Netflix fast forward: Let's take a step back

[Fasauceome]

As many already know, Netflix plans to implement a feature that will allow playback at higher speeds. From the discussions I've seen, people often fall into two camps: people who say the artists should have some say in how their art is experienced, and people who say the consumer is right. However, I think this discussion doesn't really revolve around these two points of view, and there are more opinions that aren't being touched on.

 

Primarily, I'm talking about consumer behavior. Now, a little while ago there was a lawsuit involving Instagram that targeted its auto scroll function that allowed video posts to just play automatically on a feed, and the claim was that this was bad for consumers and fed online addictions. However, I was of the opinion that this feature was not the cause, but the symptom. People want this feature, and so Instagram added it, they didn't implement it to trap people into using Instagram more. And so, when people talk about this new Netflix feature, I hear a lot about "Netflix can add features however they like" and a lot about "customer choice," but I have yet to hear anyone mention how there's a problem in how consumers just want to consume more and more media. I don't see an intrinsic problem with giving consumers what they want because the problem is ultimately the consumers themselves.

 

Any thoughts? More new opinions on this subject? Ideally we can avoid the discussion about artists vs Netflix because that discussion has been had plenty of times.

[boggy77]

I mean, Youtube has this option and also most decent media players. Why not have it on Netflix as well?

Maybe the dialogue is too fast for a non-native speaker. Maybe a documentary is too slow. Maybe some people just want to fit a season in a night.

[Fasauceome]

6 minutes ago, boggy77 said:

Maybe a documentary is too slow. Maybe some people just want to fit a season in a night

I can see the practicality of slowing down any media for comprehension but it's the speeding up aspect that is more representative of the issues I'm getting at

[Medtron]

Why would it be an issue though. Personally I wouldn’t use it much. The only reason I would slow the footage is to either find some kind of easter egg or to try and catch a better peek of some naughty scenes. 
 

When are they adding these feature anyway?

[Euchre]

I just watched the 11-13 episode of Techlinked, and that is not really a 'slow paced' video. I then restarted watching it at 1.5x speed, and it essentially cuts the 'lag' out, potentially killing some dramatic pauses, but helping keep the pace fast for those just wanting to ingest the content faster and move on. At 1.75x, it starts to be hard to follow, especially because the speech becomes chattery. At 2x, it is pretty much a joke.

 

Now, this was on an informational video done with some sense of aesthetic of fun. If you were watching a dramatic presentation with nuances of expression, it would probably ruin it. If you are just watching something dialog driven, especially with expository dialog, 1.5x probably wouldn't hurt much - you'd still know that Bob slept with Alice while Jack was in Mexico doing some cocaine mule runs. So, speeding stuff up really depends a lot on the nature of content.

[akio123008]

This reminds me a talk Tom Scott did a while ago, specifically the bit from 2:20 to 3:01:

 

[mrskeltal]

I think the whole fact that there is even a controversy about it at all is silly. YouTube just added the ability to queue up videos in their mini-player, creating a temporary playlist of videos so you can have that up, and nobody is making a fuss over that; This is just adding a new feature that is pretty standard feature in most music and video playback services, and people are freaking out over it for no reason. Likely the only reason it even garnered any attention is because Netflix is a big company, so they could change one font on their website and every article for the next week would be people over analyzing it ad nauseum.

[Roswell]

On the list of things I choose to care about in society, this doesn't even register. 

[Fasauceome]

1 minute ago, Vitamanic said:

On the list of things I choose to care about in society, this doesn't even register. 

But you did take the time to comment regardless

[Roswell]

1 hour ago, Fasauceome said:

But you did take the time to comment regardless

Correct, to insinuate that this is a stupid thing for people to care about.

[Fasauceome]

2 hours ago, Vitamanic said:

Correct, to insinuate that this is a stupid thing for people to care about.

You do you, we'll do us.

[Roswell]

31 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

You do you, we'll do us.

You posted this thread to seek feedback, no? Now you're seemingly annoyed at feedback that doesn't agree with your opinion. Are you just looking for confirmation bias?

 

Increasing playback speed has been a feature in AV for decades, I don't think it's going to be an issue.

[Fasauceome]

9 minutes ago, Vitamanic said:

You posted this thread to seek feedback, no? Now you're seemingly annoyed at feedback that doesn't agree with your opinion. Are you just looking for confirmation bias?

I was interested in different viewpoints on the discussion, but you seemed more interested in not having the discussion (as implied by your lack of interest) so it didn't really come across as any kind of feedback.