A few days ago I was really bored and thought... Fck it, it can't really be that bad and paid for a month, wouldn't hurt to try...
Well that was a waste of money...
1st issue: Can't stream over airplay.
A common thing i do because I'm a lazy piece of sh!t is I have a piece of software called "uxplay" which is a software airplay server that works way better than it has any right to. So what I do when I'm too lazy to get up from my couch is I connect my Mac with the uxplay server and just watch things that way. It's a bog standard M3 MacBook air, nothing done to it, nothing...
So imagine my surprise when I tried to play Netflix while streaming over airplay and just saw a black screen... Yep, it just did not work... I couldn't believe it at 1st but yep, apparently it's a part of their DRM...
Issue 2: 4k is a lie...
Ok, I thought to myself, fine, I'll watch it on my Mac directly... But the quality looked... Off. Sure enough, it was streaming at 1080p with a bit rate so low I could practically count the pixels... Ok, I thought to myself, I've heard of Netflix having issues on Linux (why I didn't even try it on my PC) maybe I have something setup wrong... So I look at their docs and they state that safari should be able to play 4k full quality (yk, the thing I'm fucking paying for), I was trying to watch it on Arc (chromium based browser) so I thought, fair enough, I'm just gonna use safari... I log in do everything.
Still 1080p with an ass bit rate
Wtf
At this point I'm proper pissed off, I would have had less issues had I pirated the fcking show I wanted to watch at this point... But I gave it one last attempt, windows.
3rd issue: Windows... It's by itself an issue
So, I have a stealth windows GPU passthrough virtual machine... The kind that most kernel level AC can't detect. So I went "eh, if kernel level AC can't detect it, surely Netflix won't be able to". And to it's (the virtual machine's credit) it was not detected... Problem is, 4k still didn't fucking work. On Netflix's own fcking website it states that edge should be able to play 4k no issue, so I relented and reinstalled edge to my debloated VM... Well that was a waste of time, the bit rate was a bit better but it was still 1080p... I tried extensions, changing flags, nope, Netflix just did not wanna stream at 4k... DESPITE ME FUCKING PAYING FOR IT... Ok, I thought, I have one last option, Netflix has an official windows app, except it's only on the Microsoft store which just sat there for 5 minutes and then threw an error "unable to apply update" when trying to install the app...
Idk why people would ever pay for this shit, honestly. I didn't expect anything and I was still disappointed. I didn't expect it to work on Linux which is my daily driver but to be having issues on supposedly supported platforms, both Windows and Mac is completely unacceptable.
Afaik, their 4k plan is a straight up scam as I could not get it to stream at 4k, regardless of what I tried...
And I know it's not my internet or my setup, I have gigabit internet ffs...
Sorry for the rant, I'm just really butthurt about having spent money on a service that doesn't fcking work...
I canceled Netflix several years ago after having used it as my primary source of media almost since they first started their streaming service.
The problem I had is that the quality of their content decreased so dramatically that even though it worked fine from a technical perspective, there was nothing I wanted to watch. They used to have extensive back-catelogues of shows from all sorts of different national cable networks, tons of interesting foreign shows, documentaries, obscure indie films, etc.
Slowly but surely this all disappeared. Networks stopped licensing content to Netflix. As soon as they realized that streaming was the way of the future, they wanted to capitalize on it with their own streaming services. In a way, Netflix was a victim of their own success.
Now they're essentially just a TV network of their own and not the aggregator of media that they used it me. The few decent originals that they have were just not justification enough for me to pay for a service I might use a few times a year.
I've had it canceled until the next season of Sandman or the last season of Stranger Things. I don't need to subscribe while I wait. I didn't even subscribe for the couple of Christmas movies they have we normally watch.
I definitely get that. The big thing for me is music, and I routinely buy physical and digital copies of albums to add to my collection. I don't mind sending some money to help my favorite artists keep producing content that I enjoy. With video, though, it's just so much harder. I'd be happy to pay $50 or more per month for what Netflix used to be, or even buy downloadable copies of a TV series that I like. That's just not possible these days. I'd be subscribing to Netflix, Discovery, Paramount, Apple TV, probably a few more. It's ridiculous. Forget buying and downloading TV shows; there's no option for that at all. I'd rather just not watch TV or find an "alternate" means of getting the media I want.