A custom skin with widgets on the home screen pulling from Trakt, TMDB, IMDB etc lists - here I have the “New” category set to “Trending Recent Shows” from Trakt to highlight actually new stuff, whereas “Trending” category is set to “Trending This Week” from TMDB to cover returning shows. This approach inevitably leads to duplicates but at least covers everything important without the perpetual The Office, Breaking Bad etc results. When a title is highlighted, network badge is shown where available. The categories that point to individual episodes autoplay upon selection, the ones that point to series go to the ‘folder’ type browser
Search page overriding default kodi search, categorised by movie / tv show, also includes trakt lists.
Heaps of navigation and backend customisation, too much to show or mention but some notable things being the play next dialog including display prompt being based on end of subtitles track (with time-based backup), customised context menu including option to play trailer (displayed via long press on remote, requires youtube API key for HD trailer playback), codec prioritisation/blacklist, overriding local watched/unwatched status with trakt, partial playback resume including auto resume option
FWIW these examples are on a minimally configured proof of concept instance, when I set this up for family I need to test and tune it a bunch to ensure codec compatibility with the device/display, auto resume if that’s the behaviour they want etc. Base Kodi also allows to prefer non-hearing impaired subtitle tracks, audio tracks in a specific language or original language etc. The end result being they get what they want spoonfed to their home screen the vast majority of the time, and otherwise can find it easily with the search without hassling me lol. In the worst case scenario I need to show them how to rescrape/source select from the context menu, but that’s only happened once where an older title’s only cached release had russian-only audio. The rest of their time they can just choose an episode/movie without having to understand any specifics about whether the top result is the best stream or not. It’s enough that I’m still finding more UX improvements to add, years later.
I’d love to have this set up for usenet but don’t have any issues using torrent cache on torbox essential so just can’t really justify the cost difference
Oh they figured it out alright, that’s how the current players were handed the keys to the industry and why they take the more insidious DRM approach to controlling the content they own. They understand it’s less likely to cause customer to revolt than the fundamental problems with the movie/tv show distribution business model that came before. And tbh they’re right - yeah I pirate, but mostly because that’s what I’ve done for 30+ years at this point. People have been saying the most recent anti-consumer decision by Netflix will finally be their downfall for like a decade - their stock is now at all time highs.
You aren’t wrong that people will prioritise convenience/features highest but make no mistake, these companies are fully aware of the impact of their shitty practices. It’s all calculated.