from the we-interrupt-this-binge-to-bring-you-another-binge dept.
Submitted via IRC for Fnord666
The news emerged via user reports, particularly on the primary Netflix Reddit community, in which users claimed that ads for entirely different series would play between episodes of a given show's binging. One initial claim said that "unskippable" ads for the AMC series Better Call Saul appeared between episodes of Rick & Morty and that this ad appeared while using Netflix's smart TV app on an LG set in the UK. Replies to that thread included an allegation that a video ad for I Am A Killer (a Netflix-produced true-crime series) appeared between episodes of the animated comedy Bob's Burgers.
An American Netflix user offered more details for exactly how the ads appear:
After the episode ended, I got a screen saying "More Shameless up next... " then the title card slid off screen, and it continued with, "but first check out Insatiable" [a Netflix-exclusive series] and started playing the trailer.
In a statement given to Ars Technica, Netflix described the change as follows: "We are testing whether surfacing recommendations between episodes helps members discover stories they will enjoy faster." The reasoning, Netflix's statement says, comes from its last controversial decision: to add auto-playing videos, complete with unmuteable audio, while browsing through Netflix content.
Netflix offered a major rebuttal to at least one Reddit claim, pointing out that the ads for Netflix content are entirely skippable.
Related Stories
Netflix burns cash at a record pace, but investors love it
In its third quarter earnings statement on Tuesday, the company reported negative free cash flow of $859 million, the biggest figure in its history. Netflix continues to increase spending on original content as it seeks to compete with other players like Hulu, HBO and planned streaming services like Disney's, scheduled for next year. Netflix will reportedly spend at least $8 billion on content in 2018.
It would be a shame if someone were to pirate or illicitly stream that content.
Netflix has criticized the EU's local content quotas:
Netflix used its third quarter earnings report to criticize the European Union over a new content quota for streaming services. The EU, writes Netflix CEO Reed Hastings in the report, is "currently rewriting its audio visual rules" that will demand streaming services like Netflix "devote a minimum of 30 percent of their catalog to European works." Netflix's report acknowledged that catering to a specific audience encouraged more regional original programming for international audiences, but suggested that enforcing quotas on a streaming service could have unwanted negative effects.
Netflix is already set to spend $1 billion on European content this year.
Also at MarketWatch.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MostCynical on Sunday August 19 2018, @10:33PM
one of the government funded channels in Australia started running ads for other programs between programs.
Then they started running ads for anything, then they started putting ads every 15 minutes.
Still better than the "commercial" channels, but advertisements interrupting a program is annoying.
Add the "appropriateness" issues (G rated advertisement for Adults-only show), and torrents look more and more attractive.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Appalbarry on Sunday August 19 2018, @10:34PM (11 children)
The reasoning, Netflix's statement says, comes from its last controversial decision: to add auto-playing videos, complete with unmuteable audio, while browsing through Netflix content.
Our household has very nearly abandoned Netflix, and the auto-play videos are a large part of it. We dread trying to find something to watch.
(Which, admittedly, has been improving compared to a year ago when all that we seemed to be offered was Korean sit-coms and narco-drama.)
It feels as if Netflix is modeling their behaviour on Google.... "This works well, so what can we do to make it less useful, and more irritating?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 19 2018, @10:40PM (1 child)
I wouldn't have Netflix if I had to actually pay for it. Perhaps a couple months out of the year for the must-watch originals, but other than that it's a complete waste of money. There's so little content that interests me and it's so hard to find any of it that I tend to not bother watching it most days. If I'm lucky, I'll find a TV series that I like and can watch for a few weeks, but in general, I have to search at least 12 times to find something that I'm interested in, at which point I've probably run out of time for TV viewing.
And it's getting worse, less content, terrible search tools and if not for T-Mobile paying, it would be getting more and more expensive. Pretty soon it's going to be better to just go with Redbox on demand.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 19 2018, @10:49PM
They want more than$100 for a boxed set. So far I have watched several series. Torrents are good. Having it all available is better.
What I don't understand is why they can't build an index for their content. Is it that hard to write a page with every movie title? Every tv series?
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday August 20 2018, @12:22AM (4 children)
Yeah, I'm kinda thinking of unsubscribing today. Right now.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday August 20 2018, @12:57AM (3 children)
Well, consider two things first:
1) They're skippable.
2) You can turn off the live previews audio, and Netflix respects that. Meaning, it is applied site-wide. If you scroll down past it you don't even see it.
The one thing they claim of value about it, actually does work for me. Telling me about other shows I have access to is actually something valuable, even if Netflix made them separately playable.
I'm not quitting over this because these new features actually do help you manage a library, and Netflix is one of your libraries. I would want it in Kodi, which is something I've yet to play with.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Monday August 20 2018, @02:16PM (2 children)
Yeah, but there's basically only one metric netflix gives two fucks about. You smush a | and a S together. I'm not playing the cable game again. I'll buy shows alacarte and pirate before I put up with any sort of ads.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday August 20 2018, @07:05PM (1 child)
Could you explain that a bit more please?
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday August 20 2018, @10:02PM
Netflix needs to see money stop coming in before they'll stop purposefully getting worse.
Trying to route me to the content where they don't pay royalties is still ads and it's still annoying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 20 2018, @12:29AM (1 child)
> ... auto-playing videos, complete with unmuteable audio ...
I'm not a Netflix user, but I wonder about this "unmuteable" bit -- my TV is wired to optionally play through an external amplifier (an older analog receiver) and I believe that when I use it the built-in TV sound is off completely. Clearly there is no way that they can remotely control the mute on my receiver, it's a switch on the front panel!
Even if your TV mute didn't work, can't you turn the volume down to "inaudible" while browsing content?
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday August 20 2018, @01:22AM
I don't think they mean "un-mutable" as in "your physical mute button for your TV is disabled." Yes, obviously they have no control over that.
I think they meant "un-mutable" in that there's no option to disable autoplaying audio in some circumstances (e.g. like a mute "button" on a YouTube video, except in this case the random audio starts playing on an ad for a Netflix series, which can be very annoying when every series you scroll past starts playing an ad).
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday August 20 2018, @01:05AM (1 child)
Did they really? Dumped them a couple years ago because the content was shit. If they're now playing auto-play video with unmutable audio I'll never go back to them.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 20 2018, @06:34PM
Yup, they really did. I still use it to watch a few things, but the ad-autoplay mis-feature is really, really annoying, and I've found I watch Netflix a lot less than I used to, and when I thought about it, I realized it was because I dread those things starting on their own, so I browse their content less, which means I watch their content less. Now unless Roku search takes me directly to something on Netflix, I pretty much don't watch it at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 19 2018, @10:54PM (1 child)
...and this is the result, what can be possibly be abused will eventually be.
The same thing happened when people opted for pay tv to access premium content. All they did is making free tv shittier and pay tv like free tv.
When TV or radio has too many ads, switch to a different channel or activity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 20 2018, @12:42PM
Still at least, you always will be able to control the audio volume, like in your phone... err wait!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday August 19 2018, @11:41PM (5 children)
https://www.eastidahonews.com/2018/08/relax-binge-watchers-netflix-is-not-adding-commercials/ [eastidahonews.com]
They say it's a trial, that it can be skipped, etc. Although skipping doesn't really excuse the disruption.
Incidentally, I did a new install of Kodi [soylentnews.org], added the Exodus plugin (updated in June by new developer(s)), and everything seems to work just fine.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday August 20 2018, @01:12AM (4 children)
What are you running Kodi on? I've got a pi 3B+ running my Plex server and love it. I've read there is a stripped down Kodi that runs on a pi 3B+.
Should I install Kodi on my pi, wait for the next pi version (not holding my breath), or buy a machine dedicated to being a Kodi server ($100 on craigslist)?
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday August 20 2018, @02:04AM (2 children)
I put it on somebody's Fire TV stick. It's the 2nd generation (2016) one, listed here [wikipedia.org]. They said it was $40 on sale.
The CPU in your Pi 3B+ is better than the one in Fire Stick 2016. Not sure about the GPU.
I would just experiment. I believe Kodi should work just fine on your RasPi, but if you do want to try the cut-down version, choose LibreELEC [wikipedia.org] because developers switched to it from OpenELEC.
I mean, what's the worst case scenario? It kills the SD card? You'll be ok.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 20 2018, @12:59PM (1 child)
None of the RPi3+ nor FireStick support hardware x265 decoding and that is starting to become an issue.
Fire TV and Odroid C2 does.
Kodi in LibreElec works pretty well even with the old RPi3 for x264 FullHD content but don't expect to have much fun playing 4K (nor DVD MPEG2 without the extra paid license even if the patent just expired)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday August 20 2018, @05:36PM
For future proofing I am not getting a device until I know it comes with AV1 [wikipedia.org] hardware decoding support, which could mean waiting until 2020. In the interim, devices will probably gain 8K H.265 support [anandtech.com]... woohoo...
AV1 requires no licensing fees. It's also supposed to be more efficient at higher resolutions such as 4K.
That being said, on a small TV or computer, I don't see much benefit to anything above 720p, and I have a system where H.265 720p can work but H.265 1080p comes to a screeching halt (which is just as well since the screen is 1366×768).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 20 2018, @03:39AM
Buy an Odroid C2 or a RockPro64 and 4K shouldn't be a problem. If that isn't a requirement, stick with the Pi and that should be fine. There's almost definitely an optimized build floating around.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 19 2018, @11:44PM
Bullshit. A commercial that cannot be skipped or muted is the opposite of enjoyable. This has nothing to do with Netflix wanting to help its customers.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday August 19 2018, @11:47PM (6 children)
Disclaimer, I'm not a netflix user. I'm a little confused, free services usually are coated in spam as the only source of revenue and pay services are ad-free because the users pay not to be spammed, and AFAIK netflix is exclusively a paid service, so why would there be ads?
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Monday August 20 2018, @12:01AM
Because it makes them even MORE money.
And those stupid little consumertards will continue to pay for the service anyway.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 20 2018, @12:16AM
Have you ever paid for cable tv?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday August 20 2018, @12:27AM
Well, if you were going to put any kind of ad on a streaming service, a promo for one of the service's other shows would probably be the most relevant kind of ad. Unlike cable TV, which tries to advertise toilet paper and anti-depressants to everyone, to the point where we had to invent a way to skip it all (DVR).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday August 20 2018, @01:23AM (1 child)
If it's just "ads" for their other shows they might not consider them to be "ads" but "information". Either way this once again proves that the Pirated versions (stream, torrent, direct download) is the superior product.
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday August 20 2018, @02:14AM
Yep, and I watch only pirated even though I pay for some legal.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday August 20 2018, @05:19PM
That was yesterday when they were trying to get buy-in and adoption.
This is today when they absolutely must have to make more this quarter than the last quarter and even plateaued income levels are in no way acceptable because then someone else will eat their lunch. Those little blips translate to less users cancelling their service. "But the ads are very short and just for other Netflix programs! They help you find something else you want to watch!"
Today it's ads for other Netflix services. Tomorrow, when they have people gentled to that and absolutely need more money to account for inflation and mollify the shareholders it'll be very short ads for other products. But they're shorter than YouTube (which has now begun running two ads three or four times during a 15 minute video,) just at the end, and way less than cable or broadcast. "We're better than they are, so stay with us!"
The only thing I'm trying to figure out is if this strategy is genuinely new or simply accelerated from the way it always has been. Not sure.
[And I realize you knew the above.... just what passed through my brain when I read your comment.]
This sig for rent.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 20 2018, @12:40AM (1 child)
All of my videos are commercial free. No lead in commercials, no lead out commercials, no commercial breaks.
I do not have any auto-play videos. A video plays because I push play, not before.
I also watch what I want, when I want, why I want.
What is my solution? Just download all the stuff one wants to watch from torrents.
There is a reason why this info-graphic was created: http://i.imgur.com/GxzeV.jpg [imgur.com]
Switch away now, enjoy a better experience.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 20 2018, @06:04AM
What torrent site replaced ironing?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 20 2018, @09:09PM (1 child)
Reminds me of cable in the early days " commercial free ".. that didnt last long.
Next you get commercial breaks in the middle of a show..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @03:49PM
I am paying money for video on demand. I did not demand commercials. Fuck off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 22 2018, @08:21AM
If I see an ad for a show in the middle of a binge I will avoid that show
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday August 23 2018, @03:20PM
When I watch a show and it gets to the end, I want to be able to see the trailing credits, and after that I want it to stop. How do I get it *not* to start the next show already? I find myself preferring Crunchyroll to Netscape. Crunchyroll does stop and let me ask for it to continue. And it often has better shows.