The funny thing is that I've been seeing this for decades. E.g.: media with a separate "subtitle (audio only)" and "subtitles (with sounds)" tracks.

Not sure why this is being presented a something new here.

This is the difference between just "subtitles" and "closed captioning / subtitles for the Deaf or hard of hearing". Usually one will be labeled as "English" and the other as "English (CC)". Other streaming services have had this distinction and you can also see this classification in places such as open subtitles. Netflix has always been the odd one out to only include "English (CC)".

This is Apple introducing the new iPhone, with the world-turning new features "copy", and "paste" all over again.

Pro Max buyers get "cut" too.

CC are not meant for deaf. They are exact transcripts of speech. They are better for language learners and foreigners who occasionally need to glance at subtitles to get missing word. They dont have advantages for dead afaik.

They real advantage is that you don't need to create priper subtitles that are subject to different standards. So, they are cheaper.

Are you nitpicking or what do deaf people normally?

Deaf are better off using normal subtitles, because those are literally designed to be read while watching the movie.

They have different standards for stuff like how many letters to show on screen at the same time and for how long.

What do you mean by normal subtitles? I have a few Deaf friends and they all like the CC version as sometimes they miss out on the audio cues. Some scenes make no sense without it.

yes they are

As someone that reads faster than people general speak, I find subtitles very annoying in a language I understand. But I live in a multilingual household so I keep them on for nearly all English content because it is genuinely helpful for others. Anything that gets some of the text off screen is a positive for me

To be honest I usually think they're tacky because I imagine they detract from the experience of nearly every single person.

It's the kind of thing where there is a horse-drawn carriage going by on screen and they print the text "[clip clop clip clop]". If you can't hear it, wouldn't you just want to watch it?

Sometimes the sound can be offscreen, e.g.:

[Window breaking]

[Gun cocking]

[Stairs creaking]

Yeah those make sense to me, because they're part of the plot.

The weird ones for me are where some absolutely unintelligible background murmuring is subtitled. I couldn't tell that any actual words had been spoken and suddenly it's all spelt out.

yeah I totally get it for moments like that where something that you can only hear is critical to understanding what's going on in the movie, but they never seemed to care much about making those kinds of artistic judgements

The ones that describe the music are funniest. Cheery music! Foreboding music!

I've seen this option for a long time, I always assumed they create them as the starting point of subtitling in foreign languages. Presumably nobody is French, hard of hearing and wants to watch an English language program.

Yeah I hate them.

Eh, I don't need help hearing background noise. I need help understanding the words coming out of the actors mouths because the mix is wrong or directed that way.

Exactly the same issue.

Quiet parts loud, loud parts quiet.

I expect the target audience for this change is people whose reading speed for whatever reason can’t keep up with dialogue when sound effects captions are included. There are a variety of reasons for that and it’s sensible to provide “sfx/bgm on/off”, though it shows how little investment is being made in accessibility by the media industry that Netflix has to do this in their language selector rather than the TV being able to do it for all feeds.

If you are discussing the movie as you watch it subs are nice to not miss dialogue. And disturbance in general.

I don't care about that. But being presented the choice, I would choose the subtitles without (loud bang). And having a choice is nice, isn't it? So yes, I appreciate the effort.

Me for one