I don't spend much time streaming, but I got a glimpse of the Amazon Prime catalog yesterday, and was surprised at how many titles on the front page were movies I'd actually watch. Reminded me of Netflix a dozen years ago.
Amazon Prime isn't so great. Lots of for rent/purchase content or content with ads these days. And they end up repeating slots of content in all the rows in their UI, so I end up seeing the same suggestions everywhere rather than much that's new (other than first party productions).
To me they're basically padding their front page.
But honestly that's most of the major streaming platforms these days. I recently cancelled Disney Plus for similar reasons. The only reasons I don't cancel prime or Netflix are because I have family members I split the memberships with to share.
I recently found a lil dvd rental place in my city. It’s a non-profit, they also do archivals and stuff.
It’s pretty much a two-story townhouse packed head to toe with DVDs (lots of blu rays!)
You don’t realize how limited the streaming collection is until you’re back in a movie store, looking through thousands and thousands of movies you would never find otherwise.
Since I found it, I’ve started doing movie night every week with my friends. It’s such an absolute blast. We go to the store, each pick out a random movie that looks good (or bad, in a good way) or just different.
That's an excellent option. I think it'd be remiss not to mention local libraries. Of course, your mileage may vary, but the ones I've gone to do seem to have adequate selections. I just don't often make time to go there and browse like I would have at traditional video rental places back in the day.
Heck, mine even have some video games; though from when I've checked they're usually pretty back-reserved.
I was in high school in the early 00s, and going to the movies was such a big part of my life. Now, I never even know what's out.
I suspect life stage is a factor, but it does feel like there are many classes of entertainment (cinema and standup come to mind) that don't resonate like they used to.
Back in the day everyone was watching the same thing.
The choices for entertainment were limited to whatever was showing in movie theatres, whatever was on TV and whatever record stores were selling.
I've given Netflix a lot more money than I've gotten value out of. I've had an account for ~15y and only really use it for airplanes unless there's a specific thing I'm excited to watch.
I'm in the same boat where as soon as they make it too hard to share, I'll probably cancel it. I think the main reason their sharing crackdown hasn't been a problem so far is that I use it so seldomly, it thinks the "main" address is my parents, which makes it easy for me to pass the "are you traveling" 2FA on my own phone when I do want to watch something.
> And they end up repeating slots of content in all the rows in their UI, so I end up seeing the same suggestions everywhere rather than much that's new
All of the streaming services do this and I hate it. Netflix is the worst of the bunch, in my experience. I already scrolled past a movie, I don't want to watch it, don't show it to me six more times.
Imagine walking through a Blockbuster where every aisle was the same movies over and over again.
There's also the "FreeVee" items, which have ads regardless of whether you're a prime subscriber or not. And it feels like a lot of their catalog has been transferred over to FreeVee.
It's been pretty rough the last few years. So many great films and series, not to mention kids programming, removed to make way for mediocre NeTfLiX oRiGiNaLs and Bollywood trash.
Prime Video has to be the worst of all major streaming services. The video quality is horrible, its crippled with ads (3 not skippable ads for an episode of 45 minutes, lastly), and a lot of interesting titles are behind a "partner paywall".
I have prime and my shopping experience is crippled with ads too.
I think it got worse for sellers recently too. If I search for something, like a specific item using its description, sometimes the only result for it shows "sponsored".
It used to show up as sponsored and also unsponsored below.
If this changed, I assume it is bad for the seller. Either they pay for all search results, or their metrics are skewed because all searches were helped by "sponsorship" (and there are no longer unsponsored hits)
I was watching the rings of power and it started with a "Commercial free experience provided by so and so" with a long ad at the start of the episode, and then a third of the way into the episode, at a critical action part, it broke in the middle of the actor's sentence to a 6 minute ad block.
I exited playback and haven't gone back to finish it. I'll wait for it eventually to make it to a Blu-ray release someday.
