[sametmax]

Of course.

But I noticed that many people were happy with the previous situation, and a lot are not with the new one, despite it being by all objective attributes, better.

I believe the issue here is perception, expectations and ability to enjoy. Not netflix which does an incredible job.

In a world of abundance and lack of attention, the public is bound to be unsatisfied.

It's not sane, IMO, if your brain think it is still hungry when you live in the most amazing all-you-can-eat buffet of all time.

Introspection is in order.

[asdff]

Ironically, I've never gone to blockbuster and failed to find what I was looking for on the shelves. Meanwhile, staples that brought me to Netflix disappear regularly. I've been a subscriber to Netflix since it was a mail order service, and that original hope that there would be one repository with all the content--literally online blockbuster--never materialized, and I fear at this point it never will.

I wonder why Spotify was able to easily and immediately license practically everything; it's not like Columbia and Atlantic records are exclusive to one service or another like with video content producers.

[Arnt]

It's not better by all objective attributes. The attributes that have improved may be the most important ones (and God how I hated those FBI warnings), but Netflix customers complain about two things: Time spent browsing the library, and that they're unhappy with what they actually select (which is obviously partly their choice, partly Netflix' UI).

Put differently, I've worked for several streamers. One of them explicitly mentions its small library as a feature. Just 30 films, so you will not spend twenty minutes looking for something to watch. Those 20 minutes are a feature and Netflix is worse than many DVD shops were in that respect.

[sametmax]

I'm the first to agree the netflix UI has huge flaws.

It's still miles better than going to rent a VHS in a mall.

It's still miles better than buying a DVD online.

It's still miles better than having to download the movie on eMule.

And you do have a small library sample on netflix. It's your front page.

Now people either complain there is nothing to watch (front page not interesting anymore after a while), or too much too watch (the size of the entire lib is overwhelming).

Wait, what ?

Besides, honestly, when you have a full life, where do you get the time to exhaust the netflix offer ? How many hours of video a week must you consume to arrive at a stage where "there is nothing to watch on netflix" ? Because in that case, not only the $15 have been paid for a 1000 times, but also, again, the problem is clearly not netflix.

Which remains me I'm spending too much time on NH today, so, gotta go :)

[michaelt]

  Now people either complain there is nothing to watch
  [...] or too much too watch [...] Wait, what ?

If my kitchen is bare except for 200 lbs of rice and 200 lbs of onions, do I have too much food or not enough?

[Arnt]

Different people.

Nothing requires you to add apples and oranges in the same way as I do. Your most important feature may be my totally unimportant feature, and that's neither your fault nor mine. And as usual gripes are louder than happy purrs.

I was happy with the DVD shop I primarily used; the owner's selection was much better suited to me than Netflix' is. (No I'm not a Netflix customer, but I've used it in a professional capacity.)

[ConceptJunkie]

And it's still miles better than Hulu, who seem to have this compulsion to make their UI worse and less usable every 6 months or so.