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New Data Shows Netflix's Number of Movies Has Gone Down By Thousands of Titles Since 2010 (businessinsider.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Business Insider: If you thought Netflix's movie selection had been lacking lately, you're right. The streaming service's amount of movies has dipped by over 2,000 titles since 2010, while its number of TV shows has nearly tripled. Third-party Netflix search engine Flixable compiled data that shows a dramatic shift in Netflix's priorities in recent years. In 2010, Netflix had 530 TV shows compared to 6,755 movies. Now, in 2018, the amount of TV shows has nearly tripled to 1,569, and the amount of movies offered has decreased to 4,010. It's no secret that Netflix has focused more on TV shows and less on movies in recent years, but now we have a visual representation of just how significant that focus has become.
The major movie studios and content owners did not want to see Netflix become another Apple iTunes, which would allow them to set the prices of movies and have control over content distribution, so raised the licensing fees to astronomical levels. And of course, players like Disney saw how controlling the content distribution in this way could be very profitable, and they have no intention of making those sorts of deals again. the genie is out of the bottle and it is not going back in.
But that's fine. The original offerings from Netflix are often amazing, so it's no big loss.
My interest in their content peaked (massively!) early on with their DVD service, hit a big soft patch for a few years, and now their own-branded content is at least worth the few bucks it costs for a streaming account.
And they don't try to fuck me over a barrel like Comcast tries to every single day with junk mail - 4 kinds. Netflix will get my money until they can fuck Comcast over that same barrel.
This is old news. This same headline pops up every year. Netflix has to find it's own way with original content.
Work smarter, not harder.
I'd trade every Disney movie for more Daredevil and Jessica Jones.
The best thing Netflix did was oicking up Longmire.
I wish they'd do it for other shows that were abruptly cancelled that ended on cliffhangers and needed a lot more episodes to finish their story arcs...
How much of that decrease is Netflix dropping a bunch of junk that nobody watches? Netflix tracks this, which is why a really popular movie is streamed from a local point of presence, while a title that nobody watches is streamed from some POP far away.
Netflix initially gave us the dream that we could pay $10, even $20 a month and have access to most (or even just a significant number) of the movies that we would be interested in watching. That has effectively come true for most music, but not for movies. It was unfortunately not to be once the movie content owners decided to hike their licensing prices or outright deny Netflix in favor of starting their own streaming services.
It's kind of understandable, once everyone realized that Netflix was a threat to the content owners (too much power over them, similar to what iTunes had over music companies back in the day - the movie companies learned their lesson from the music companies). Netflix also realized this and that the content owners were also a threat to them and started investing massively in producing their own exclusive content as a defense.
The result, at least for us, was our rejoining our local DVD/Bluray rental store. We were very lucky that they were still around and had a great selection of the movies we wanted to watch. The selection of movies is night and day - Netflix has 10% of the movies we want to watch and the local store has maybe 80% or more.
Before you say that we could also do the Netflix disc rental service, we used to have that but ended up paying through the nose for each individual rental because of how long we kept them. Also, I don't think even Netflix disc rental selection compares to the local store anymore. Besides, it feels better (and it's in our best interest) to support a local small business rather than a multinational corporation.
This isn't just streaming. I use disc service also and now have over a dozen moves waiting in my queue with "Unknown" as the availability. Some for over a YEAR NOW. Most aren't even obscure, like Matrix Revolutions and Gladiator. Really? Some dork broke/lost/stole a disc and now Netflix won't even replace it with at least one copy???
This is probably a good move. I'd rather watch older TV shows than movies any day. Usually, I already have the bluray of a movie or I've seen it in a theater long before Netflix gets it on their network. And if I like a movie, I'll spend the $20 to have a permanent copy of it. I would never trust Netflix or any streaming service to keep it around forever.
Older TV Shows however are almost impossible to find to buy or are horrendously expensive to get all the seasons. Having them on Netflix makes it very easy to find and watch them any time you like instead of relying on your cable networks to decide to play them at bad hours and with tons of commercials.
Most of the movies they have left are pretty poor quality movies that you'd find in the bargain bin at Walmart.
I think the movie studios may be shooting themselves in the foot on this -- most of the recent movies i've seen on Netflix suck, which makes me less likely to even venture to a theater to see a first-run movie. Since I watch Netflix instead of TV, I don't see ads for new movies, and I don't see them in the theater so I have little idea what new movies are out.
So I'm kind of living in a Netflix movie wasteland, watching crappy movies and lamenting the quality of movies these days.
On the other hand eBooks have more than filling in the gap, Smashwords has been a great (and inexpensive) place to find new authors.
Disney would have to offer more than Netflix and cheaper for me to consider them. I like Netflix and I am totally against the way the movie cartels are trying to recreate the very thing I hated and the very thing Netflix disrupted - packaged silos of content requiring multiple channels for huge subscription rates. I've got a mortgage, I need a new car and many other things I need to spend my money on before I go into this frivolous bullshit and make multimillionaires, who pander to social causes without helping, richer. The entertainment industry is a fucking parasite of professional liars and perverts. Fuck them.
buy everything. The complete lack of any anti-trust enforcement combined with the out of control levels of wealth at the top means the 1% just keep buying up everything. It's not big loss now, but in 10 years I could see Disney buying out Netflix. Bring enough money to the table and anything's possible. And we seem to be letting them have that money.
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the issue with that is wile they say they have a such a large selection you will quickly learn even some of those most common films will be on back order forever.
the issue is even there dvd service has taken a hit. wile they say they ave a huge library you quickly learn even the most common films are on backorder until the end of time.
Let me predict the future again. Netflix will raise prices, and offer crappier content. This will happen as long as they win more market share. If they become a dominant player, they will be just as ugly as cable and satellite.
Problem is finding content for sale I give two shits about. Will gladly pay for DVD or Blu Ray of anything worth watching. I've spent hours ... days of collective time browsing through Netflix/Blu Ray/DVD indexes and the overwhelming majority of it I couldn't give a shit about.
Paying for new content after it's generated is way cheaper for me than a Netflix subscription and I get to keep it forever without availability/streaming/quality bullshit.
As it is I'm finding myself applying algorithms to clean up videos and TV series released on DVD and Blu Ray by people who clearly didn't give a shit. Currently I'm working on a single 120 minute Blu-ray feature. It will be another two weeks on a quad i7 to defuck. It's either removing really shitty interlacing that makes it thru to the display, obscene amounts of noise or chroma and ghosting artifacts from tape transfers.
With DVD/Blu Ray I get to keep my shit forever.
Access it instantly.
Never have to deal with Internet streaming bullshit.
Zero recurring fees, zero worrying about who has what when.
Better video quality than anything available from any streaming service.
Bifurcation of content availability makes "streaming" less and less compelling with each passing day.
Lots more choice.
This. Lots more choice at Netflix. Even more at the public library. Netflix's streaming movie catalog sucks.
Have gnu, will travel.
I've had a list of about 20 movies in my 'Saved' list that have unknown availability dates. And I've had that same list (more or less) for a few years. Every once in a while, I just go online and buy my own DVD/BluRay.
I have run into a few movies that genuinely have never been released to DVD in the USA. Oddly, they were available from European sources. And with a region code hacked player, that's fine with me.
Have gnu, will travel.
Hardly, I find plenty to watch and have a hard time lowering my backlog of things to watch - it tends to keep growing.
That said, yeah - there's fewer movies, but it's hardly noticeable though.
As far as TV-series goes, really wish they'd bring all of Star Hunter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starhunter) back.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
But I WANT a one stop shop like itunes or other streaming services.
If they won't take my money I'll make my own using Plex.
Number of shows is a poor indicator of a services quality or usefulness, must the way cable telling me they have 500 channels, yet you only watch 10 channels. At the onset of online content size did mater, now its quality. I take new netflix orginal content over re-runs of shows from the 70s anyday.
Did you see their latest "new" movie?
"Black Panther Guy"
Not to be confused with the block buster, Black Panther from Marvel....
So just more of their Grade B knock offs.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I find little of what I want to watch on Netflix, but most of the movies (albeit not TV shows), on YouTube, for about what it used to cost to rent.
Nonaggression works!
None of these are available any longer. If they do have 3x the number of TV shows that they used to, they don't have the ones I want. :-(
--greg Vulcan quiescent... Q: What machine shutdown with this message?
... if Netflix keeps moving in the direction it's going, I won't be staying for the TV.
Seriously. My daughter started watching Men in Black on Netflix.... she went to resume it the next day, and it was gone. Poof. Not on Netflix anymore.
I looked online and found the trilogy brand new on DVD for $8 shipped. Done deal!
You can also go to used bookstores/craigslist/garage sales, etc. Lots of people dumping DVDs for cheap. Don't forget your public library!
I don't subscribe to the whole "bragging rights" of seeing latest and greatest movies. I don't miss anything by being patient.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
It's almost like they know what the overwhelming amount of the audience wants.
I like to walk around walmart and bitch about how terrible the customer service is too, so I get it.
Disney's service will successful for kids. But Netflix will win, they show the Human Centipede and Phineas and for kids). And Netfix's offline download is really awesome. masstamilanz
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