Annoying things streaming services does
Since I watch a lot of movies I interact with several streaming services. They provide a great deal of value and ease of access to many of the movies I want to see, but they come with their fair share of annoyances.
Promotional trailers
Some subscription tiers are lower priced by having ads, but even if you pay for the most expensive subscription, some services still want to show trailers for some of their other content. There should be no need for that. I have made my choice by clicking play on a specific movie or episode, so I want to get to it. Showing me something completely different is very off-putting. Often it is not even relevant. Currently, SkyShowtime is showing a 10 second unkippable trailer for Kung Fu Panda 4 on everything. If I want to watch an episode of Frasier or Hitchcockâs The Birds, I see Kung Fu Panda. Even the otherwise good streaming service Mubi does this, though thankfully they have a skip button. But that is still one button click too many.
Suggestions during credits
While I donât intend to watch the entire credit roll of a movie, often when a movie ends, you want to sit for a bit and let the ending settle and be with your thoughts for a while. But many services are very keen on jumping directly to show me recommendations on what to watch next. It felt especially nefarious when I saw Schindlerâs List, which is very much a type of movie you want to have a little breather once it is over. But I was barely given a second before the screen was filled with a âHow about watching Saving Private Ryan next?â recommendation. While objectively a decent option for a similar movie, but please - let people relax and process what they have just watched. Cinematic masterpieces are not be treated like an endless scroll of reels.
Continue watching
A pretty basic feature of any sort of streaming service would be the option to continue from where you left off. Of course they all have that, but some services are making it annoyingly difficult to find. The most sensible thing would be to have that as the first thing on the front page if you are in the middle of something, but many services thinks it is a better idea to have that a couple of pages down below full screen ads for whatever is the latest addition. In addition, some services canât figure out to clear the âcurrently watchingâ list, with several movies being stuck because I havenât watched the last minutes of the credits yet.
Content warnings
I am generally fine with content warnings and I understand the need for them to exist. Most of it are pretty innocent with stuff like âstrong languageâ or âsubstance abuseâ, but sometimes they can slip into spoiler territory if there is a warning about suicide for example. I wish there at least was an option to disable them entirely.
Physical media?
With all my complaints an obvious solution would be to go to physical media. I am not a collector by any means as I only have a couple of hundred DVDs and Blu-rays, but I like owning physical media for many reasons. Even they have their share of annoying problems. Most of all the often unskippable FBI warnings and studio logos. Some also show trailers before you can get to the very slow loading menu screen. Even something as basic as continuing where you stopped is seemingly removed on some discs, where I have to start over with the FBI warnings and slow loading menu screen. That is thankfully not a general problem. It seems as the more mainstream a movie is, the more of these technical restrictions there appears to be on the disc.