Netflix Reduces Streaming Video Quality in Europe to Lower Data Usage and Ease Strain on Broadband Networks

Konigi said:
I'm amazed (and shocked) by the number of people here who only think about themselves and do not see the bigger social issue here. We're all in this together. We got to make some little sacrifices so that everyone can enjoy Internet smoothly.

I can't even take seriously your "Oh no I can't have 4k anymore" tears. 1st world problem.
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Are you expecting the same sacrifice from the companies that clearly oversold their bandwidth?

Be sure to let me know when they sacrifice the company holiday party to spend that money on having adequate bandwidth for their services for the price they charge.
 
konqerror said:
Simple math: If I add 25% more users, my bandwidth requirements go up by 25%, so I buy 25% more equipment or pay the same to ISPs, but my revenue goes up by 25%. So it all balances out on the infrastructure side.
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Sure, but what if the same user now watches movies for an average 4 hours instead of 2? Double the bandwidth, same paying user. That’s what is going on now as people are in quarantine at home.
 
recoil80 said:
but they need to pay carriers for bandwidth, that’s the point. We don’t know the deals they have with carriers, but I doubt they have a fixed cost.
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It's a good thing Netflix charges their customers for access then.

Where is all the money going? Netflix has over 150 million subscribers... each paying at least $10 a month. That's $1.5 billion coming in every month.

If Netflix is worried about not having enough money to pay for bandwidth... maybe Netflix should reduce the number of extraneous show they produce.

There's no need to greenlight 500 new shows every year. Most of them get zero viewership.

The following video may be parody... but it's pretty close to the truth:

 
recoil80 said:
Sure, but what if the same user now watches movies for an average 4 hours instead of 2? Double the bandwidth, same paying user. That’s what is going on now as people are in quarantine at home.
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That's a short-term thing. As people go back to work, their viewing will decrease. What their business model in a worldwide emergency situation isn't correlated with their long-term business model, as the original comment I replied to was talking about. It's not like restaurants and bars will survive being closed forever.

In fact, there may be an opposite effect to balance things out: shows aren't being produced, and the shows that are can go barebones (see today's Conan article), thus actually reducing the cost of acquiring content.
 
now i see it said:
4K (or even 1080P) quality is unnecessary anyway. Not too long ago, the best quality movie you could rent or buy was on DVD and those are 720P. Nobody complained back then...
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DVDs were 480i (or if you had a decent enough player, 480p).

The Bluray of Dune was probably the first semidecent release of the film.

What colour was the Attreides livery?
 
So where is the data from the EU stating that their networks are at or nearing capacity?

Or did the ISPs lobby the government as they have been known to hate video streaming services, mainly because it cuts into their cable packages?
 
konqerror said:
Simple math: If I add 25% more users, my bandwidth requirements go up by 25%, so I buy 25% more equipment or pay the same to ISPs, but my revenue goes up by 25%. So it all balances out on the infrastructure side.
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A very common misconception, no, your revenue does not need to go up by 25%. Only the part of your revenue spent on your ISP bill or equipment, either one that hiked 25%. That's when it balances out.
 
I haven't seen one person in here mentioning the difference between resolution and bitrate. They're not changing the effing resolution, they'll just tweak the bitrate a bit. You'll get your damn 4K with a lower bitrate and you'll have to suck it up!
 
It probably depends on the country. We've not experienced any significant slowdowns here in Austria while everybody is in lockdown. I don't mind, but it really doesn't make much sense here.
 
whyamihere said:
If Netflix won't refund the difference to those paying for 4K, those customers should send an invoice to the EU for compensation. It's their fault after all. Perhaps they should be more worried about the underlying issue (inadequate network infrastructure in their union).
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Address that to:

EU
One EU Lane,
EU, EU
 
mattnotis said:
Talk about salt in a gaping wound! Imagine being cooped up in your apartment for weeks on end with nothing to watch but VHS-quality crap. Glad I have a decent Blu-ray collection for when this happens in the US.
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Who said VHS quality? They said it won't be bad.
Anyway, even if it were VHS quality, "big deal."
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WoodpeckerBaby said:
They over-sold the bandwidth. It's that simple. If you sell 25 of the 100mbps connections and merge those links to a 1gbps backbone... It will be fine most of the time, but not now, not when everyone is watching HD+ at home simultaneously.
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Not sure this is an issue since it's about peak usage, not aggregate. Before this hit, there was a hotspot of usage when people came home from work and turned on Netflix. Does the lockdown make this hotspot worse? If anything I'd expect it to lessen it even though the aggregate usage is up.

So tbh, I suspect the EU is mistaken here, and the ISPs really have no problem.
 
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macduke said:
Someone is being the grown-up
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No. Someone is acting as if "being the only adult in the room" is a role that brings political benefits. A real adult would recognize that most everybody else is an adult, and present a logical reasoned argument (with statistics) as to why these measures are necessary, and why they might solve a real problem. If these measures encourage some to break quarantine, it doesn't matter that those individuals were "selfish" or "stupid", or "childish", it only matters that quarantine was broken, and epidemiological consequences attached.
 
DrRadon said:
Actual chain of events.

Some EU Politician that has no clue says "Make all the streaming slower!"

Telekom is like "Bro, we have no issues at all and tons of capacity."

Netflix "Ok, we listen to the politician that has no clue because the story gained PR traction."


But a good thing that it dos not only get reduced at working hours but 24/7 for 30 days. What a bunch of no good geeks we got in some positions of power...
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This. From the way the article was phrasing things, you'd think this was a power grid, not the internet. Copes with a spike in the evening but can't handle the same traffic all day? My butt.
 
flowsy said:
I haven't seen one person in here mentioning the difference between resolution and bitrate. They're not changing the effing resolution, they'll just tweak the bitrate a bit. You'll get your damn 4K with a lower bitrate and you'll have to suck it up!
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Even before this, the 4K was a scam because it didn't come with the bitrate to really matter. Which makes me have even less sympathy for those complaining 4K subscribers.
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CIA said:
Clearly the EU's networks are crap if they can't handle this load. Time to deploy some more fiber.
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I think they can in fact handle the load.
 
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konqerror said:
Simple math: If I add 25% more users, my bandwidth requirements go up by 25%, so I buy 25% more equipment or pay the same to ISPs, but my revenue goes up by 25%. So it all balances out on the infrastructure side.
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This logic doesn’t work because we’re not adding users. Netflix has roughly 61M US users (paying, discounting sharing of accounts). What we are adding is the number of hours of use each existing paying user is using. The cost Netflix pays for content is also irrelevant. Their profit margin is based on how many times that can sell that content. Their costs are determined not just by the cost of the content, which is effectively fixed, but by the the variable cost of the bandwidth required to provide that content. Their costs are increasing as more content is consumed per paying customer, not by how much they are paying for the content.
 
kc2kth said:
This logic doesn’t work because we’re not adding users. Netflix has roughly 61M US users (paying, discounting sharing of accounts). What we are adding is the number of hours of use each existing paying user is using.
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Again, we're not talking about an emergency situation. The amount of leisure time people have isn't changing. People still work 40 hours a week, unless you're saying that number will decline, I don't see how people will be watching significantly more video.

In fact, as competition in streaming increases, the same TV hours will be spread over more services, leading to a net decrease in viewer hours.

Even if people are watching more, it only affects the variable cost portion of their expenses. Costs of bandwidth and storage always declines, and compression improves. As I've been pointing out, the bitrates between 4K and 1080 are comparable. As you say, their fixed cost doesn't change, only their variable.

And finally, the simple fact that they're charging more for 4K today blows a hole in your argument.
 
Coconut Bean said:
Oh the irony of this, coming from a resident of a country that has data caps on broad band and bandwidth throttling...
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never had a problem with either here...
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1080p is acceptable. SD is 480 p and makes me nauseous to look at on a 4k tv

nutmac said:
Since the bandwidth is merely reduced by 25%, I am guessing Premium tier subscribers will still get 4K HDR, just at reduced quality due to 25% bandwidth reduction. Maybe downgraded to 1080p HDR?

The right thing for Netflix to do is serve all contents at SD while temporarily offering discount to Premium and Standard tier customers.
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