Sophomore Nguyen Do dropped his backpack on the floor the moment he arrived home from track practice two months ago, anxious to finish “Rocky II,” the movie he had started the weekend before. But as he turned on his TV and booted up Netflix, his expression morphed from pure excitement to confusion and disappointment. The film had completely disappeared from the streaming service’s library.
Content streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Instant Video have become a staple of modern life, with over 100 million people using them to watch their favorite movies and TV shows on demand. Yet these streaming services suffer from a huge flaw. According to a Netflix fan site, more than 60 movies and TV
shows are abruptly removed for indefinite periods of time each month, leaving countless customers dissatisfied.
Most users aren’t aware of how these companies function. Streaming services gain rights to their content by signing contracts with the original producers of movies or TV shows. These contracts, however, eventually expire, forcing companies to remove the content from their streaming libraries. Subscribers are then forced to pay an additional “rental fee” of $4 to view the content again.
Junior Anna Zhou became dissatisfied with her Netflix subscription when all of her favorite Disney Channel shows, such as “Wizards of Waverly Place” and “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody,” were removed a few years ago.
“I was sad and disappointed because those shows were from my childhood and I couldn't watch them anymore,” Zhou said.
The difficulty with renewing contracts comes from the increasing price of licensing movies. In 2013, Netflix spent $2 billion on licensing all of its content alone, and the company estimates that the cost will exceed $6 billion by 2018.
However, companies can easily give prior notice to their customers. Netflix’s warnings are hidden on its website, while Amazon Instant Video does not show its expiration dates at all.
Do believes that there needs to be more transparency. Streaming services could show these expiration dates directly on the pages of movies people want to watch or on an easily accessible page dedicated to content expiration notices, he said.
Hiding expiration dates does not benefit the companies and can potentially lose loyal customers.
“I felt cheated out of the fee I paid as a subscription,” Do said. “When I paid the $10 to Netflix, I was expecting the rights to watch whatever I wanted. Removing content like this really isn’t justified.”