this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
501 points (97.2% liked)

AssholeDesign

7655 readers
2 users here now

This is a community for designs specifically crafted to make the experience worse for the user. This can be due to greed, apathy, laziness or just downright scumbaggery.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 47 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 159 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Love that they intentionally blur the 1080p image too. I love 4k but the difference isn't that huge, that's an SD image next to 4k.

All around shitty. Charge for quality or device count. Not both.

[–] Metallibus 77 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

They also increased the saturation/contrast too.

[–] partial_accumen 12 points 1 year ago

Next rev of this promo the non premium version will look like watching video on an 8-bit NES.

[–] FlightyPenguin 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That comparison might have merit, though. If they use 8-bit 1080p, it will have lower dynamic range than UHD at 10-bit depth.

[–] Metallibus 6 points 1 year ago

They captured this off the TV using a cell phone camera and uploaded to Lemmy and the difference is noticeable. It's not a dynamic range problem.

[–] kratoz29 14 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I like to watch anime, and most of it (if not all, I'm not sure) is only available on 1080p and it doesn't look nearly as bad as Netflix want us to think lol.

I also watch Netflix with my Nvidia Shield TV which has a pretty neat AI upscaler, but honestly any good upscaler nowadays would do, I mean lots of content is available in 1080p and that doesn't looks like changing for the foreseeable future.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

I've got a 1080p TV. I have had it for 10+ years and I will continue to have it until it craps out.

I've seen 4k. Yes it's better. Is it better enough? Not for me, and my eyes aren't getting any younger.

I also save money, since gaming at 1080 with great framerates is much easier too. And storing 1080 media etc (hell, even 720 with upscaling isn't too bad).

I guess my point is: come at me Netflix; keep annoying me with your ads. They literally have 0% chance of success.

[–] danhasnolife 136 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

-Password crackdown

-Removal of Basic Plan

-Aggressive advertising to up-package

-Focus on 1-3 years of low-budget 'reality' TV

Yikes. Netflix is hellbent on extracting maximum revenue possible, regardless of how shitty their product gets in the meantime.

[–] TempleSquare 58 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Long run, they are corporate morons.

T-Mobile was "paying" for a rarely-used account on my family plan. Parents used it in another state. I occasionally used it. My brother logged in once in awhile. On any given week, it might see like 4 hours of collective viewership.

Turns out TMobile's contribution only covered the first $8. I have been paying another $10/mo. out of my own pocket and wasn't batting an eye.

Netflix was getting $18 a month for doing almost nothing! And that could have continued for many more years without my even questioning it.

BUT... One day I couldn't sign onto my own Netflix account that I pay for. Evidently, I'm not in my own household? That led to my discovery of the gargantuan amount I was paying for a service I barely use anymore.

So now, thanks to their greed, Netflix gets $0 from me. And not a single family member has phoned to ask why Netflix no longer works.

Some executives in Los Gatos may soon learn Econ 101's supply-and-demand curve.

[–] partial_accumen 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Some executives in Los Gatos may soon learn Econ 101’s supply-and-demand curve.

Sadly, I'm confident they have a very good understanding of micro and macro economics and understand this action WILL cost them customers, but they've also calculated that they'll make MORE money by removing the features and abilities that existed in the product before the change.

They made this decision to earn them more money, and they're probably right.

[–] TempleSquare 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But.....

A more expensive product becomes a more price-sensitive product. Now one customer represents income from 3-4 customers.

Recession hits. People are more likely to cancel something that is $25/mo than $8/mo. And each cancellation is like three cancellations.

Going "premium" is a valid strategy. But since we haven't had a serious recession in 15 years, I believe it's a shortsighted one.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Are we not in a recession right now?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What these economists always fail to capture is that people prefer using services they are happy with. They figured they could lose a certain amount of users because the remaining users will remain and pay more per person. What they fail to take into account is that the people left are going to be way less happy with the service, and actively looking for replacements.

It's the same story all over. And unlike Reddit and Twitter, Netflix was actually making a profit.

[–] partial_accumen 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

What they fail to take into account is that the people left are going to be way less happy with the service, and actively looking for replacements.

That's built right into the Elasticity of Demand. The economic term phrase is search for substitution.

"When consumers make buying decisions, substitutes provide them with alternatives. Substitutes occur when there are at least two products that can be used for the same purpose, such as an iPhone vs. an Android phone. For a product to be a substitute for another, it must share a particular relationship with that good. Those relationships can be close, like one brand of coffee with another, or somewhat further apart, such as coffee and tea. "

What this means is they can actively calculate the number of subscribers they will lose when they increase the price of the product. They can also calculate the amount of more money they'll get with higher subscriber fees. They compare the two numbers and choose the one that makes them the most money.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

They can (and indeed do) calculate the direct effects by the price increase, and the initial loss of users is expected.

What I think they lack good models for is customer loyalty in a deeper sense. Sure, a lot of people are going to stick around in the short the short term, but Netflix is completely eradicating the competitive advantage it had a few years ago. These decisions might very well maximise profits in the short term, but in the long term I think they're undermining the very things that made Netflix such a success in the first place.

[–] MaxVoltage 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's exactly like the packaged deals cable companies sell you

I just use Bflix it's A+

[–] sycamore 4 points 1 year ago

Don't forget withdrawing their DVD delivery service.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Your can't achieve infinite growth by just making a good product.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Netflix's product isn't really all that good anymore either.

[–] LeHoz 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

NOWTV is pretty awful for this. You're stuck with SD content and adverts unless you pay £7 a month extra for HD and no ads.

That's right. HD, not 4K. They're stuck in 2009.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah the boost thing on NowTV is something I can never pay for out of principle it’s atrocious. Not to mention the experience on a pc is terrible.

[–] Ziel 19 points 1 year ago

Netflix justifies the existence of piracy.

[–] baascus 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] CiderApplenTea 2 points 1 year ago

Why the hate on Spotify though? I agree with the general thought, but there are much better examples

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Crazy to charge extra for what would be considered the default TV resolution in 2023, imo. Not even going to touch on how fake of a comparison that is.

[–] ZiemekZ 1 points 1 year ago

IMHO default TV resolution is still 1080p.

[–] DirkMcCallahan 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I really wouldn't mind the increased rates/quality scams/etc. if their library wasn't such rubbish. There was a time when they had so much good stuff that I didn't have time to watch it all. Now? They have a handful of good shows drowned out by Is It Cake? and other shite.

[–] Metallibus 0 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I used to happily subscribe to Netflix because anything I could want was there. Now I use it on a family plan on occasion since it already existed, but there's no way I'd pay for it so I could watch like 2 shows and 4 comedy specials a year, and have to find everything else somewhere else.

I was happy with YouTube and just purchased things there but recently you can't watch beyond 480p in any browser except for Safari. So fuck that too.

[–] Shapillon 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm on my phone and I can't even see the difference between the two sides ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[–] MarsRT 5 points 1 year ago

I'm on a phone too, and I find the left noticeably fuzzier, especially around that one black-haired guy's eyes.

[–] CloudMunch 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A cable SD tv guide channel had an ad for HD like this. Representing SD was a deer in heavy bocca and in HD, the bocca was removed so you could see the background. Obviously, you can't sample HD on an SD channel, so it would make showing comparisons rather moot, but on the flipside, show producers could have made everything in HD if they just took out all the blurriness.

[–] cybervseas 1 points 1 year ago

Do you mean bokeh?

[–] michaelsoft_binbows 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This reminds me of those gimbals on Amazon that show a “without gimbal/with gimbal” scenario (I’m looking at you, DJI and ZhiYun).

[–] Pyroglyph 5 points 1 year ago

Same thing with high frame rate monitors. They just slap a bunch of motion blur on the 60hz image and call it a day.

Though in their defense, it's not easy to illustrate framerate in a still image.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

We're still paying for Netflix?

[–] Kraftee 5 points 1 year ago

Streamio+torrentio+real debrid, more content and cheaper. Fuck Netflix.

[–] reallynotnick 5 points 1 year ago

The HDR part is what kills me, if anything HDR seems to compress better than SDR. So it's not even a bandwidth thing to provide 1080p HDR.

And the 4K upcharge was fine when I could share it with my siblings since it gave us 4 streams at once. Now I only would need 1 stream, so I can't even get the full benefit of what I would pay for.

[–] 6mementomori 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

paying for Netflix incentivizes their bullshit

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There's no legal way to watch their shows otherwise

[–] 6mementomori 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

why does it have to be legal anyway?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I pirate it but my parents don't want to deal with that and many of my friends don't want to deal with that or worry of being caught commiting a crime even though you will never be caught

[–] 6mementomori 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

that's reasonable, but pirating is even more

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree but it is more difficult and the 18+ ads that are on many pirating sites push people away instantly

[–] 6mementomori 1 points 1 year ago
[–] Metallibus 1 points 1 year ago

This is the sad truth. I'll continue watching their shows on a family account as long as I can. The second that's gone, I'm done with their garbage.

[–] sagrotan 1 points 1 year ago

-> c/piracy

[–] Reddfugee42 -1 points 1 year ago

oh that darn capitalism uggh grr!

🙄

load more comments
view more: next ›