Rant and Rave: Netflix UK and US

[Parasondox]

Hello Escapist,
I really dont know if this has been brought up yet but my rant has got to be with Netflix. I'm from the UK and signed up to Netflix to see great shows and movies in the past so I don't have to buy DVD box sets and etc. I was listening to a podcast today, SchmoesKnow, and they mentioned you can watch Looper, and Freaks and Geeks on Netflix so when I went onto my account, they were unavailable. I did a bit more research into this and find out that US has why more better content than the UK Netflix and that has gotten on my nerves. Its not just movies and TV's shows we DON'T get here in the UK but so much other gadgets, faster broadband, fashion, comics and other things and personally I am getting fed up of it.

Am I the only one from the UK that is getting fed up of the restrictions and content we can't get here and how BEHIND we are when it comes to certain ideas and creative thought? Me personally I hate being limited and restricted.

 

[Hoplon]

Hello Escapist,
I really dont know if this has been brought up yet but my rant has got to be with Netflix. I'm from the UK and signed up to Netflix to see great shows and movies in the past so I don't have to buy DVD box sets and etc. I was listening to a podcast today, SchmoesKnow, and they mentioned you can watch Looper, and Freaks and Geeks on Netflix so when I went onto my account, they were unavailable. I did a bit more research into this and find out that US has why more better content than the UK Netflix and that has gotten on my nerves. Its not just movies and TV's shows we DON'T get here in the UK but so much other gadgets, faster broadband, fashion, comics and other things and personally I am getting fed up of it.

Am I the only one from the UK that is getting fed up of the restrictions and content we can't get here and how BEHIND we are when it comes to certain ideas and creative thought? Me personally I hate being limited and restricted.

Well...

one, we haven't actually got bad internet in the UK at all unless you are rural, in which case that doesn't change by country, rural internet sucks.

Two, the limitations on what you can watch on netflix is down to the IP owner, you know the horrible scat munchers that try to get laws like sopa passed so they own everything.

 

[Parasondox]

Hello Escapist,
I really dont know if this has been brought up yet but my rant has got to be with Netflix. I'm from the UK and signed up to Netflix to see great shows and movies in the past so I don't have to buy DVD box sets and etc. I was listening to a podcast today, SchmoesKnow, and they mentioned you can watch Looper, and Freaks and Geeks on Netflix so when I went onto my account, they were unavailable. I did a bit more research into this and find out that US has why more better content than the UK Netflix and that has gotten on my nerves. Its not just movies and TV's shows we DON'T get here in the UK but so much other gadgets, faster broadband, fashion, comics and other things and personally I am getting fed up of it.

Am I the only one from the UK that is getting fed up of the restrictions and content we can't get here and how BEHIND we are when it comes to certain ideas and creative thought? Me personally I hate being limited and restricted.

Well...

one, we haven't actually got bad internet in the UK at all unless you are rural, in which case that doesn't change by country, rural internet sucks.

Two, the limitations on what you can watch on netflix is down to the IP owner, you know the horrible scat munchers that try to get laws like sopa passed so they own everything.

We are now starting to get 4G while the rest of the world has been using it for years and it will be overprices here (Thank you very much EE)

If sopa was ever passed, I'll just be even more pissed off. Weeds is a great show but not well known here cause it was shown on More4 at 2am which is BULLSHIT.

Well adding on, the whole banning porn/opt in opt out debate is another matter too. David "silver spoon" Cameron is only bringing that up cause he wants votes from mothers because "we can't put a fucking filter on our own computers so lets just ban porn all together to protect our kids". Well don't let them on the internet and don't buy them a fucking iPhone at the age of 7.

 

[Total LOLige]

I heard a rumour that if you type the spanish word for "hello" followed by unblocker into google you can find an extension that gives you access to th US catalogue.

I agree it's total bull poop but what are you going to do? That's life, a steaming pile of dog shit.

 

[Parasondox]

I heard a rumour that if you type the spanish word for "hello" followed by unblocker into google you can find an extension that gives you access to th US catalogue.

I agree it's total bull poop but what are you going to do? That's life, a steaming pile of dog shit.

From one of my favourite movie "The people shouldn't fear the government. The government should fear the people"

So to answer it lightly, fight for what you believe in and not let greed and selfishness win.

 

[ubersyanyde]

Hello Escapist,
I really dont know if this has been brought up yet but my rant has got to be with Netflix. I'm from the UK and signed up to Netflix to see great shows and movies in the past so I don't have to buy DVD box sets and etc. I was listening to a podcast today, SchmoesKnow, and they mentioned you can watch Looper, and Freaks and Geeks on Netflix so when I went onto my account, they were unavailable. I did a bit more research into this and find out that US has why more better content than the UK Netflix and that has gotten on my nerves. Its not just movies and TV's shows we DON'T get here in the UK but so much other gadgets, faster broadband, fashion, comics and other things and personally I am getting fed up of it.

Am I the only one from the UK that is getting fed up of the restrictions and content we can't get here and how BEHIND we are when it comes to certain ideas and creative thought? Me personally I hate being limited and restricted.

As far as movies and TV goes, it's just the last remnants of laws about physical media that the companies are milking for every last penny, and I'm pretty sure our lack of other technologies is due to the fact that we are have a comparatively small population and therefore there's less money to be made. It sucks so much, but I don't know what to do about it.

I have found a way to access the US Netflix library though. It's a Chrome and Firefox extension called MediaHint.

 

[Esotera]

I'm just annoyed that they reduced the recently watched section in size to one show...I watch several shows and it's not unreasonable to want to press them from the front page rather than searching for them. Although the size of 10 was a bit ridiculous.

Anyway, you can blame this on big Hollywood rather than Netflix, they're the ones who are being unreasonable fat cats.

 

[captainballsack]

What about Netflix AUS?

Oh yeah. Don't exist.

 

[Arkaijn]

There's an extension for google chrome if you're on a PC, and a region tool if you're on a tablet. Both work without a hitch and you can easily switch between your countries netflix catalogue and the US one.

 

[Parasondox]

What about Netflix AUS?

Oh yeah. Don't exist.

Seriously? That's harsh. I know AUS is strict when it comes to violence in Video games but how restrictive is AUS??

 

[Albino Boo]

Hello Escapist,
I really dont know if this has been brought up yet but my rant has got to be with Netflix. I'm from the UK and signed up to Netflix to see great shows and movies in the past so I don't have to buy DVD box sets and etc. I was listening to a podcast today, SchmoesKnow, and they mentioned you can watch Looper, and Freaks and Geeks on Netflix so when I went onto my account, they were unavailable. I did a bit more research into this and find out that US has why more better content than the UK Netflix and that has gotten on my nerves. Its not just movies and TV's shows we DON'T get here in the UK but so much other gadgets, faster broadband, fashion, comics and other things and personally I am getting fed up of it.

Am I the only one from the UK that is getting fed up of the restrictions and content we can't get here and how BEHIND we are when it comes to certain ideas and creative thought? Me personally I hate being limited and restricted.

Well...

one, we haven't actually got bad internet in the UK at all unless you are rural, in which case that doesn't change by country, rural internet sucks.

Two, the limitations on what you can watch on netflix is down to the IP owner, you know the horrible scat munchers that try to get laws like sopa passed so they own everything.

Netflix being an early starter, have offered lower rates for IP's but now that there is competition IP owners can get better rates elsewhere. If netflix wants content its has to pay more than its rivals. As of the August 5th Looper has been available on lovefilm instant in the UK.

 

[captainballsack]

What about Netflix AUS?

Oh yeah. Don't exist.

Seriously? That's harsh. I know AUS is strict when it comes to violence in Video games but how restrictive is AUS??

Blame that Murdoch fellow. He doesn't want Netflix replacing Foxtel; he's willing to completely destabilize our government to do so.

 

[Parasondox]

What about Netflix AUS?

Oh yeah. Don't exist.

Seriously? That's harsh. I know AUS is strict when it comes to violence in Video games but how restrictive is AUS??

Blame that Murdoch fellow. He doesn't want Netflix replacing Foxtel; he's willing to completely destabilize our government to do so.

The same Murdoch fella that controls and manipulates our UK government here with phone hackings, owning half of the media (The Sun, bSkyb, News International, News. Corp, nearly all off the sporting rights to be aired on Sky Sports and movie rights to be aired on Sky Movies etc. etc.)? Don't worry we know about it and how easily our government can bend over backwards for him. Money talks.

 

[masticina]

How about Netflix NL, yup a dutchie here, they said they will bring out Netflix here. I worry that it will be full with the same dutch movies that other online dutch services already offer. Seriously I want access to series from america, there is where it happens.

Oh well we shall wait and see.

In the end the UK might have less then the USA but it does has series like Dr Who. It has its own quite capable series.

 

[Tiger King]

I often watch Netflix on my 360 and I noticed that as they add new episodes to a series, older ones become unavailable. It might be because it's an app version for 360 but that's still pretty weird.
American Netflix apparently dosent get a few things that uk Netflix has.

 

[Playful Pony]

Wuh, I understand your annoyance. In Norway I imagine we have even less to watch, the Norwegian Netflix library is a pittiful sight. Everyone I've talked to about Netflix says they had it for the first months subscription, then stopped because they had watched everything of interest. There is only a tiny selection of popular movies and TV series, and most of the series are incomplete with several seasons missing. For example we only get to enjoy the first 3 seasons of Mythbusters.

We get a bunch of very shitty Norwegian social-commentary movies, so I guess theres that...

 

[Legion]

I get this with anime. It really winds me up that in the "age of the internet" theoretically speaking the entire world could watch it at the same time, but for idiotic reasons we still are years behind with some things.

Hell, it's not much better with books. Spice and Wolf has 17 books all of them released in Japan with the last one being released on July 2011. In the US and UK we are at volume 8, volume 9 being released this month.

The same goes for many other series. It's not so much impatience as irritation at how illogical it is. I cannot see what benefit these companies gain from not just doing worldwide releases considering the digital technology is at the stage where it is possible.

 

[Doclector]

Oh, it goes beyond netflix. Did you know that the creators of south park made all episodes entirely free on the south park website?

But not in the UK. Here you have to pay a fee to unlock said contact for a day, week, or month.

hulu? That site that posts clips to youtube sometimes? They do a ton of free tv. But not in the UK. Not even one show.

It's bullshit. It's on the internet, there is no reason why this should matter, aside from bullshitty license laws.

And they're only shooting themselves in the foot by keeping it this way. They could be pocketing ad revenue from an entire untapped country of viewers, but no, they refuse to, and thus many of the people who would be feeding them money are just going to pirate the damn shows. Even if they would buy it on DVD, many aren't going to put up with the sometimes massive delay between shows premiering in the US, and here.

 

[shootthebandit]

America get BBC now and they dont even pay a TV license?????

 

[Yopaz]

I would think of this as an issue if I weren't aware of how expensive it is to get the rights to have the shows up.

Netflix in America has been around for some years now and as their userbase expands they can afford to branch out. As the number of customers increases they can pay for more content getting even more new customers.

Then when they grew big enough they were finally able to move over to Europe where this entire process had to start almost from scratch. I remember reading somewhere that they didn't expect it to be profitable for at least 2 years. They are running the service and losing money with the amount of content they have now. Of course we're not going to get the same amount of content as the part of the world actually being profitable for them.

You're not getting screwed over here.