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User: Darinbob

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Comments · 21,765

  1. No. They have some ads after the shows, I've not seen one in the middle of any shows so far. Before the shows you only have a few mentions of commercial sponsors and not full advertisements. Pledge breaks are the only exceptions, and that's only twice a year.

  2. Re:Hulu offers No Ads for a 50% fee markup on 74% of Netflix Subscribers Would Rather Cancel Their Subscription Than See Ads (allflicks.net) · · Score: 1

    Hmm,no ads for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on Netflix. I wonder how good Hulu's negotiators are...

  3. Definitely you should not pay the same price and see ads. Reduce the price and ads become more acceptable. Ie, the newspaper has an ad for all the sales at the local grocery store and some coupons - awesome, I can save money, that's a good use of advertising. Charging me to see the ad or cutting into my bandwidth cap, then that sucks. Everyone acts like advertisements are so amazingly effective and that so much money is made from ads, but if that's true then I expect to get a kickback from the ads (coupons, discounts, etc). If it's already free then your ad is just annoying the hell out of me and I'll go somewhere else.

  4. Re:Ads in the middle are far worse than at the end on 74% of Netflix Subscribers Would Rather Cancel Their Subscription Than See Ads (allflicks.net) · · Score: 1

    For all the vaunted ability to track customers, advertisers are utterly clueless about how to make use of it and show advertisements that might actually be useful. Any marketing exec who put an ad for My Little Pony action figures during the NBA finals would be fired immediately, yet that's the sort of thing you see with web ads. Ad blockers were invented on the web because the web ads are the stupidest and most annoying things ever (even without the malware attached).

  5. I watched the last couple seasons of Big Bang Theory on the computer because they won't stream it anywhere else. And becuase I'm not a subscriber they want to show ads at the normal break. But with adblock and noscript, the ads rarely show up and I only get a couple second pause instead. The couple of times when ads did show up they were amazingly annoying non-skippable things.

    (And if you subscribe to CBS, you go from a measly 5 available episodes up to a whopping *7* available episodes!)

  6. I disagree on the analogy. There may be a cure for cancer someday.

  7. It didn't start with video ads though as I recall, as in "you can skip this ad in 10 seconds" sort of thing. The ads it had were ads that you could ignore.

  8. Adblock on the web is very effective on Youtube. Not so effective on a Smart TV or TV+streaming device. I put a adblock-lite type program on my router but it doesn't work against Youtube. Next time I'm really annoyed I'm going to try a heavyweight ad blocker and see if it works. It's a lot more effort on a router, and you have to keep it up to date, but dammit I don't want to sit through 30 seconds of crap before the 10 second video.

  9. Where did you go to instead? No tv at all, or back to the cable overlords? Amazon is a sucky service, Hulu's in the same boat as Netflix but with ads, pirating is illegal, so that leaves no general purpose streaming...

  10. Re:And a few bucks more for missing content on 74% of Netflix Subscribers Would Rather Cancel Their Subscription Than See Ads (allflicks.net) · · Score: 1

    That stuff may or may not come back. I haven't heard whether or not BBC is going with their own streaming service, which I suspect would be a huge hit as BBC America is practically the best cable channel in the US. On the other hand all the streaming services got hit by this, not just Netflix.

  11. Re:And a few bucks more for missing content on 74% of Netflix Subscribers Would Rather Cancel Their Subscription Than See Ads (allflicks.net) · · Score: 1

    It should be good money for Disney. Cable companies do not show the back catalog. Flip through the cable channels and really there's not much content overall compared to a streaming service. Even on the Disney Channel itself you can't see Cinderella every week, probably not even every year. So there's a ton of content that Disney has that isn't earning it any money.

    Now it's true that the streaming services aren't necessarily paying the high prices that major content producers want, but since no one else is paying some of them will license the stuff to be streamed. Other content companies just won't accept that though and are trying to get their own streaming services to compete, often at a higher price than the customers really want. Ie, people used to paying $15/month for added HBO access on cable probably don't mind $15/month for streaming, but I suspect they could get a lot more cord cutting customers if they dropped that price a bit instead of sticking with cable pricing (after all you can get Game Of Thrones on Netflix DVD service cheaper than subbing to HBO, which is the only thing worth paying for on HBO).

  12. Re:And a few bucks more for missing content on 74% of Netflix Subscribers Would Rather Cancel Their Subscription Than See Ads (allflicks.net) · · Score: 1

    Netflix can only show content that it has access too. If they could show more programs then they would. They're not cutting back on recent movies in order to focus on original programming, but because they are denied reasonable access to the recent movies.

    Not just streaming services, even some cable/satellite offerings run into the negotiation headaches with content providers and they play a game of chicken to see who blinks first; where you sometimes end up with some major channels being dropped completely from the cable lineup.

  13. Well as a data point, I have seen many many Chrysler ads and have never purchased one. I have also never purchased any feminine hygeine products even if I do want to feel fresh all day. For laundry detergent I choose whichever one is on sale that day. I'm more swayed by the looks of the products in the store than I am by the ads.

  14. Oh, can you tell your bosses to get rid of that silly feature where a program starts playing before I hit play? I just want to read the show's description without the music and video starting. Oh and no auto-playing videos for featured programs either, not even than Pee-Wee Herman thing. Other than that, I like it, just don't such up my bandwidth until I'm ready to watch.

  15. Netflix doesn't drop voluntarily, it's just that they can't get the licenses to everything. Hulu can't keep all its programming either. Ie, when Doctor Who was dropped, it was dropped from everything (probably in preparation for some BBC streaming service), and if a movie rights are currently held by Starz then you won't be able to get it on Netflix or Hulu either. I never bothered with Hulu because all the shows I wanted were on Netflix already, and Netflix tends to have more movies.

  16. Some people are dropping, and they are in the minority. But it's enough of them that cable is worried and the licensing for streaming services is getting more restrictive. Most people stick wtih cable because there's a few things they still want that they can't get elsewhere (and it's hard to give up your addictions) or they think that their crappy internet won't hack it (borrowing a Chromecast is great for trying it out).

  17. Yes and no. You did not get the same shows on cable, you got different shows. If you had cable access to your local broadcast channels via cable then you also got the advertisements on those channels. If you got remote stations offered locally (TBS) then you got the ads that came with those channels. While the early cable-only channels didn't have commercials, it wasn't really a selling point as I think most subscribers just assumed that naturally there'd be no advertisements or that they'd only show in between programs (European style) the same way we treat movie theaters.

    The prices for cable really are a result of basically having a monopoly service. In most locales you get a choice of 1 cable company only with an option to get satellite if your landlord allows or you're willing to pay for the installation (not that difficult really but I think some people are put off by it though). The cable companies also bundle service - you get a discount if you get cable, internet, and phone all from the same place. I've heard a lot of people bitch about Comcast who admit that they stick with it because of a perceived discount Probably $10-20 accounts for infrastructure costs, $20 for the basic non-premium content, and the rest is markup. And cable does not want to give up that markup and so are doing what it takes to either diminish streaming services or get their own foot in the door.

  18. There's often just one or two things tying people to the old clumsy methods that cost too much and come with awful customer service. Some people are addicted to sports and they can't imagine dropping that and going only with broadcast sports even with all the money it would save them. Some need to see that one show that isn't streaming anywhere yet. Some don't have good internet service available. Etc. When I cut the cord it was great. A few shows I could not easily get, or I had to wait a year to see compared to when it was on cable, but that was worth the added benefits I got.

    Magazines and newspapers though, those ads are acceptable. They're not in your face, they don't come with malware attached, some are actually pretty useful if they come with coupons, and they're far more likely to be of interest to the reader than the randomized internet ads. If web ads acted like print ads there'd be no need for ad blockers.

  19. Even with movies it would take me a lifetime. I haven't watched all the old movies yet, so if the new movies take a year or two to show up then that's ok with me. Though at some point it may be useful to get the DVD subscription to Netflix because some shows will NEVER stream on anything other than the content owner's service (Game of Thrones will never stream on anything but HBO, Big Bang Theory will never stream on anything other than the laughable CBS service, etc).

    The value I get from $10/month is so great compared to having my old satellite service, and amazingly awesome compared to Comcast, that I have no complaints at all. Sure I don't get all the stuff I want, which I never had with cable/satellite anyway, but it's not that big a deal. Better picture, better cost, better selection, no advertisements, plus an option to get more stuff on the side from another service if I ever get bored.

  20. The way the content owners want it is that you get a subscription with every single content owner. Right now you can get first run films by paying $5-$20 to stream them (temporarily only). They don't want some cheap ass cord cutter to pay $10 to get hundreds of first run movies, instead these guys want you to go back to paying $100/month for basic cable service and another $10-20 for each movie channel.

    Blu-ray and dvd right now cost way too much for what you get, only worth it for kids movies where you know the kids will watch the same thing twenty times in a row wihtout getting bored, but not worth it to watch the movie only once.

  21. You mean that BBC yanked permission. Netflix would have those shows if they were allowed to have them. It's not like Netflix is dropping programs voluntarily just to piss of customers. Blame the parties which are responsible.

  22. Youtube doesn't have the content legally though. Early on Netflix had a lot of stuff (at least in US) because it was new and no one thought it would go anywhere or would just be a side-channel. Then when those licenses came up for renewal the attitudes had changed and the content owners either realized they were sitting on a gold mine and wanted their own streaming service, or they saw Netflix cutting deeply into their cable business, and so were reluctant to let Netflix have as much as they used to. If cable companies had their way there would be no third party streaming which would be forbidden by criminal law and a roving truck full of bat wielding enforcers.

  23. That's not the strategy, that's just what they can get. The newer movies are being held back because the owners don't want to give up streaming rights or are trying to get more money from Netflix. That's why you may not find some movies on Netflix even though their sequels are available. Netflix would show everything if they could.

  24. Re:"We're looking into alternative payment service on PayPal Dumped Cloud Company After It Refused To Monitor Customers' Files (fortune.com) · · Score: 1

    PayPal is a bad idea even for a simplistic personal transaction. But what "organization" uses PayPal of all things? It's absurd. If they can't handle a credit card transaction then they shouldn't be an online business. I can just see someone from IT shouting over the top of the cubicle, "Hey, anyone have the PayPal password so I can renew our cloud?"

  25. Re:Why would I want 2 step on Google Is Finally Making Two-Step Verification Less Annoying (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    Right. And when I get a new phone then I no longer have what I had and I can't log into Google anymore. I never turned on this feature anyway because for a very long time I explicitly disabled texts. Is there an equivalent to password resets, a "I lost my dongle" button to click?