[danpalmer]

Netflix's over-segmentation is the reason I ultimately stopped subscribing. You have to pay substantially more to get any of many screens, no ads, or 4K. As a single user who wants 4K, I then feel like I'm paying for something I don't need when the plan has many screens. None of the other big players like Amazon, YouTube, or Apple do this, all provide 4K to all subscribers and as far as I know only really segment by number of users, if they segment at all.

[matt-p]

I suspect almost everyone shares a netflix account with thier household and statistically there's few single person households. So this is life, everything is setup for the average even things like bin collections will assume multiple people in your house.

[danpalmer]

I shared Netflix with my family (parents, sister, brother) for 2 years and think I ran into the 2 screen limit twice. 4 screens seems just entirely unnecessary to me.

That said, if Netflix decided 4K was the segmentation for the higher plan and gave 4 screens to the lower plan, that wouldn't suit me personally, but I would prefer the pricing. Honestly the screens concept seems outdated with their anti-password sharing stuff now. Just apply the same WiFi pinning to all viewing and don't limit screens at all.

[Kye]

The more typical use case involves background TV running in multiple rooms. Much of what Netflix licenses and produces is made for this.

Recently: "Casual Viewing – Why Netflix looks like that" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42529756

It's easy to blow past four with a screen, not necessarily a TV, going in every room.

[formerly_proven]

Are there that many people with deep-fried brains like that?

[Kye]

Some people just do better with ignorable vibrations in their spaces.

[datadrivenangel]

It was a staple of the 90s/20s.

[danpalmer]

Even if we take a family of 4 as an example, who are at most 1/3rd of Netflix's user base according to another commenter, that means having 4 TVs/PCs, all on at the same time, and all with Netflix playing. That seems like a real edge case at the fringes to me, not least because it would necessitate no one in the family being together.

[formerly_proven]

Almost 30% of households are singles and another third are households of two.

[matt-p]

And netflix have two plans with only 1 screen.

[Mindwipe]

Amazon and Apple do not supply full HD or 4K to PCs at all.

YouTube do not even supply anything more than SD to PCs for rented or purchased titles.

Amazon lock Dolby Vision behind their ad free supplement. YouTube locks high bittrate 1080p behind YouTube Premium. Paramount lock 4K behind their upper tier. So do Disney.

You are, bluntly, flat wrong here.

[danpalmer]

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I don't use any of these services on PC, I'm just thinking of regular TV viewing. Apple, Amazon, and YouTube all provide 4K at all paying price points.

> YouTube locks high bittrate 1080p behind YouTube Premium

I'm discounting free tiers. I think it's fine to segment aggressively to get people into paying tiers, but nickle and diming paying users just sucks.

> Paramount lock 4K behind their upper tier. So do Disney.

I've never had either of these, but would be less likely to as a result.

I know 4K streaming is substantially more expensive than 1080p, but honestly the delivery is such a small fraction of the price being paid that it does not need to be associated with an increased cost.

[formerly_proven]

Amazon also doesn’t do HDR on PCs any more.