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Netflix Shutters Its Public API
esarjeant (100503) writes "I guess it shouldn't come as a total surprise, but Netflix has gone from not issuing new developer keys to announcing the entire [public API] program will be shut down. It's a real shame they are going to be taking this offline; it spurred quite a bit of innovation for the Netflix service. For major sites that have already gone live it sounds like Netflix will let them keep going, but if you're looking to build the next FeedFliks, then you better look elsewhere."
Netflix Roulette, we barely had time to enjoy you.
type of message.
Just a truism that's almost always proven correct...
Don't give a company anything without a veritable guarantee you'll also receive what you want in exchange. All negotiations are hostage negotiations, it's wise to plan accordingly.
I never heard of FeedFliks, so I went and looked at it. And then wondered why do I need someone else to tell me about how I use Netflix? Or to tell my friends what I like watching?
Seriously, Is this what amounts to "innovation"?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
I've noticed that both Amazon and Netflix seem to make navigating streaming kind of murky, never wanting you to have a good grasp of what is or isn't available besides what they show you as featured titles. I've always suspected that this was done to mask the relatively thin and lame streaming titles that weren't on their short list of high-profile titles.
I've also been surprised at how hard it is to browse the web site for DVDs on the iPad. The web site works, but its so Javascript laden that it makes it hard to use. Third party queue management apps were a salvation. Maybe they're trying to make finding DVDs annoying, too, so that all we'll do is watch the featured streams.
How can companies like that be so arrogant when it comes to hiring but then produce unusable garbage UIs? Shouldn't that tell them they're not competent enough to recognize competence?
Europe(UK, Denmark) and South America(Chile, Brazil) get the best and latest content compared to the U.S and Canada. Why wouldn't Netflix release all licensed(granted by the content owners)TV and Movies to all regions in the first place? Why play musical chairs with the content? Right, well, because the content owners are always screwing those in the U.S Market and to squeeze as much profit as they can even though they made all their money(to produce the film) back from the Movie theater.
Streamingsoon.com was such a great website giving you info on upcoming new releases and heads up when movies and tv shows expired, but netflix changed the api removed the OData catalog which these types of websites relied on. As usual, the free market(corporate) likes to screw the average joe, look at the ISP bullshit we have to deal with now.
Netflix has a new look but you still can't sort anything under "My List" and instead they give you the "Netflix Suggests" bullshit, FUCK YOU!
Now google chrome is blocking "Netflix queue sorter" that's not in the google store, I have to go with Firefox just to sort. Firefox and IE 8 -> 11 are very slow viewing web pages because of flash player. I disabled flash player and both FF and IE 11 run as fast or faster than Chrome. Hulu and crackle are the reasons I still use flash player I can view youtube just fine with html5.
CORPORATIONS! CORPORATIONS! JUST LOVE TO SCREW THEIR CUSTOMERS OVER AND OVER AGAIN. AHHHH, USA, THE LAND OF THE FREE AND HOME OF THE SCREWED!
Feedfliks was more useful. For example, you could see which movies were going to expire and when, which might influence which movies you watch first. Then Netflix took the expiration dates away.
I've noticed that both Amazon and Netflix seem to make navigating streaming kind of murky, never wanting you to have a good grasp of what is or isn't available besides what they show you as featured titles. I've always suspected that this was done to mask the relatively thin and lame streaming titles that weren't on their short list of high-profile titles.
I've also been surprised at how hard it is to browse the web site for DVDs on the iPad. The web site works, but its so Javascript laden that it makes it hard to use. Third party queue management apps were a salvation. Maybe they're trying to make finding DVDs annoying, too, so that all we'll do is watch the featured streams.
Because they want to "Guide" you to choices that are more profitable. Basic website marketing.
I think you have a point.
Stores or every type found out years ago that the "best" way to arrange their store was not one that make it easy to navigate it was one in which it made its customers get lost and wander around, and pass certain things in certain orders, etc. It does not matter if we are talking about hardware stores or casinos, this is always true, so why not for digital stores?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I want to be able to sort by any and all reasonable criteria, I'm not offered sort options at all in most views. I want to be able to view all lists as a list, coverflow, detail list, etc. XBMC does all this for the files I have lying around, why can't Netflix manage it for a bunch of files it's already got indexed in a database?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Moreflicks lets you see what's available on multiple streaming services based on various "best of" lists (e.g. it's unlikely Netflix will ever tie in to the IMDB top 250 but Moreflicks does) and even has support for countries like the UK. It's sad to see an ecosystem like this being removed without replacement...
they are arrogant, ignorant, their selection sucks, their price is shit, and their services may or may not work on devices due to steve jobs like head up ass random tantrums
are people just so addictive to a totally passive waste of time mind suck form of entertainment to sustain netflix and all its shit when most everyone else in the field has failed?
Perhaps Netflix is having second thought about streaming. It never did have the depth of selection that DVDs by mail did. And after getting caught up in the ISPs' protection rackets, perhaps they are realizing that streaming just isn't where the money is.
I never went with the streaming option due to bad broadband back when Netflix split their services. And I thank my lucky stars. Most of the people I know who did came back, begging for the deeper DVD selection.
Have gnu, will travel.
Thanks, developers, for bringing an unsurpassed level of adoption to our service.
Now you can take a hike!
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Motto of the 21st Century
The first point is definitely true. The part about difficulty browsing for DVDs wasn't like that back in the day, but as a streaming-only customer I've still noticed their use of web technology -- like many other websites -- seems to be getting much worse over time, not better.
For a while recently, they had a "feature" you couldn't disable that would automatically start up the next episode of a series. So instead of falling asleep to an episode of an old show, I could burn through 3x as much data for zero additional benefit to myself.
Now they've been trying to push a quasi-multi-user thing that pops up a window every single fucking time I log in, asking me to choose which user -- of the 1 user I have listed -- is watching. At the exact same time this started, I now often have to log in multiple times in a row or while browsing my way to my watch list, I always have to log in again between episodes, and it hangs the browser if I use the back arrow icon (of Netflix's, not the browser's) while watching a show that's supposed to take me back to my watch list.
Why does it seem like for the last few years, people making websites are getting more and more inept? As a software developer I've never understood how once you have something implemented and working well and the only thing you have to do is not go back and fuck it up, people still do it as a matter of course and try to sell it as progress.
It is typical marketing bullshit of trying to maximize profits instead of focusing on the customer experience.
When you search DVDs they don't want to show you it is available streaming.
If you searching streaming they don't want to show you it is available on DVD.
verb
shutter: verb; 3rd person present: shutters; past tense: shuttered; past participle: shuttered; gerund or present participle: shuttering
1. close the shutters of (a window or building).
Ex: "The windows were shuttered against the afternoon heat."
(principally) North American usage, by way of analogy:
close (a business).
Ex: "The city was gripped by economic forces that were squeezing its tax base and shuttering its factories."
Oh, I'm so confused! If only they had phrased it in my favorite dialect of English!
Or it could mean 'Netflix adds wooden window covers to its Public API' I think that would be some much more interesting than closing, don't you? http://www.homedepot.com/b/Doo...
My experience is that they try to move you to streaming if you search for disks, but I have both for my account. They really push the streaming service, which I understand is because their profit is way higher without the physical disk overhead.
I would totally switch, too, if 99% of everything wasn't missing from the streaming service....
I get a lot of "suggestions" for things I've already watched (they love the "watch it again" recommendation under the assumption I'll probably like it because I liked it...), and they don't let you filter out things you've already watched, or things you never want to watch. Instead all you can do is try to train their recommendation system and hope that it actually has some kind of meaning.
Worse, their "new releases" section provides a list of everything released in the last $@#NNNANAS ago, instead of whatever was added in the past several weeks, sorted by week. They are deliberately making discovery difficult, which gives the impression that they are trying to disguise a shallow pool of movies.
Still, they are one of the few services that provides the kind of streaming service that I'm actually willing to pay for - a service in which I pay them, and they show me movies. This is far superior to the BS system that hulu has in which they show stupid ads on the free service, which is fine because you pay with your attention, or you can pay them and watch the stupid ads on your phone or TV, too. There is no option where you are the customer instead of the product.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Extracted all the value from free programming I guess.
Now they've been trying to push a quasi-multi-user thing that pops up a window every single fucking time I log in, asking me to choose which user -- of the 1 user I have listed -- is watching. At the exact same time this started, I now often have to log in multiple times in a row or while browsing my way to my watch list, I always have to log in again between episodes, and it hangs the browser if I use the back arrow icon (of Netflix's, not the browser's) while watching a show that's supposed to take me back to my watch list.
You might be having some peculiar problem (or browser interaction). The multi-user thing used to pop up when I'd first go to the site, but then I clicked something, and haven't seen it in at least a month. And I basically never have to log in, using Chrome in both Windows and Linux.
Their licensing is off and on all the time, a movie you can stream today might seem to vanish from existence next week without a word and reappear sometime in the future when it's relicensed. Their search system used to take you to those pages to see that the movie is not available, then they stopped doing that so now the only time you see a movie page that isn't currently available is when doing ratings. If you don't see it, you won't miss it seems to be their angle.
It mostly means they're a really bad place for information about movies or what actors have done.
vi? Who's that?
The only way to track what is leaving on Netflix and when is to do it manually, which is a freaking nightmare.
The best source for that is the link below, although they still miss some stuff (it looks like they catch maybe 80-90%).
http://allyourscreens.com/index.php/streaming-tv-news/1309-disappearing-from-netflix-the-complete-list
I stopped using Netflix a year or two ago, after they said "We have to raise our prices so that we can offer more shows" immediately followed by removing all the stuff I wanted to watch from their streaming library. At that point it was all cost and no benefit, so I just stopped paying, even though the cost wasn't terribly high.
For $12 a month I'd have to watch, oh, maybe 50 hours of TV to make it "worth it". I probably watch two or three hours per month, so I'd value Netflix at about one dollar per month. If they ever offer a service level around there then I'll re-up.
To those of you watching 50 hours a month, awesome, it's an excellent service.