Originally published at: Netflix stock plummets 35% after fall in number of users | Boing Boing
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Their business model is under review.
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I wonder if any of this is due to the “ending” of the pandemic (…precautions). Streaming has been incredibly boosted, and Netflix in particular throughout the pandemic . It probably had the best name-recognition at the beginning of the pandemic, and was the default and most obvious movie theater replacement. The long course of the pandemic itself though, has forced people to explore alternative streaming platforms, and Disney+ becoming the home for Disney movies, Marvel and Star Wars has to be increasingly brutalizing Netflix.
I imagine they overspent and overextended when the sun was shining, but then maybe that’s what “negative sub growth and investments to reaccelerate revenues” means…
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If they bring in adverts I’m quitting it. Fucked if I’m paying somebody to advertise to me.
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While it has obviously been central to their appeal, and something that they couldn’t not have gotten into, there’s an argument to be made that the move to streaming put a target on Netflix’s back quite some time ago; just with uncertainty about how accurate Disney et al. were and how long the benefits of going streaming would make up for it.
Under the DVD rental model, Netflix had the option to work out special deals with copyright holders(just as brick and mortar rental places sometimes did and sometimes didn’t: normally some flavor of getting media for a pittance in exchange for a per-rental payment to ensure that popular titles were always in stock); but it was never a requirement. First sale meant that it was always legal for Netflix to just walk away from a negotiation and rent out disks they purchased outright.
Streaming, though, is something you need the copyright holder’s permission for, full stop; so your ability to keep something in the catalog is forever dependent on being able to come to terms with the other party(both in terms of price and in terms of it not being pledged to exclusivity elsewhere) and the other party knows that.
Back when they first started most of the people they were licensing from lacked a remotely competitive streaming infrastructure, a sense of what their back catalog could actually be worth if made available on impulse; or both. Usually both. That led to a period where Netflix was able to secure broad swaths of material on relatively favorable terms; but also led to Netflix showing their suppliers just how much they were missing out on.
That period is now over.
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This is their own damned fault - Wall Street demands increased earnings quarter after quarter, and when Netflix reached a saturation point, new subscribers could no longer be the path to meeting Wall Street’s demands. Their solution was to increase prices. No thoughts given to the obvious, logical consequence - subscribers quitting in droves in response (quality of content falling made this choice easy for many who quit). Either their business plan is flawed or Wall Street’s expectations are stupid. Possibly both things are true.
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Yes. Gotta keep pushing that earnings line UP UP UP, regardless of what happens in the long term.
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I am getting close to ending my Netflix subscription… the carving up of streaming space makes it less useful than in the past. The price hike is a factor.
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If they really go after account sharing I’m out. I share an account with my BFF and thus share the price. I can’t be bothered to keep it just for me.
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That and the huge cost of living rise for many. Streaming is very discretionary compared to heating the house.
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For me i just don’t watch shows with enough regularity to justify having streaming subscriptions. I basically share an account with my parents, and Netflix is wanting to charge more for people who share accounts at some point and add that to their recent price hikes i just don’t see myself using it going forward.
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I am SHOCKED that Netflix, which rose to the top of the streaming video service industry when there were no other companies offering comparable services, is now losing market share in a competitive environment that includes Hulu and Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video and Vudu and HBO Max and Paramount+ and Peacock and Apple TV and YouTube TV and Philo and the Roku Channel and Kanopy and probably a few dozen others.
Clearly the cause must be “wokeness.” Or maybe Millennials.
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Some are spinning it that way, but it really comes down to password sharing, competitors with their own exclusives, and the usual MBA/Wall Street tunnel vision concerning quarterly numbers.
In the end they have to realise that consumers are subscribing not to a streaming service (not only Netflix) but to whatever show (or at best franchise) on it that is popular at the moment. I’m not sure how they resolve that, but raising prices on the service in the midst of an inflationary crunch is not the answer.
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There is nothing on Netflix that I care to watch right now. Their original content is pathetic and even their old movie selection is crap compared to Prime, Paramount+ or HBOMax.
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One thing I’ve been wondering about for a long time is why Netflix (as well as many other streaming services) doesn’t include a ton of public domain archival movies and shows in their catalog. It might not be the most popular thing in the catalog but some people enjoy watching that stuff, and it would be a lot more convenient on Netflix than on sites like archive.org or the library of Congress. It would also cost the company next to nothing.
Just adding all the old Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd movies would make my day.
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Seems like they are thinking of doing low-cost ad-suported tier rather than for everyone…
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Is a claim anyone can make these days? Nielsen Ratings feel like a zombie at this point, shambling on as it’s model gets more and more irrelevant in the streaming era.
Then I’m out. No way am I paying for adverts. I don’t have terrestrial TV and haven’t had to put up with them for years. I’ll just find somewhere else to “stream” their content from.
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