Re:Netflix is creating a problem by cancelling TV shows too ...
by dalai on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @11:12AM
(#24777402)
I have been giving Netflix a try for a couple of months now and I am really thinking of dropping it because of this. I think I’d rather rent something from one of the on demand services and watch what I want, than being forced to watch whatever Netflix happens to have on offer this week. Especially because I generally prefer to watch a movie over a TV series.
Re:Netflix is creating a problem by cancelling TV shows too ...
by MaxBarraclough on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @11:59AM
(#24778124)
It sounds like your complaint isn't that Netflix has a 'churn' of available content, but that they don't offer much content of interest to you. If that's the case, then sure, it makes good sense to cancel and either go with another subscription streaming service, or buy/rent what you want to watch. There's not much Netflix can do about that, short of just spending far more money on licensing content, which would presumably mean raising prices.
I've found that disc rental (by post) can be a surprisingly good option, even if it's been mostly forgotten with the rise of streaming. The available library is better than any streaming subscription is able to offer.
> I generally prefer to watch a movie over a TV series
Shouldn't this mean you're less inconvenienced by content churn? If you're part way through a series and it gets removed, that's annoying, but this doesn't really apply to movies.
This is a different matter. Netflix has a finite budget to license content. It's not clear that it would be better for the consumer if they had a policy of never removing films from the library, as this would have to be counterbalanced by fewer new films being added. I suspect this approach would be much worse for the consumer overall.
Also, unlike when a series is cancelled, those films are still available to stream on an à la carte basis from Google/Amazon/iTunes/etc.