This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I was looking to cut down on subscriptions and picked Netflix as an experimental one. I haven't missed it at all. Things like this make me less likely to occasionally reactivate for a couple of months as I was originally planning.
I wonder when they'll see a big enough effect to break their current run of fucking over their customers.
I also thought I'd miss Hulu and Netflix a lot more than I do. What used to irk me so badly was how utterly shit Netflix is when you just want to sit down and find something new to watch. Their front page would be list after list of things like "Hot New Comedies" "Best Independent Films of 2025", "Classic Action Flicks" and somehow it always felt like the same 30 or 40 movies randomly shuffled together. So I'd spend 15 minutes scrolling through the same slop in different orders, get frustrated and search for a movie that I remembered wanting to watch, only to find that it was on none of the services I was subscribed to, and cost $8.99 for a single watch of a 20 year old movie.
We had been Netflix subscribers since the very start when they delivered discs through the mail. Kinda sad how they went from having virtually anything you could think of to watch (and having a halfway decent recommendation algorithm to boot!) to where they are today.
Kinda sad how they went from having virtually anything you could think of to watch (and having a halfway decent recommendation algorithm to boot!) to where they are today.
They're not entirely to blame - once other companies saw that this streaming thing actually made money, they pulled all their stuff and put it on their own services, leading to the cable 2.0 we have today.
Everything else that sucks about them now, though, yeah, they're to blame.
The sooner people realize that the subscribers are nothing more than super-slow-boiled frogs to them, the better.
Between that, price hike, and some weirdly low quality content because you don't use this or that browser, netflix really wants people to stop their subscriptions it seems.
High seas baby!
There is surely a recognisable pattern here in which people leave because of this shit and to keep the flow of money going up they then have to further reduce quality by increasing ads.
I deleted my facebook a few weeks ago and signing in for the first time in years gave a look at what it became and it was unrecognisable.
“[Netflix] members pay as much attention to midroll ads as they do to the shows and movies themselves,” Amy Reinhard, president of advertising at Netflix, said, per the publication.
Amy, I want you to be honest with me, are you an alien.
Because on planet Earth we do not, if fact, pay as much attention to the ads as to the things we're actually interested in. Famously our brains even produce this fascinating effect to spare us from the bullshit you're shoving into our eyeballs.
I'm just waiting for it to be like that Black Mirror episode where ads came on, the guy closed his eyes, and alarms went off until he opened them again.
The bad thing about those kind of shows, is that while most people see that as a warning, and something to avoid.
Some people immediately start charting a path to how to make it a reality, and sometimes those people are very very smart and can chart a path that might take decades.
I say this while on the toilet, writing on a device that has cameras both front and back, always on microphones and location sensors, and facial recognition and 3D scanning equipment.
When the personalized condom ads start popping up, I will only be slightly annoyed.
"People watch ads," says the one selling ads.
If I down vote this does it show my disappointment of netflix or the OP? 🤔
The OP. They're just the messenger.
Aside from 🏴☠️ there are simply too many legitimate pay streaming options in 2025 for Netflix to think they can do this. This will end like an arrogant urban cowboy being flung off a mechanical bull and I'm all for it.
Not to me, they fucking won't
Is your egg too expensive?
Look no further. Our egg is much smoother and can be worn with most garments.
EggEgg. For your egg.
Bye Netflix, hello plex.
Edit: hello Jellyfin, as helpful users have mentioned the enshitification of plex to me.
I have some bad news for you
And canceled my sub
Jellyfin
After that comes the part where the AI hallucinates a world where advertising guidelines don't exist and gets the company sued for some very illegal advertising.
They show me an ad, and they are out. It is that simple. Luckily, my life does not depend on streaming.
Well, time to cancel finally I've gotten used to torrenting again anyway
