Just trying to understand. I honestly don't have any different experience between the streaming services, from Netflix to HBO/ Disney/ Crunchyroll/ Paramount+/ Hulu, they all just play, pause, save progress and occasionally error out. I also couldn't name any new feature I've noticed in the last many years of Netflix subs. What am I missing here that Netflix is using top talent for?
From my experience working at YouTube, better engineers will find you innovative ways to reduce the resource costs. Processing and storing videos is very compute and storage heavy (duh!). If a top tier engineer can find you an innovative way to reduce the resource cost while keeping the quality metrics constant, it is a net profit for the company.
They are using top talent so that they become a tech company and are valued as a tech company, not a content company, which they actually are
This 🤌🏻
Scale could be one aspect - Netflix has 2-5x the subscribers of other platforms, and active viewership time is also probably higher, given that it is more internationally available. The catalog is bigger too. I would be curious to know what the rate of growth is though ... Can existing employees now be "Elon Musked" out of their jobs if things have reached a steady state? Design seems marginally better. Recommendations ... not sure, still have trouble deciding on any new unknown content.
Netflix used to be ahead of everyone else. Fast browsing, relevant recommendations, faster playback, less buffering, less errors etc.
Still better than the hot garbage is that is Disney+
Recommendations and search have been broken since eternity.
I have worked with now Netflix engineers, and can tell you there is nothing special about them. An Amazon L6 equivalent at FAANG is comparable to Senior at Netflix. The pay is to command absolute loyalty and push their crap Netflix culture (pt 4) as acceptable in the bay area - it’s really just a bit more posh Amazon. btw, after they added levels - who knows? 🤷♀️
They now have levels?
Just saw levels.fyi. damn! I've clearly been out of touch
Look at the streaming services you mentioned and then look at ones that are profitable.. and you’ll find your answer. If you think streaming “profitably” is commoditized, we just need to agree to disagree Does that mean every Netflix engineer is a superstar? No effing way.. however I’ve been at 4/5 FAANGs and can tell you that the chunks owned by most Netflix engineers around me is way more than a L6 at Amazon or Google (but that may just be my small world inside Netflix)
People also forget headcount. Netflix owns infrastructure of equivalent complexity to YouTube and integrates with loads of embedded devices. And yet, it's a fraction of the headcount Google/Amazon/Facebook deploy.
If you honestly think the performance between streaming apps is the same, you might not even be qualified to use Blind to ask this question.
Consumer streaming apps usually limit the bitrate to save on networking charges. The best video quality I've ever had was a Major League Gaming stream. 3 seconds of latency, bitrate and quality extremely close to native 1080p. Honourable mention to Dota2, which famously reconstructs the livestreams in client as a live spectator mode. I've spent half a decade showing people direct comparisons between native screenshots of the Dota2 client and YouTube to illustrate video compression. A brilliant piece of engineering. Netflix's compression magic is very good, but always traded off towards lowering bitrate vs native quality. Netflix's compression algorithm still doesn't match that near native MLG stream except if you compare Netflix 4K to 1080p. Cinema buffs always ordered blue rays by mail. Netflix's tech advantage wasn't in the consumer application. Embedding a video app into a Samsung isn't a true moat. Frankly, the Netflix UX is also a bit rubbish. Netflix's edge was its stack for caching/routing/serving video files to minimise the insane network transfer charges. Achieving this in 2010-2015 was unbelievable. Netflix led in serving video content, Google/Facebook followed. In 2023, it's commoditized. Moore's Law plus senior talent poaching. Disney is pretty good, (Amazon Prime's quality is garbage in fairness). Nowadays, Netflix's only moat is content. The app has mediocre UX, the recommendation algorithm is so so, the infra is commoditized.
Sure Jan.
Google is just returning bunch of results based on keyword. 🤔
They perform the aame for you, a US citizen, the US has all the right infrastructure. For me who live outside of the US there is a significant performance difference between Netflix and the others. When i had internet issues, Netflix is the only one that still work flawlessly, that is engineering
Good question 🤔