HN loves ridiculing this as often as it comes up, but for all Netflix is - it's a CDN serving files.
The details are important, and running a good CDN isn't easy but....it's a CDN serving files. People really did build a completely free version on their own time [1]. That also costs less to run (kind of a requirement if you're building a BitTorrent streaming client).
It's important to think really carefully about what Netflix actually does, as opposed to what they like to pretend they do: because all the important stuff isn't really tech, it's business, bureaucracy and manual labor - subtitling, license management, ISP negotiations for server placement, someone going through every episode of a show to set the "skip credits" titling.
Netflix has a really good CDN but I’ve not really had to deal with buffering on Prime or Disney+ and if I do it’s just seconds or two (probably could be solved by predictive pre-caching).
Streaming sites are “good enough” now and will live:die on content.
I regularly use other streaming apps and if Netflix has some magic performance advantage it really isn’t large enough to really be noticeable, and certainly not large enough to displace the actual content that is available.
I honestly have no idea what all that engineering talent is doing such that HBO Max is able to replicate 95% of the technology experience.
I’ve never had any lag from any of the major content providers. Streaming pre-recorded content at scale once you have good content is solved problem. How do you think all of the content providers were able to offer a streaming offering so quickly? They threw money at third parties.
It may divide people with its auto-playing trailers etc, but I don't think anyone can deny that Netflix's app is head and shoulders better than the rest.
The details are important, and running a good CDN isn't easy but....it's a CDN serving files. People really did build a completely free version on their own time [1]. That also costs less to run (kind of a requirement if you're building a BitTorrent streaming client).
It's important to think really carefully about what Netflix actually does, as opposed to what they like to pretend they do: because all the important stuff isn't really tech, it's business, bureaucracy and manual labor - subtitling, license management, ISP negotiations for server placement, someone going through every episode of a show to set the "skip credits" titling.
[1] https://github.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop