Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by nfellaby 2263 days ago
I think you'd be surprised.

From my perspective a large proportion of people in the UK have at least one 4K TV, (unfortunately) most of which are 'smart'. Carrying apps for Netflix, Prime, BBC etc.

Add to that that the majority of houses contain a current generation games console. From my perspective 4k in the UK has permeated most age groups and economic groups.

It is easy enough for most households to obtain speeds that can support 4K in the UK. The UK (as well as most of Europe I think) don't have data caps, means there is very little concern about streaming 4K.

I think the BBC did a really good job in the earlier days of 4K in releasing fantastic sports (Olympics & Football) and nature documentaries with David Attenborough.

However, I appreciate that this is a small section of the overall Netflix user-base and based on my somewhat bias viewpoint. I'm sure there are subsets of the UK that would disagree.
2 comments
Hamuko 2263 days ago
>From my perspective a large proportion of people in the UK have at least one 4K TV, (unfortunately) most of which are 'smart'. Carrying apps for Netflix, Prime, BBC etc.

Having a 4K TV with Netflix won't give you 4K Netflix. You need to actually pay extra for it, about a third more.

link
Gwypaas 2263 days ago
It also gives you 4 simultaneous users with the premium plan, which I would guess most families use simply based on that.
link
karatestomp 2263 days ago
If they’re sharing logins, maybe. I bet most families that manage to stream four things at once almost never try to do so on a single service at the same time. Can’t you still get Disney+ for about the price of upgrading to 4K Netflix? Or some-ads Hulu.
link
Gwypaas 2262 days ago
Of course, that's the point of the account to share logins, you still get your own user with your own lists, recommendations and all that. Though, Spotify handles it nicer where you can add your own account to the family group plan.

Not often, but often enough to become a nuisance with 2 TVs or so, some tablet/laptop for school work/gaming/whatever and a mobile device per person.

Yeah, I think that's about right.

link
test1235 2263 days ago
>a large proportion of people in the UK have at least one 4K TV

I don't own a 4k tv, so I was interested in the actual numbers:

"ownership of ultra-high definition (‘4K’) televisions has more than doubled in the past two years, from 17% in 2017 to 35% this year"

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/features-and-new...

Article from Nov 2019

link