Me and computers usually get along pretty well. But my old computer (laptop) had been “on the fritz” the last few days, and my new computer (an Alienware… came yesterday, pics soon!) is not being very friendly about me installing Ubuntu on it’s RAID1 configuration [part1part2].
Why am I telling “you” this? It means I haven’t gotten any work done recently, and contacting me via IM is pretty difficult… and I don’t have a dev environment since it’s Windows, so hang tight if you’re looking for more code from me.
And if you want to get in touch, email is best, for now.
posted on July 4th, 2008 at 2:07 pm by Kyle - Comments
I’ll be the first one to admit it… I love Netflix. With my addiction to all-things-SciFi, getting movies on a regular basis is great, and it lets me quickly catch up on all the movies that were before I become genre-sentient (or alive). Through it I’ve come to love many “great” series: The Terminator, Rocky, Rambo, Die Hard, etc.
But there’s one thing that really bothers me: Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” Feature.
In a new era of digital media, where you can have movies delivered to your home or stream them to your TV, you’d think the company that has pioneered (and continues to innovate) this market would make a better and more informed decision.
The FAILboat
Let’s take a look at what happens when I try to watch a movie through my computer using Netflix:
Yep. That’s right. I can’t. All because I don’t run Windows SP2 or higher, or use IE. Who would, in this day and age, restrict such a wonderful (and potentially highly revenue-generating) thing to such arkane requirements?
Demographics
Netflix, I think you should take a look at your demographics. Let’s do a quick analysis.
The audience that made you popular were geeks. Highly technically adept people that typically run the software they want, and spurn anything made by Microsoft. (Granted, this isn’t always true, but it’s true enough to work with.)
Your current userbase is most likely comprised of well-off white collar families, movie buffs, and geeks. Throw in a handful of college kids (who are probably highly technical as well), and you’ve got it.
Take a look at the recent browser metrics. If you believe even the lowest estimates, ~15% of the Internet uses Firefox. Not IE, but Firefox. And, given your userbase, I’m betting your server logs show something closer to 35%. Would you like to put odds on that?
While it’s difficult to get a solid number on the amount of non-server computers running Linux, the numbers are growing. Dell and ASUS, among others, are now offering Linux as the pre-installed OS… not to mention the unbelievable growth of Ubuntu, a flavor of Linux.
Do The Math
So, movie geniuses… do the math. Even if “only” 20% of your users are on Firefox, and maybe 10% use Linux, why would you alienate such a large amount of your paying customers? Just because they don’t conform to the money-hungry agenda of Microsoft doesn’t mean they should be punished. Choosing a better, and free, alternative should be something to celebrate.
We may not be Anonymous, but we are angry nonetheless.
Technology
While we’re at it, don’t give us the “technological restrictions” excuse. Anyone who’s worked with streaming media can tell you this is a load of crap. The only reason you can legitimately say your system is IE-dependent would be due to an ActiveX control… and in that case, you’re just FUBAR’d already anyways.
I’m not sure how the current system works, but I see there really only being two ways for you to stream through a browser:
Using a Flash-based Player
Embedding a Streaming Video File
Flash is one of the most universal things on computers in this day and age… YouTube doesn’t restrict their viewers to Windows + IE only, why should you?
And, if it’s a streaming file, there’s an easy answer too. People on Windows + FF should have no problems accessing a streaming file, even if it’s in some Windows format… it will just automagically open Windows Media Player.
We are rising, join us while we still like you!
Those of us on Linux + FF know MORE THAN ENOUGH to be able to run a streaming file in a media player. Maybe it doesn’t work when we click. But that doesn’t really bother us, because we get what we want, and know how to do it. Chances are we already have the media player (and codecs) to support the format… all we need is the location of the stream. Which is very easy for you to give us.
Conclusion
In the end, any reason or excuse you can provide for these restrictions comes down to pure and utter nonsense. You need to resolve this issue, before your users get more frustrated (which may hurt you in the long run), and especially as the market share for Firefox and Linux continue to grow at unprecedented rates.
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Update (6/9/2008 12:32pm PST): Neil from Netflix (confirmed via IP address) posted a snarky rebuttal in Comment #1. See my equally snarky reply in Comment #2.
posted on June 8th, 2008 at 11:51 pm by Kyle - Comments
Linux drivers are apparently becoming a priority at different companies… this is a surprising, but not totally unexpected, move, especially when Adobe just launched a Linux version of Flex.
No. The other kind.
One of my only, and largest, complaints with Linux (since I run Ubuntu as my OS) is drivers. How can there be such an extensive library of drivers, with a GUI interface, for printers (”CUPS”), and yet other drivers are widely ignored? Installing wireless drivers is a huge undertaking, and many of the devices (especially embedded wireless) are just flat-out not supported.
Why is this the case? The easy answer is that despite people complaining and wanting this to change, companies have typically only released drivers for Windows and Mac OS’s. To get these drivers to work on a Linux box, you have to either run a Windows-driver emulator, or wait until someone puts together a sloppy hack to get the devices working.
But with the recent rise of Ubuntu in the OS marketshare, we are no longer being completely ignored. Adobe is rumored to be developing a Linux port of CS3. Other companies are rumored to be preparing official drivers for release. And, most importantly of all, a “wireless driver manager” is going to be integrated into the Ubuntu system…
Exactly.
Who says Linux isn’t user-friendly? Definitely much more than “ask me 17 times to confirm an action” Vista.
posted on October 3rd, 2007 at 11:48 am by Kyle - Comments
