important that we have gyms that keep people fit.
It may be that whoever has the deepest pockets survives and others go out of business.
I guess the question is how long they have to bleed money until the customers come back.
I’m sure we agree that there are legitimate grievances here about consumer rights†, that are worth thinking about.
As the most powerful entities in the economy — not even by virtue of the goods they produce, but by the amount of people they employ and the money they spend — companies like Netflix have to uphold their social contract and be seen to be upholding their social contract!
† In the Netflix example, not the REI example.
Not to mention, everyone who isn't on Netflix now is probably videoconferencing. Which also elevates this problem to "important for preserving the economy" level.
Suffering a video quality decrease would seem a small price to pay for not causing further problems, and perhaps once this is all over, or at least we've stopped flying by the seats of our pants, we can see if people should receive refunds of a few dollars a month.
I'm far more worried about my mum than whether TV is SD for a month during a global pandemic.
Fuck me people are ridiculous at times.
I mean we've had a lot of slippery slopes recently, things like the government Demanding access to location data. I never agreed to share this information with my government. I did not agree to have my ISP or Google or etc to share this data.
This stupid selfish attitude is not helping. Netflix will probably issue a statement that they will refund all those affected. And if you don't like it, downgrade! You probably have plenty of time if this is an issue for you.
Being empathetic to these measures is the right call, although I do find that much more important for brick & mortar businesses than Netflix.
It is not about being selfish here, think more about it.
Saying "Internet infrastructure can't handle the current load, we have to restrict service" is fine, but you would expect them to do right by the customer. Not announce the cuts via national news outlets, see how much backlash they get and then decide if they should make concessions to their paying customers.
thus reducing the quality for people that PAY for that quality without reducing their invoice is basically a scam. especially because of the pandemic people are short on money. of course people could just downgrade their subscription, unfortunatly some people are not that tech savy as others, so they do not even know what the news is about.
Give them some time! They just decided this.
Times a million or 10 or 50. Add to that the 25% savings on internet egress, which last I checked was still how commercial internet is financed.
The cost of actually providing the content to the consumers is on the ISP which hosts an Open Connect box.
It's amazing how wonderfully liberal and thoughtful people are with other people's money.
I'd like to sell you a subscription service if you're interested?
Also, it wouldn't surprise me at all if ISPs are also feeling a bit of a strain, and are putting some degree of pressure on streaming platforms to lighten their loads if possible.
Will Netflix be understanding and forgiving if pandemic would cut our income, so we wouldn't be capable of paying for subscription and started pirating their originals?
Perhaps. Amazon Videos and Pornhub Premium are both free in Italy, for example. I don't see anything about Netflix being free there, though.
Getting pity for them when the proverbial fecal matter hits the fan is a big ask IMO.
On Netflix’s side, they sure are in a hard place, I’d wish govs. would foot part of the bill, as it’s directly helping people stay at home.
Unfortunately internet is critical infrastructure, and kicking and screaming "this is bull" doesn't help alleviate traffic.
I'm in Europe, I'm kind of "wtf?" about this, but I get it. I'd rather have lower quality netflix than a broken internet where I can't work from home and have to figure out how I earn my paycheck.
We postpone the hard conversation to get through the crisis. Then after the crisis the hard conversation never happens.
It'd just add to the cognitive load and noise.
But you're right, people also forget to come back and be like "let's talk" - at the same time - given how relatively embarrassing this is for a government (and how economy-critical it is) I'm definite this conversation will be had.
This is not about Corona, this is not about "extraordinary situations", this is about European online infrastructure being garbage and now that it's getting really used for once, everything starts to crumble.
You really cannot make a statement like 'Europe has a poor internet infrastructure', without (i) comparing it to somwhere else and (ii) highlighting the differences in regions.
I mean, I'm pretty confident that everyone in Europe has better internet than everyone in Cuba or Zimbabwe.
They are doing EU a favor, with this one.
[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/brussels-in-talks-with-netfl...
[2] https://www.engadget.com/2020/03/19/eu-netflix-sd-streaming-...
After the pandemic, we can discuss the whys, and ,make sure it doesn't happen in the future.
While the infrastructure is quite stable where it has been extended, those rural areas ("not prioritized for broadband builds") are also affected by the lockdown, people have to work from home, use the internet all day etc. pp. In those places, the infrastructure reaches its limits pretty quickly all the time. This will cause _serious_ damage to local businesses for no good reason other than ISPs unwillingness to invest there.
edit:misspelling
If you get kicked down, the invoicing should match that.
> Out of these two, Netflix says it will cut its streaming bitrates.
They aren't cutting resolution i.e. kicking people down a tier. If you pay for HD, you will get HD... at a reduced quality.
From a quick search, I can't find any guarantees on what bitrates Netflix will serve you. In fact, they already use variable bitrates that can differ per episode of a series.
I don't see your legal retribution having much chance of succeeding.
Strasbourg is the European Court of Human Rights. Complaining to them about a lack of detail in your Netflix stream during a pandemic will probably not give you the results you want.
https://www.politico.eu/article/brussels-in-talks-with-netfl...
You might even be more entitled than the toilet paper hoarders.
How is this not completely fair?
Poor you!
> Several factors influence how much data is used when streaming a movie online.
> One of them is video resolution, including whether a video is high-definition (HD) or ultra-high definition 4K.
> Another is bitrate, which influences how clear and smooth videos look when streamed online
> Videos with a higher bitrate tend to look less "blocky" or pixelated, but use more data.
> Out of these two, Netflix says it will cut its streaming bitrates.
I HAVE NO PROBLEM with Netflix reducing video quality. What I do have a problem with is Netflix KEEPING THE PRICE THE SAME.
If my local gym chain (Gyms4You) can freeze memberships for EVERYONE and not price it in than Netflix can atleast do the same regarding the "premium" plan.
I understand that this is an unprecented crisis, but that doesn't mean we don't have to follow the rules which we are able to follow without risking our health and well being.
The operations department won't have had the authority to give a €4 refund to everyone overnight (in Europe). They're probably working from home. See what happens i a few days time.
This is a brand image issue and is exactly the type of issue that should escalate quickly to the CEO if necessary.
Are you seriously implying that this is a human rights issue? Because that's what the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is for.
If you're talking about the European Court of Justice in Luxemburg this does't really make sense either but at least somewhat.
I also used to brood over “if I had infinite money” revenge fantasies. They lost their appeal when I realised the answer is the same in all cases: “if I had that kind of money, this wouldn’t have bothered me”.
In some cases, bailouts make sense. In the ISP industry, they don't make much sense. ISPs were offered a monopoly and operate their networks at approximately 95% profit. Now there is a crisis and they've been spending that 95% not on network upgrades, but on dividends or stock buybacks, and it's all blowing up. I don't think the governments need to subsidize that. The Internet should be bad during this crisis so that people are motivated to fix the problems after the crisis. Asking one content provider to subsidize them doesn't help anything in the long run, and if there isn't pain now, this will all be forgotten after the Coronavirus issue.
Things like the airlines are different. They bought multi-million dollar jets with the assumption that they'd be in the air 22 hours a day. Now they're on the ground, and the financials simply don't work under those conditions. That is the the kind of thing society needs to insure against (if they want air travel, anyway, which does seem to be quite useful).
In the end, I'm very cynical about all of this. Sometimes I wonder if the whole "flatten the curve" thing is being promoted because it's an election year and when your whole family dies from COVID-19, you're a lot less likely to show up at a rally to eliminate Obamacare. We need to cover our eyes and stick our fingers in our ears to think the status quo is OK, so here we are. People will invest a lot into maintaining the status quo, be it healthcare or shitty ISPs.
That’s not a personal revenge fantasy. Your post is unrelated to my point.
I'm fine with not going to the gym and I'm fine with a lower Netflix quality. But you shouldn't charge me for a service that you're simply not providing anymore.
Netflix should downgrade everyone's plan automatically or just charge them less.
That's basically all they had to say. Something to the effect of "This sucks but it's necessary and needed to be done quickly. We'll try to make it up to you." Then figure out whether to refund people on the higher plans or give them a free month or credit on their account or something.
vs
"Netflix should downgrade everyone's plan automatically or just charge them less"
The way it was said in the parent comment was ridiculous.
My internet connection is fine tho. Still low latency, no jitter.
If they charge everyone the SD package price, noone will really complain. But they will continue charging for a service they're not providing anymore.
It's like food delivery man continuing to charge you for cancelled deliveries because they were found to have salmonella.
You cannot decide by yourself to lower the quality of your services and keep the price same.
Sometimes I wish I had enough money and time to seek "legal retribution" from these type of situations. I would love for this case to make it to the European Court in Strasbourg.
"The video-streaming provider said lowering the picture quality would reduce Netflix data consumption by 25%.
But it said viewers would still find the picture quality good."
How would they know what I find still good, if I found it still good than I wouldn't have taken the premium plan!! So many fallacies in this way of thinking..