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200,000 users abandon Netflix after crackdown backfires
(www.forbes.com.au)
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this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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This article is specifically about Australia. Globally, Netflix added 5.9 million subscribers after their password-sharing crackdown.
I hate to say it, but the crackdown worked exactly as intended.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66240390
iirc, they launched in new countries at the same time, skewing the result quite a bit. Probably intentional to say "see? it worked"
Edit: can't quite find a source for it. Might have been somthing I misread. Take with a grain of salt
Not to mention that they did start with the narrative that they start enforcing this on a certain date, but it took me 2 months over that to receive the warning/being locked out. I remember seeing people from Canada (one of the countries in the first wave) that still had not been forced off 4 months into the date they had set.
They appear to be taking it slow (not booting off everyone at the same time) to build this narrative that it's working fantastically so to not get a massive drop off in users (stock price drop) and waiting out for their competition to also move forward with this change. All of this while also adding more markets, dropping the prices in others and removing the cheaper plans.
Yeah, it's not like people quit because Netflix said they'll crack down.
They'll quit after Netflix hassles them a couple times for it.
I quit when they announced it, their announcement made me dust off my raspberry pi, got a 1tb SSD, and install Plex media server.
Their content has been in a free fall for ages, along with non stop price increases.
I only kept it because my mum and brother also used it, and it was convenient, now they just ask me to download the shows and movies they want and watch it from my Plex server.
Not everybody knows how to use a Pi+Plex or has a friendly familiy member who knows that and is willing to share.
So it makes sense that most people just kept hanging on until they got booted, rather than preemptivelly dusting off their old wooden leg and eye patch and once again hoisting the Jolly-Roger...
Yeah I get that, it's a shame because it's super cheap and the guides online make it easy as hell to set up. But I understand that terminal is scary for some
Yep. Plex (and Crunchyroll and Hidive) is basically all I need these days lol
They will quit when they notice it on their bills. I find it hard to believe most people will just eat the additional fees and do nothing about it.
I quit Netflix because all of the shows I wanted to watch left their service. I literally paid for the service to watch one show by the time i cancelled my subscription. Not worth it.
I cancelled pre-emptivly as soon as I heard. But I was probably too early to count since that was January. I also ticked the box for "too expensive" despite writing in the account sharing as the reason and now they keep emailing me about the ad supported plan.
Can you share how they got around it? My dad shares my account and he just said it told him he couldn’t watch any more. I couldn’t get him to tell me what the screen said exactly so I could help.
As far as I’m aware, our account for the notification once, my wife exited it without doing anything, and everyone is still able to access it to this day.
I vaguely remember seeing somewhere that Netflix will automatically charge you more if you keep using it in that way. But I could be misremembering. Double check your recent bills.
Nah, it’s been sitting at $21.09 for quite a long time now, and I’ve got a spending limit on that card to kill any attempts over $22 within a month.
It probably did work though. We had some relatives piggy-backing off of our top tier 20 year old account when we got shut down last August in what must have been beta testing for the program. We cancelled our account. I'm not sure how many of the relatives ended up getting their own accounts but the poorest and least able to afford an additional monthly charge went and signed right up, so they were at at least a net zero change in subs there (though they signed up for the cheapest option).
People are just disappointing.
There's probably a reason they're the poorest
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, because you're not wrong. When you're struggling with money monthly fluff should be one of the first things trimmed, not added.
I've found fedis to have some weird echo chamber opinions. With the trend of blaming the boomers for the economy (which I agree with, don't get me wrong), many seem to think that it absolves them of any personal responsibility whatsoever for their own finances
Any forum can be an echo chamber; there's nothing specific about the fediverse. For example: Reddit, Facebook groups, 4chan, etc.
Well, pretty sure 4chan is run mostly by the Russian FSB these days.
It's so easy to manipulate when you don't even have to fake a backstory for different users.
I was looking at sky sports in the UK and the majority of their packages had “free Netflix” offers included. I wonder if enough of those signs ups would have influenced the numbers?
I don't know about launching in new countries, but a lot of the new subscribers were added in countries where Netflix is cheaper so while they did add a lot of subscribers the revenue increase wasn't large.
And yet their stock dropped massively after revealing the 5 million gain because investors realize that it was a one time boost that won't help them in the long run.
They essentially showed the market their firm cap for revenue, and the market was like 'uhh thats it?'
None of that is based on reality anyways.
Dropped massively?
Are you looking at the gains in the past three years because what you're saying versus reality isn't true at all.
"Yes, I'd love to pay even more money for even shittier service. Thank you!"
-People apparently
I live in multiple places with each stay lasting about three months. So far Netflix has not given me shit about it. It just asks me if I want to movey home address. As long as it continues to let me move around, we're cool. The moment it decides that I have to open a separate account per home, I am out. I watch Paramount+ the most anyway.
EDIT: Honestly, the real conversation should be how mid Netflix original content is most of the time. Their best shit is stuff they import.
I have a similar lifestyle thanks to work and Netflix did exactly what will make you cancel. Whatever you do, don't set it up on your home smart TV because that's the thing that screwed up my account. Suddenly, I had to create new accounts for every random hotel I was living in for months at a time or go home every 30 days to reconnect to my home WiFi. I cancelled as soon as the account I paid for, that I didn't share outside my household suddenly stopped working. As an aside, I wonder how this effects other traveling people: truckers, military families, traveling nurses, or air crew.
Every time Netflix was in the front page of reddit, I'd check my Netflix stock.
My Netflix stock keeps increasing. The first so called "massive exodus" took it from $140 to $220. It's currently over $400.
So... Yeah.
I was going to post the same, thank you. I hate it but this has caused dramatically more signups
the ad supported subscription cost less, so I wonder if they are still making as much money
Supposedly, Netflix makes more from the ads tier:
I wouldn't be surprised if the ad supported tier made more money than the cheapest ad-free tier. Ads are a huge business.
Yes, and Disney+ said they will do the same
wow, surprising in a way but i guess people just want easy access to content to binge
It costs less to add a household than it does to have two subscriptions. Netflix was at least somewhat smart about it.
Some people are motivated to help others.
Cable cost hundreds and still had ads, people won't give a fuck over 20$ if that means relative ease of watching season 57 of Big Mouth
The only people down voting this are people who haven’t been on cable in years and have no idea how bad it is.
Maybe. It’s just the start right? How many will keep those subscriptions? What about when they raise costs again? I’ve had a Netflix account for a really really long time. I was even grandfathered into a plan at one point. Eventually was forced into coughing up more and more money, getting less and less for it. It wasn’t just the password sharing. It was the way they keep running their business, and how it’s going across the whole streaming system. I cancelled my service a few days ago after over a decade of service.
On top of this all: 🤬 ads. I’m so sick of being bombarded literally everywhere. From Products I buy and bring home, to being outside of the house. I’m sick of being a cash cow and getting ’trickle down’ wages and dealing with inflation. So yeah. 🖕 Netflix.
Of course it did. Why wouldn't it? It's not like anyone is thinking "oh my grandson's friend can't use my account for free anymore, I'm going to cancel my subscription now!". All while Netflix is dramatically reducing their server load costs.