At the end of September, thousands of movies, including the likes of box-office hits such as the “The Hunger Games” series and “Interstellar,” disappeared from Netflix’s inventory after the streaming service decided not to renew its five-year deal with the movie distributor Epix. Netflix’s main competitor Hulu also recently announced a new contract with Epix that will allow it to rake in the same titles that Netflix will now begin to lose.

Isabella “Bella” Simons, Netflix and Hulu user and sophomore, said Netflix’s contract move was an unfavorable decision.

“I think that’s going to hurt them in general. People want to see more popular films like ‘The Hunger Games’ and such on Netflix,” she said. “I probably wouldn’t like Netflix as much if they didn’t have as many of the newer, popular movies.”

Ethan Saghir, Netflix user and junior, said he agreed.

“I was not exactly very happy about (Netflix dropping movies),” he said. Saghir, who said he uses Netflix daily, also said he was running out of material to watch on Netflix, a situation that a smaller content library certainly won’t help.

However, Variety magazine called Netflix’s cull “actually smart” in August. According to the magazine, Netflix users streamed Epix movies an average of 75 million times per month. Despite this, Variety said the streaming company would benefit from the decision because the contract, valued at over $1 billion according to Forbes, used up money better spent on obtaining and producing original media such as the prison comedy-drama show “Orange is the New Black” and African drama “Beasts of No Nation,” the streaming service’s first original film.

IB Film teacher Jim Peterson agreed, and attributed this discrepancy to Netflix’s current business model.

“I don’t see a problem with it. I know we’re moving a lot more into the instant gratification, instant downloading and watching instantly,” he said. “But I don’t think this will hurt the company much at all. That’s kind of their model. I’m sure they can’t keep every film up because that would be a ton of space on their networks. I don’t see a big impact.”

Peterson also said Netflix’s decision may have been a result of financial concerns. “There’s a lot that goes into it. There’s a lot that goes with negotiations with the studios and those who distribute the films,” he said. “Is it too costly for them to maintain? It may be a case where they can’t give the customers what they want because of the deals that they’ve struck with the distribution companies. They may want too much and it wouldn’t be prudent for them to do it financially.”

Simons said once the films disappeared from Netflix’s media library, she would continue to use Netflix but probably use Hulu more in order to watch the films Netflix dropped. Simons said Netflix was “definitely” worth the $7.99 every month. She said she prefers it over Hulu, despite the loss of blockbuster titles from its movie selection.

“I like Netflix better because there are no commercials and you don’t have to worry about watching ads or anything,” she said. “It’s a little distracting as you’re in the middle of a show and it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, there’s an ad.”

For his part, Saghir said he would stay with Netflix instead of switching to Hulu, due to the former’s greater diversity and accessibility to customers.

“Hulu has a way bigger selection than Netflix, but Netflix has no ads,” he said. “I’d stick with Netflix mostly because Hulu has (ads) galore. (Hulu) is not exactly the easiest thing to use, while Netflix is very user-friendly. It will also choose and edit your choices for whatever you’ve watched recently.” 

According to Saghir, subscribing to Netflix and Hulu at the same time is too expensive.

Other popular streaming services such as Amazon Prime and HBO Now are more expensive than both Netflix and Hulu. The latter two services start from $7.99 a month for subscribers, while Amazon Prime is $99 a year (equivalent to $8.25 a month) and HBO Now is $14.99 a month.

Simons said Netflix’s biggest strength was not its cost nor its film library, but rather its wide range of TV shows, including her favorite show “Psych.”

“They have complete seasons of some shows, and if not they’re pretty close on others,” she said. “Having complete seasons is really beneficial to viewers.”

Peterson said Netflix has a store of worthwhile TV shows.

“I think there’s a lot of quality television that’s coming out because film studios are so ingrained in what they call ‘tentpole’ films, these superhero films that cost a lot of money. They invest heavily in those to see a big return on their investment,” he said. “The creative people are going to television. Netflix has gone, Amazon has jumped on board, Hulu has its own production company. There are a lot of different streaming sites that will do production and a lot of creative people that were in the film business are now going into that business because there’s a lot more (available) opportunity.”

According to Fortune magazine, Netflix garnered 34 Emmy nominations in 2015, including multiple nominations for its original shows “Orange is the New Black,” “House of Cards” and “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.” Amazon received 12 nominations, while Hulu did not receive any.

Peterson said the consumer has the final say as to which streaming service provides the most benefits.

“You have make the decision on that. I have been a Netflix customer for probably 14, 15 years. I don’t get Amazon Prime or anything like that because I can only afford one service and Netflix has done me well,” he said. “It’s your choice. There’s a lot of competition out there. They’re competing for your money. So you get to be in the driver’s seat of who you want to pay.