To most people, Netflix is a great service. It gives you access to so many movies and TV shows for not really a lot of money. But for some, it's not as great. And for me, at times it can get annoying. Being from Europe, I only have access to a small sampling of the Netflix library, much of it still being locked away in the US, or delayed by many, many weeks, months, even years, for reasons that are stupid. Regional copyright locks because of different deals with local distributors for a different medium, like TV, are stupid.
There are no oceans on the internet, and someone that's waiting to watch a movie on TV probably isn't all that bothered by it being on Netflix a month earlier. It sure as hell won't bother someone just waiting for the Netflix version, because they don't care about traditional TV at all... and this is the main problem, there's pressure from established distribution chains to cripple the availability of the Netflix library, which is why distribution deals through Netflix tend to be temporary and not valid through the entire world. But that's not what I mean by Netflix sucking so much. Neither is it actually paying people money for absolute trash like The OA and awful propaganda disguised as documentaries. My problem with it comes from using it on Windows.
To put it simply, it is an awful, awful experience. For starters, if I actually want to watch HD video, I have only two options. I have to use Microsoft Edge, the hatless spawn of Internet Explorer, or the Netflix app from the Microsoft Store. Let's start with that one:
Oh, look, it's the Android app ported to Windows with no features that would presume mouse control, or a big screen. It's endlessly scrolling lists that can't be expanded to their own dedicated screen. It is simply a lazy port, and for a company that is raking in money by the truckload that's just unacceptable.
And the in-browser experience isn't much better. It has the habit of posting those giant ads for their own shows, that take up way, way too much space. What's the point of that? Really? It then has the tendency to keep shuffling the rows, so that the "continue to watch" one gets buried somewhere in the deep. It will constantly remind me of new episodes for the shows I watch... about 2 days after they show up and I've already watched them. If I started watching something, turns out it was kinda bad, it'll still be there, in the UI with "continue watching" even though I thumb it down and remove it from the list. I have to go into the account settings to remove it from the watch list, instead of having that option in the interface. Heck, it could have been done as a right click functionality if it had a proper dedicated app, instead of a poor port.
There isn't even a unified design between the two. One of them is gray, the other is black, they have settings in different places, like volume or subtitles, and the Android one even has a button that takes the video back a few seconds that's missing from the browser one.
What bothers me most is that Netflix has been like this since the beginning (since it's been available in Romania, I mean), and it hasn't improved. It hasn't changed. It still looks like it was half-designed, which is really mind boggling considering how much money is generated through this UI.
Is anyone else as bothered by this as I am? Or is it the fact that I pay 10 euros for it making me blow it out of proportions?