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Netflix’s Prices Are Rising Faster Than Cable

• 5350-uiop-1130 5y ago
  netflix is a logo of shame for me. if i see a new show or movie with that logo i just feel it's not worth my time. kind of a reverse of the old "nintendo seal of quality", the "netflix seal of analytics-based-tv-by-committee"
• quadrifoliate 5y ago
  Netflix will be probably be the cable "channel" I think of canceling last, for the simple reason that their usage ergonomics are stupidly simple. When I go to the Netflix app, I have a simple value proposition – pay money for viewing, in any country across the world if it's a Netflix original, and without any add-on crap. The only thing they did wrong was autoplaying previews, and I hope whoever was responsible for that has been fired, or at least demoted. Competitor streaming services refuse to implement this basic, simple model of content consumption for some reason. They seem determined to be Yahoo! in comparison to Netflix's Google-like simplicity. Here are some examples of my usage, with a bit of light ranting about pain points thrown in. [Amazon Video]: Makes me think about whether to rent or buy from them, or whether buy a Showtime "add-on" (yay, more subscriptions within this subscription!). Also, a lot of the content is moving to some sort of ad-supported "IMDb TV". Good luck with that, I'm out. Lots of content restrictions when outside the US (admittedly a niche use case). Oh, and they have autoplay on some content that I can't figure out how to turn off. [HBO Max]: Makes (or used to make) me log in through my cable provider. Huh, why is this streaming service asking me about my internet provider? I cut my cable package a year ago, and haven't gotten around to re-subscribing to HBO Max; I don't really miss any of the shows enough. [Hulu]: Close to the Netflix experience, except it makes me think about ad-supported v/s ad-free versions. I don't want to feel bad about losing money for not watching ads. Also, doesn't work outside the US (admittedly a niche use case). [Disney+]: Not much of a pull if you don't have kids, but if you do, I imagine that this is closest to the early-2000s Netflix experience, but for kids. [Peacock]: More ad-supported nonsense, plus my cable provider is trying to push a "free" subscription to it in exchange for installing one of their weird devices on my network. No thank you, and please be more mindful of the environment before contributing to e-waste in landfills with your horrible devices. I would do it if I wanted to re-watch The Office, but I managed to finish it before it was leaving, guess what, Netflix. [Apple TV]: I...don't understand why people give Netflix a hard time about surviving on original content when the only good things about this streaming service are Ted Lasso and maybe Foundation. Watched those on a free subscription, hard pass for everything else. Is this the best that the most valuable company on Earth can manage about media?
  • jancsika 5y ago
    HBO Max has more and better content than any of the other ones you listed. * I watched the new Dune on it, a bunch of other new movies are there * most (all?) the Cartoon network stuff like Rick and Morty is there * all the HBO content is there, Jon Oliver, GoT, etc. * it passed the Matrix test. (1. I want to watch the original Matrix. 2. I searched for the Matrix and clicked the result. 3. It streamed the Matrix to me.) * that crazy Ridley Scott series with those shrieking harpies that fly around asploding the hell out of atheists * HBO has a track record of producing high-quality content on subscription model. If they win the streaming wars they are the least likely to do annoying ad-support bullshit dark patterns (like those ads shoved in the middle of a fucking scene on some ad-supported services now) Edit: reworded so I only use the adjective "fucking" once when referring to ad-based streaming services
    • quadrifoliate 5y ago
      > * it passed the Matrix test. (1. I want to watch the original Matrix. 2. I searched for the Matrix and clicked the result. 3. It streamed the Matrix to me.) This Matrix test is a great one, I'm going to apply it to a bunch of services and see what I get. I think I might just have a bit of a hangover from how many times HBO Max logged me out and made me log back in via some contorted system with my cable provider that has caused me inertia with renewing it. Also, now that I think back, another problem that caused me to avoid it a bit was that the HBO Max app sometimes just seemed to freeze up on my Roku in the middle of navigating through shows. Certainly possible they have improved the app over the last year, and will respect my time more if I pay them $15 + taxes per month directly instead of through a shitty cable subscription. In any case, I freely concede that HBO Max probably does have a higher-quality backlog of content overall – my main point is that a simpler interface can actually make up for lack of content in some cases. > * that crazy Ridley Scott series with those shrieking harpies that fly around asploding the hell out of atheists Raised by Wolves? I think the creepy sci-fi vibe of Scott's stuff is just not my thing – everything in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant both just made me uncomfortable instead of interested, even though they had visuals that were technically impressive. The trailer for that series seemed similar when I watched it. > Edit: reworded so I only use the adjective "fucking" once when referring to ad-based streaming services I think you were right the first time. Ad-based services these days always remind me of the 15 Million Merits Black Mirror episode.
• dannykwells 5y ago
  For a company with a "Culture of Reinvention", Netflix has failed to compete on the only thing that matters for a content provider...content. Apple, Disney and HBO all have better - and more curated - content. What use is there in having a slick app if all it does is deliver garbage? Things like Squid Games are manufactured hits and not the kind of content one wants on the reg.
• fairity 5y ago
  Why doesn’t Netflix explore adding ads to their viewing experience? Yes, I wouldn’t like ads, but cable’s revenue model is subscription plus ads, so I’m curious why Netflix thinks their optimal revenue model would be any different?
  • ghaff 5y ago
    Not in general the premium channels. What percentage of Netflix users would drop them if they started running adds? 25%? 50%?
    • city41 5y ago
      They could add an ad supported tier that is separate from the non-ad tiers.
    • listenallyall 5y ago
      More like 5% or less. People are used to commercials. I like having short 30-60 second breaks when watching Amazon Prime content, gives me a chance to check my phone or get a drink. Sure, if they went to multiple 4 minute breaks per hour like broadcast tv, that would be too much. But short breaks will not turn off many subscribers. HN has a small subset of individuals who are extremely vocal about being ad-free... like many things, they may be vocal but represent a very small group.
  • vultour 5y ago
    The moment I see an ad on Netflix is the moment I unsubscribe. I’d rather spend time digging through sketchy torrents than watch ads in something I paid for.
    • quadrifoliate 5y ago
      Possibly even more specific, the moment I see an ad-supported tier on Netflix is the moment I binge everything I like and then leave. The total absence of ads in any of their tiers has alone been a good reason for me to support and watch them.
    • 5y ago
• discardable_dan 5y ago
  I said this again recently, but it's worth repeating: Netflix is on the very fast downward slope. Their catalog is wilting, the space is heating up with well-established competitors moving in and serving the precise content that Netflix originally built their brand on, and their efforts to fund a new catalog with new IP (and taking ownership of old IP) is destroying the business model that made them so appealing in the first place. The writing is very nearly on the wall. At one point, long ago, the Netflix CEO (?) said they were trying to become HBO before HBO became them. And, frankly, they failed. They are still the industry leader, but only for a moment.
  • moneywoes 5y ago
    Would suggest long term puts? Not sure if the gaming pivot can be successful
  • tomrod 5y ago
    Their mobile app was offering games the other day. I think they have some ideas how to diversify. Also, they are global. Are HBO, Disney+, Paramount, Peacock the same? (I leave Hulu off as it seems to limp along? Not sure).
    • jb1991 5y ago
      I'm not sure what you mean by Global, exactly, but Disney+ covers all of North and South America, Europe, Australia, all of S.E. Asia, India, New Zealand, and parts of Africa (including soon South Africa).
      • jeromegv 5y ago
        Disney+ is only available in Singapore and India, not sure why you're saying it's everywhere in South East Asia https://www.bestvpnfordisneyplus.com/blogs/when-is-disney-plus-coming-to-my-country/ https://www.bestvpnfordisneyplus.com/blogs/when-is-disney-pl... https://help.disneyplus.com/csp?id=csp_article_content&sys_kb_id=54648677dbb23894ac7ceacb139619f2 https://help.disneyplus.com/csp?id=csp_article_content&sys_k...
• ComradePhil 5y ago
  Reminded me of xkcd 1102.
  • l8rpeace 5y ago
    Link for the lazy: https://xkcd.com/1102/ https://xkcd.com/1102/
• api 5y ago
  Cable is already very high.
• wdb 5y ago
  It's all starting to get expensive. The content on Netflix keeps disappearing without warnings. Half the time you have subtitles in a limited number of languages. Also they now started adding games, why do I need to pay extra for games I never subscribed for or even want? Make it a add-on or something. For example, Netflix DE has subtitles but the Netflix UK won't have the same German subtitles available. Disney+ is doing this better by offering the nearly all subtitles nearly all the time. I can understand that dubbed audio might not be available on other country Netflix' but the subtitles? Sometimes I am too tired to listen to English and prefer to read subtitles :)
  • hrnnnnnn 5y ago
    I've heard you can sometimes work around this by changing your profile language. Have you tried setting it to German?
    • wdb 5y ago
      Seems daunting to need to switch profile language's for this?
      • AnssiH 5y ago
        Netflix only shows audio/subtitle tracks that are in languages they think are relevant to you. But nowadays you can configure additional visible languages yourself on the language settings page (checkboxes under "Programmes & Films Languages") without changing the UI language: https://www.netflix.com/LanguagePreferences https://www.netflix.com/LanguagePreferences
        • wdb 5y ago
          Seems silly to me not to list all available languages. I would have never known this if you didn’t tell me. I didn’t slipped my mind to consider its a Profile Settings thing.
          • 5y ago
• stathibus 5y ago
  Netflix is part of the FAANG acronym because they have all these highly paid engineers. Presumably those people have been doing something for the past 5 years in anticipation of being disrupted by Disney/HBO/etc. besides maintaining their CDN and tweaking recommendation engines, but it's not clear what - the product is more or less the same as it always was.
  • lofties 5y ago
    Netflix needs to realize, if it hasn't already, that it's not a technology company, but a production company.
    • dmitriid 5y ago
      They realized it three or four years ago when big players started pulling content. Why do you think they've been investing so heavily in their own content?
      • ErikVandeWater 5y ago
        Investing in their own content would not support them being a technology company.
      • lordfoom 5y ago
        '"The goal," says Sarandos, "is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us." ' That was Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer of Netflix in 2013, so they 'realized' at least a decade ago. They've really pivoted amazingly from dvds to streaming other folks content to creating their own in the last 20ish years.
        • PoignardAzur 5y ago
          Yeah, a lot of people seem to be defaulting to "Netflix didn't see this obvious thing" rather than "competing with Disney is ridiculously hard even if you have the smartest executives on the planet".
    • 5y ago
• lucasyvas 5y ago
  I can't believe they increased the price of the top tier as well. It was already expensive and IMO the lower tiers are useless - it's the illusion of choice.
  • kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
    Most of their content isn't 4k. IMO the top tier is useless.
    • doubled112 5y ago
      This was the conclusion I came to and downgraded last price increase. I didn't need the simultaneous devices, so that wasn't a selling point. Would I rather watch 4K content on my 4k TV? Probably, but I really don't feel like I'm missing out without it.
• bitxbitxbitcoin 5y ago
  For a lot of people (including me) our simple response sounds something like: “yo ho yo ho…”
  • rabuse 5y ago
    I love my Plex server, and so do my peers
• Proven 5y ago
• kevincox 5y ago
  To be fair part of the reason that it's price is rising faster than cable is because cable is more expensive. To a large degree they are catching up to where cable is.
• yakattak 5y ago
  Something I’ve found interesting with cable vs. streaming services is that when cable was the only option, people didn’t like that you had to get the sports package to somehow get the history channel. In addition to this, it’s extremely difficult to turn on and off access to certain cable packages because you’d need to call them. Now though, we have the content split up very piecemeal and I now hear complaints that “there are too many streaming services”. It seems like we got what we asked for as a market but the model is still flawed.
  • mbg721 5y ago
    But you still don't get content a la carte; Paramount's service comes with Nickelodeon and CBS football whether you want them or not, and they continue to push their favorite broadcast stuff no matter why you originally subscribed.
  • hbn 5y ago
    I think the ideal setup from a user-convenience standpoint is where you just pay a monthly subscription to access everything and the money is distributed across whatever you watch the most. Though obviously that has a lot of logistical issues, like how you could get all these competing companies onboard with something that takes so much control out of their hands. And also the fact that watch time isn't a great metric for who deserves the most money. It wouldn't be surprising if low-quality, factory produced children's content would start making the most money since parents would just throw on some kid's show and let it babysit for most of the day. That's basically what happened on YouTube, with the weird auto-generated algorithm/SEO-optimised children's content.
    • schnitzelstoat 5y ago
      >That's basically what happened on YouTube, with the weird auto-generated algorithm/SEO-optimised children's content. That was so weird. Like if I'd read that in a sci-fi book back in the 90's I'd have derided it as a ridiculous idea. And yet it actually happened.
• dartharva 5y ago
  Huh, interesting. Netflix recently slashed its prices in India, that too by a considerable margin.
  • TheCoelacanth 5y ago
    Isn't it still pretty expensive compared to what an average Indian can afford, though? They're presumably hoping to be able to get much wider adoption by lowering prices. In the US on the other hand, there wouldn't be much room for growth among people who can't afford their current prices. Netflix's lowest plan in India is about $2 USD/month while the per capita GDP is about $1,900. A year of Netflix costs about 1.2% of per capita GDP. If they charged a proportional amount for the US's per capita GDP of $63,500, their lowest plan would be about $67/month.
    • dartharva 5y ago
      Well, it's still wayy cheaper than cable/DTH TV ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ You won't get far trying to measure Indian consumers' purchasing power from the country's per capita GDP; it has never been a good measure for that. India's is the hottest market in the world after the US and China for most digital services and probably has the largest population of netizens globally (if you were to discount those behind the Chinese Great Firewall). The per-capita GDP gets brought down by a large segment of population living in abject poverty, but this segment generally does not get counted into measuring the prospective marketable population for most companies. If you were to exclude this population, Indians still are a formidable bunch of consumers.
• SayMyName 5y ago
  This is showing basic cable in the 20-30 range? What company is giving out those prices? Even at promo prices, which are going go up like crazy once the promo period is over, basic cable is still higher, and they have added costs like local broadcast station charges.
  • sct202 5y ago
    Basic cable in my area is really just all the free over the air broadcast channels but with a reliable connection. Cable with all the channels you would expect (VH1, MTV, ESPN, Disney, etc) is $100 and HBO is still extra on top of that.
    • ed25519FUUU 5y ago
      You should compare quality and bitrate with an OTA antenna. We switched to an antenna and the quality is WAY better! There’s an insane amount of compression happening on the coaxial cable TV feed.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• flerchin 5y ago
  Canceling is so easy. This future is the one I wanted.
  • francisofascii 5y ago
    As long as cancelling remains easy, I will continue being a subscriber.
    • rchaud 5y ago
      Bit of a Schrodinger's cat situation isn't it? If it became difficult to unsubscribe, you would only find out when you attempted to do it, not at any time before.
      • flerchin 5y ago
        I unsubscribe immediately after subscribing. If someone in my household notices the lapsed subscription after a month, only then do I resub. We're usually, but not always, subbed to Netflix.
  • lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Yes, these complaints ring hollow. I have access to almost everything exactly what I want, when I want, mostly on whichever device I want.
• moneywoes 5y ago
  We've come full circle I guess
• newsbinator 5y ago
  > But Netflix’s quarterly subscriber growth is now slowing in spite of spending more money than ever on content To me the problem is the content. They now seem to produce shows for particular niches that are never my niche. Some of these extremely expensive shows are laughably low quality on all fronts: story, acting, stylistic choices, cinematography/direction... everything. Take the new Cowboy Bebop: it's obviously not made for fans of the original. Is it made for new fans? For adults? For children? I couldn't tell. Half the tentpole movies of the 80s, 90s and early 2000s were my niche, so it's not as though I'm a difficult audience. If Netflix produce shows with particular political or cultural slants, they need to make sure there's an audience of people who watches shows for their politics & cultural slants, rather than for being, er, good. I watch shows with compelling stories and solid characters. I'm not interested in race, gender, sexual orientation, identity, etc, except inasmuch as it makes for interesting stories and adds to a character's personality or motivations. There's an audience of people on Twitter who defend/malign Netflix shows, and people on Youtube who make/consume video essays about them, but is anybody in that group actively watching that original content with joy and getting more value from their Netflix subscription than they got the previous year? I wish I were, but I'm not.
  • mrweasel 5y ago
    Yep, sometimes Netflix manages to produce a good season one of a new series, but they lack the ability create followup seasons. My favorite example is Luke Cage. Season one is fantastic, but season two is so bad that it makes you think that season one was written by someone else entirely. The main issue for Netflix has been losing their back catalog, as the content owners started offering their own streaming services. Netflix could produce a few good shows each year, but not as main as they're trying to. It's just that few people would pay for that, without the vast back catalog. There's still much to watch, but finding the good stuff is becoming increasingly hard. A better recommendation engine might fix some of the issues, but in the long run I think Netflix is becoming a niche player.
    • odessacubbage 5y ago
      discoverability on netflix has been incredibly poor for many years. i don't want to dig through infinite feeds of twee-sounding categories your algorithm came up with. i don't want to see what you think i want (a bunch of cheaper derivatives of things i've already watched). i want to look for specific things in specific categories and find them. i don't even recommend movies on netflix to friends and family anymore because now it's a coinflip whether they'll still be available. but the most damning indictment i've witnessed is that my technologically illiterate parents have simply gone back to getting dvds from the library.
• yulaow 5y ago
  Here in Europe netflix content/catalog is degrading so rapidly that I have no reason anymore - since at least an year and half - to keep a subscription up, especially for what it costs now. Last time I resubscribed to look at it was in December and I just ended up watching just squid game and rewatching narcos. Nothing else interesting anymore in there, and their own IPs are mostly bad I am honestly sad for how the market ended up, even if yeah, for sure now there is more competition... But I don't want to subscribe to multiple services, it makes it all inconvenient compared to just grabbing a torrent
  • toxik 5y ago
    It's a larger problem than that, isn't it? We collectively moved from piracy to Netflix and other streaming platforms because the appeal was gone. But pulling the rug from underneath your users and removing movies and TV series they have built a relationship to just serves to piss off the very people you expect to pay for your service -- I understand it's a "complicated" IP problem (really, it's just too many greedy parties), but this will end in one result: more piracy.
    • ugjka 5y ago
      Had to torrent "Friends" for a friend (pun intended?) because Netflix pulled it here
    • mvanbaak 5y ago
      This. Cancelling shows, pulling content to replace it with ... nothing (sometimes they pull content to force users to watch the new netflix original reboot), providing only a subset of available subtitles/audiotracks based on the region of your account ... Really, today it's actually A LOT easier to pirate content and have tools to automatically fetch missing subtitles then to follow netflix content before it is sent to the void.
    • PoignardAzur 5y ago
      > But pulling the rug from underneath your users and removing movies and TV series they have built a relationship to just serves to piss off the very people you expect to pay for your service -- I understand it's a "complicated" IP problem (really, it's just too many greedy parties), but this will end in one result: more piracy. You're saying that like Netflix has any choice in the matter. Yes, it's in part a problem of greed in the abstract sense, but it's not like Netflix has any incentive to pull shows off its catalog, or any way to stand up to the likes of Disney.
• cletus 5y ago
  When I first signed up for Netflix it was (briefly) $8/month. At that stage it had a great catalog of old TV shows, which was (and is) way more interesting to me than movies. I actually figured that anything less than $10/month and I'd subscribe to it forever without thinking about it. But the prices keep ballooning while the catalog keeps shrinking to the point that Netflix HD is now more expensive than HBO Max. Like WTF? For the record, the UI/UX of HBO Max is decidedly worse than HBO Now was (IMHO). I support Netflix's strategy of having to make original content as the popularity of streaming caused every content owner to launch their own shitty "me too" streaming platform. Most of these won't survive (eg CBS All Access -> Paramount+). But Netflix has proven once again you can't solve a problem by simply throwing tons of money at it. HBO is good at producing original content because it has a long history of doing so and has built up a culture to do just that. But Netflix acts like they're just throwing money around (eg [1]). Some of their content is good (eg Ozark). A lot of it is mediocre and samey. Even some of the good stuff gets killed prematurely. So once Netflix was an "always have". Now it's something I'll sign up for 1-2 months a year to catch up on old content. I'm not paying for 6 different streaming services continually. The only service in my "always have" bucket now is Prime Video simply because Amazon Prime is too useful not to have it. What I think Netflix should've done is concentrated in building regional content and then dubbing that to other languages and regions. They've had some success with that (eg Money Heist, 3%) but nowhere as much as they could have (IMHO). This should help avoid creating samey content. But here's how you know this isn't a high-priority strategy: for some reason all the voice acting on dubbed content is beyond terrible. This goes beyond Netflix. Like Netflix has some other dubbed Spanish TV series (I forget the name) and there are common voice actors with Money Heist. And they're bad. Years ago I saw German-dubbed Friends and I couldn't get past how bad the dubbing was. Why is this? Is this a small industry rife with nepotism? Or is it just something no one cares about? Anyway, I'm not surprised Netflix is struggling to retain subscribers in the US and Canada. It's simply too expensive and there is now fierce competition. [1]: https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/gilmore-girls-paid-20000-use-john-lennon-song-memorable-rory-dean-moment.html/ https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/gilmore-girls-paid-...
• FactolSarin 5y ago
  I often wonder why Netflix is willing to pay so much for the Office and Friends but isn't trying to make a new show like that. Every new show is an 8 episode season of "prestige" TV.
  • JKCalhoun 5y ago
    I think because we already have too many new shows. Name recognition might help make a sensible niche to own.
  • Mindwipe 5y ago
    > I often wonder why Netflix is willing to pay so much for the Office and Friends but isn't trying to make a new show like that. Because the hit rate for sitcoms is infinitesimal, and it's still cheaper to buy Friends than it is to commission two hundred new shows 199 of which sink without trace.
  • rchaud 5y ago
    They have "Grace and Frankie", which is their longest running show at 7 seasons. Netflix IMO tries to make shows that are very zeitgeist-y, instead of evergreen, like Friends and The Office. I think that will come back to bite them in the future because I don't see anybody wanting to license one-offs like Tiger King or Squid Game for syndication down the line. Meanwhile, decades-old shows like Law and Order, Frasier and Two and a Half Men are still making bank because they have tons of episodes and are generalist enough to be popular across pretty much any cable network globally.
  • enumjorge 5y ago
    They tried with Space Force. A workplace comedy starring Steve Carrel created by Carrell and Greg Daniels, who was the original show runner for the Office and also helped create Parks and Rec. It had a great cast. It just wasn’t very good sadly.
    • blamazon 5y ago
      My layman’s interpretation is that creativity thrives under constraint. The Office and Parks and Rec struck creative gold under strict network constraints. Easy to produce, affordable ensemble cast, relatable content. Then, as they found their footing, they could expand upon this soulful base and have more elaborate sets, celebrity guests, broad plot arcs, etc. By contrast, Netflix shows are unconstrained, working from the other end. They are trying to spend endless money to emulate these predecessor shows in the late stage when they were massively successful, rather than when they were uncertain and fledgling. I think Space Force is a good example of this. All the right pieces to make a hugely successful show, high budget VFX, setpieces etc, but no soul.
• henriquez 5y ago
  Yarr harr fiddle dee dee… I canceled Netflix years ago on the heels of a previous absurd price hike. Somehow I still am able to watch all the shows I want. Weird!
  • JKCalhoun 5y ago
    I think I'm the only one still renting their discs by mail. I've been on a tear for several years now trying to fill out the "1001 Film To See Before You (I) Die".
    • ghaff 5y ago
      I reupped for a while earlier in the pandemic. Their back catalog has withered though and whether it's COVID or just my tastes I dropped it when I wasn't finding a lot I wanted to watch.
      • JKCalhoun 5y ago
        It has withered. I think as old discs crack in the mail they are no longer replacing them.
    • robbintt 5y ago
      I do like lists like this that remove the illusion of choice.
      • JKCalhoun 5y ago
        I feel like they represent a consensus of sorts as to the "great" or influential or somehow representative films. I am looking forward to completing the list to restore choice (ha ha), but I can tell you there are "genres" (dislike that term) of films that I would not have otherwise even known to explore before.
    • ripe 5y ago
      I’m like you. I got grandfathered into their old 2-disks-a-month plan that costs 5 dollars. I do enjoy putting movies on my queue and then getting pleasantly surprised a few months later when I receive them. Too bad their fantastic DVD catalog dwindles every year. Soon it will be reduced to not much bigger than their streaming catalog.
• snicker7 5y ago
  If Netflix increases their price, than so can their competitors. And many people are now subscribed to multiple services instead of just one. In practice, this is not a 2X increase in 10 years — it is 5X.
  • rightbyte 5y ago
    Ye Netflix subscribers are paying more for less.
    • FalconSensei 5y ago
      I don't know about US, but here in CA the Netflix catalog is way better than the alternatives (expect maybe for Crave, but that's more expensive)
      • rightbyte 5y ago
        Depends on what we are comparing to. I used to have a movie rental around the corner. For like 3USD I could rent any movie I wanted from all major publishers. Old and new. 9USD/month for a rather small selection of those is just bad. The buffet fallacy is strong with how people value all you can eat streaming vs. one of rentals.
        • FalconSensei 5y ago
          If you want a specific rental, you can still get that with apple/google/amazon, right? You don't need to sign up for the all-you-can-eat buffet. Although I kinda agree a bit with prime-video channels. Apart from the basic service you get (if you have prime), you can get specific add-ons for more focused content. Another note on the rental: I really don't understand why we are able to rent movies, but not TV shows. For TV, you have to buy the episode/season, and buying a 20-min TV episode costs same or more than renting a 2 hour movie. I guess I'll just get it 'somewhere else' if it's not available on my platforms and I really want it
• nabla9 5y ago
  Netflix has no significant cash flow from other channels. Many competitors, like Disney (Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+), Amazon (Amazon Prime Video), WarnerMedia (HBO), Apple (Apple TV+), ... can fund streaming wars (=exchange profits for market share) with their cash flow from other sources for long time if needed. If you count every streaming service as separate, Disney has already more market share than Netflix in the US.
• markus_zhang 5y ago
  I figured the best way to purchase is to subscribe for one month, watch all you want, and then stop. Repeat when new series that you are interested in show up again. Again I really think this business model is stretching for them. I would rather to subscribe on a full catalog of all classic movies and Documentaries before the year 2000 and I can subscribe that for many years.
  • JKCalhoun 5y ago
    Fast for a week, then hit an all-you-can-eat buffet. It won't work for me because I loathe binge watching.
    • hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
      Yeah I guess it depends. Most of Netflix movies and series are boring so I usually just want 1-2 of them. One month is too long for me already.
  • marvinblum 5y ago
    You can do the same on Amazon for free. I get a free month at least once a year, when they try to get me back in. I usually also buy a single month on Disney+ and watch the handful of good movies and shows that came out since my last subscription.
    • hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
      Yeah I watched a month of Disney too, they frankly have more good old classic than Netflix.
  • alkonaut 5y ago
    They realize that people might do this, and they of course know exactly how many are doing exactly this. And currently it's not many enough to be a threat to their bottom line. What happens when it does become an issue, is that shows roll out with episodes every week (so you must wait a season until you can binge watch), and also that per-months subscriptions become more expensive while yearly subscriptions become cheaper.
• gentleman11 5y ago
  Typical startup play: charge almost nothing for a decade or longer, then raise prices or reduce offerings later on after killing almost every competing offering in the world. This time, there are still several competitors left though. One day these services that aim to replace cable will be basically identical to cable but more expensive, or else there will be a bunch of walled gardens It’s like YouTube will the ad spam. YouTube wiped out every competitor who played ads or tried to monetize. Now that it stands on their corpses with a monopoly, they are pushing subscriptions and ads extremely hard, sometimes 3 ads in a 15 min video now
  • ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    Yep, youtube then wonders why people use adblocks, and publishers wonder why people are starting to pirate again.
    • rhino369 5y ago
      Nobody wonders why people don't want ads and want cheaper content. But these shows everyone watches cost a lot of money.
      • asdff 5y ago
        They don't have to cost a lot of money though. I've heard its getting to the points where its cheaper to shoot practical special effects like miniatures again than it is to contract out CGI work.
        • rhino369 5y ago
          There are networks that operate on low budgets. But Netflix, Amazon, HBO, Disney, etc. aren't spending hundreds of millions of shows out of generosity to artists.
    • npteljes 5y ago
      This argument is a strawman, come on, is YouTube really wondering about any content consumption habit after being the most popular video portal for more than a decade? It's all just doing business, and all of that is just part of doing business. If enough people block youtube's ad domains, they'll just start embedding them in the video stream. And then just obfuscate the player so that you can't make it skip. Then maybe integrate the whole stack vertically so that you can't do anything with it, because it's encrypted from the server to your display panel. There's no "wondering" here at all.
• alkonaut 5y ago
  > Netflix’s quarterly subscriber growth Isn't netflix big enough to no longer focus on growth? Is there some mantra among tech companies that the second you stop growing, some up and coming competitor will eat your lunch? Don't they have enough subscribers that if they offer enough quality content to retain them, their business can do well on any horizon?
• donohoe 5y ago
  Yes, but article calls out some big differences that the headline skips… even with Netflix’s recent price increase, the company’s standard plan is still only about half the price of a typical basic cable plan and arguably offers more value with no advertising and a lot of original content that doesn't appear on TV.
• rchaud 5y ago
  The golden age of Netflix was when it had a full library of other networks' shows. It was completely unsustainable at $8.99/mo or whatever it was back in 2013-15. The price of the brick went up each time renewal discussions happened, and the rights holders were planning to set up their own networks anyway. What I didn't anticipate was how fast Netflix would dump AAA content and replace it with a deluge of B and C grade TV shows. The halo effect that "Netflix Original" used to have thanks to shows like House of Cards is long gone. Browse through the listings past the Top 10 shows and it looks like a 3rd rate cable tv channel showing nothing but straight to DVD movies.
  • JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
    The scary thing for me is what is the outcome of a generation that has watched nothing but pure mental junk food like the Netflix top 10 list is?
    • rabuse 5y ago
      Idiocracy is the outcome
    • Taywee 5y ago
      What about the outcome of a generation that watched nothing but reality TV, Fear Factor, and prank shows? Not disagreeing with you entirely, but I don't think it's scary, because it's nothing new to have swaths of people exclusively consuming low-quality junk.
      • JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
        Yeah it went really poorly, have you watched the news lately? I get it that people said it about movies and tv before, but these Netflix movies aren't even movies, they are subhuman Hallmark Channel level crap.
      • dehrmann 5y ago
        TV that's purely entertaining has been around forever. I laugh at the Three Stooges, but I wouldn't call it "high quality."
• Grustaf 5y ago
  Most of the contents is mediocre at best, but I feel that it's absurdly cheap. Every once in a while there's a quality show or old film there. If you watch 10 hours a month it's a bargain, and I'm guessing a lot of people watch 10 hours a week or more, especially in the US.
• d--b 5y ago
  Er if you look at their charts, it looks like in absolute value, netflix didn't raise prices faster (the article does a good job "omitting" the average price of cable in 2011). It's because it was cheaper in the first place that the percentage is higher. The extrapolation in the chart is laughable. Not defending netflix, but this article is an insult to the reader.
• cardosof 5y ago
  I trust their data scientists calculated their price elasticity and their marketers did lots of A/B and focus groups so they know what they're doing.
  • fuzzfactor 5y ago
    >Netflix’s Prices Are Rising Faster Than Cable If you were starting a company like Netflix, you would best realize this is essential beforehand.
  • listenallyall 5y ago
    Lol. I mean they probably did go through some of these motions but there is no way to trust the predictive value of such methods in a constantly-changing and competitive industry.
• Asmod4n 5y ago
  Sadly the value of having a Netflix sub has gone downhill the last couple years. They have the issue of releasing some really good shows but only add new seasons after several years of doing nothing with the IP.
• KingMachiavelli 5y ago
  I really hope Netflix proves everyone wrong. HBO and Disney+ may have a huge advantage but neither seems interested in the tech side. Disney+ may be OK now (it's been a while since I checked) but HBO Max seems to be extremely inconsistent when it comes to streaming quality. Even new, popular shows like Euphoria on HBO Max are only 1080p with a bitrate so low that the frequent, dimly lit scenes are a blocky mess. At the same time, AAA movies like Dune stream in nearly Bluray quality. Meanwhile even dumb reality shows on Netflix still stream with suburb quality. IMO assuming Netflix doubles down on original content which seems to be the assumed direction, they have two strategies. Strategy one is to produce/distribute content that is developed outside the US where production is much cheaper and existing production companies have less of an advantage. Partnering with local, smaller production outfits is probably a good strategy. Strategy two is to use their tech advantage to lower the cost of content production. I'm quite surprised that we haven't seen Netflix create a Holodeck-esque production method. The Mandalorian (Disney+/Holodeck) and The Witcher Season 1(Netflix) have somewhat similar production costs per episode at ~$15M and ~$10M respectively but The Mandalorian had significantly more and better CG then The Witcher so clearly the Holodeck method has a lot of benefits and cost savings. That said Squid Game only had a total budget of ~$21M, although a lot lighter on CG, strategy one offers a more cost savings.
  • nirvdrum 5y ago
    I dropped Netflix about a year ago in no small part because any show with dark scenes (e.g., "Stranger Things") look like a blocky mess in HD. For a while, I thought somehow my network was at fault, but I don't have the issue with other services. When I looked into it, it seems Netflix's HD compression is bad on OLED displays and the "solution" is to pay them a premium to get 4K streams. Meanwhile, the other providers include 4K in their base offering and things generally look great.
    • pil4rin 5y ago
      How would the compression change for OLED vs standard LCD etc? I guess it could be generally bad but only noticeable on a OLED?
• fleddr 5y ago
  I too notice the drastic decline in content quality. I normally watch one episode per day of...something. Before, this relatively low usage meant I got to watch pretty much only excellent shows and could barely keep up with them. Now, even with this low-ish usage I'm struggling to find the next show to watch. I already have to dig deep below my standards. I can't imagine what garbage heavy users are watching. There's this general trend towards pulp content. No imagination, proven formulas, terrible writing, shallow, woke and "safe".
• racl101 5y ago
  Yeah. One more price hike this year and I'm out. Their own content is shit for the most part. Don't need it.
• WYepQ4dNnG 5y ago
  I canceled my Netflix subscription and went all-in with Disney+. I rarely find interesting things to watch on Netflix, my kids watch Disney+ most of the time and I get Prime Video for free.
• t_h_r_o_w_away 5y ago
  I stopped using Netflix when their catalog went from a rotation of decent movies and TV series to a pile of house produced content that shoves irrelevant content at me. Something about Netflix produced shows seem too crafted by marketing types. It's like a committee comes up with a list of attributes for a show that are just the right amount of woke, edgy, trendy, and demographic evenness. The result is a simulacrum of a TV show, like it is in an uncanny valley. It looks and smells like good content but it just isn't.
  • redisman 5y ago
    Analytics driven content. See also: any mobile game in the last 10 years
• jdprgm 5y ago
  A few months back I went through my watch history on the app after thinking I hadn't seen a good Netflix series in awhile and comparing 2018/2019 to 2020/2021 Netflix put out 5X less content I was interested in. There was a period where almost every weekend there was a new series dropping or a comedy special or something interesting and then it just fell off a complete cliff. Understandably covid impacted productions but somehow other streaming networks seemed to do much better. Netflix's position on cancelling shows on a whim is also extremely frustrating. It's also completely bizarre to me that they (or really any streaming service) don't seem to be willing to even try to create any quality sitcoms despite paying fortunes to license all the good ones from the past 20 years and these clearly having massive value from a re-watchability perspective on a platform compared to a watch it once drama series. Also I don't understand why the user interface particularly on AppleTV particularly around new shows is basically straight up hostile to the user. Just show me a damn feed for new content (this is one of the most insane trends in tech lately of refusal to have a time series feed of content (Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, etc). Netflix will show under "New" stuff that came out months and months ago and at the same time a new season will come out of a show they know i've watched previous seasons of and it won't even be the first thing on my feed. Now in December for the first time in ages they actually had some good content to buy back some goodwill after being so bad for nearly all of the pandemic and what do they do... immediately jack up prices. Insanity.
• matco11 5y ago
  I think the fact that Netflix has been increasing prices faster just means they have had greater pricing power than cable cos. …and, arguably, if Apple, Disney, and the others hadn’t come to market, Netflix would have been raising prices even faster. If you think how much you are currently paying for the “content” component of your cable subscription, that’s no surprise Netflix is finding that pricing power. With the likes of LG and Samsung even making their own channel offering available for free (at least on mid/premium TV sets), if Netflix, HBO, Disney, Apple keep raising prices, I suspect the first thing consumers are going to want to do is to stop paying for content from cable cos. (and keep all the premium subscriptions)
• k4ch0w 5y ago
  So, my family shares their subscriptions. One pays for Netflix, another Youtube and the other Hulu. We all just keep it running on our end while the others mooch off each other's accounts.
• imbnwa 5y ago
  Netflix needs to fire and retool their current content production leadership; they're killing their product. They then need to stop allowing their productions to be written by inexperienced writing teams (Cowboy Bebop suffered from this acutely, look up the IMDB resumes).
• wolverine876 5y ago
  I wonder how much is companies playing on the expectation of inflation. Inflation is a mass psychological phenomenon - if people expect prices to rise, they do, and also businesses can raise them with less loss of sales volume.
• azalemeth 5y ago
  Are there any streaming services of video, beyond youtube, the BBC and national broadcasters, that don't use DRM? I've been interested in looking around this space, but I won't buy a product with DRM. The closest thing I've found is the excellent www.arte.tv, but that's mostly a documentary, dance, classical music and generic "cultural only" platform (funded by the EU).
• krinchan 5y ago
  Honestly, at $167 a year the content on Netflix is very…blah. Yet it’s also very diverse with more niches and sub-genres to explore. Also it’s foreign content is amazing and has introduced me to things like wuxia, xianxia, the Scandinavian Police Procedural, and Whatever The Heck French Cinema Is Doing These Days. Unfortunately, with the content being so vast and “throw it at the wall” I’ve found it’s recommendation engine is becoming far, far worse. The Lost Daughter is exactly the sort of Indie Film Navel Gazing Trash (TM) that I want to watch on my iPad in bed. I only found out about the movie from a Reddit post. It did not once hit the hero banner on any of my devices, much less surface in a recommendation category further down. I’ve thumbs up’ed several movies of similar style, content, and even actors (Olivia Colman ALONE should surface it in my recommendations considering how many things she’s in were thumbs-upped.) There’s also the weird place that the whole “My List” feature sits. Sometimes their A/B testing (or something) completely removes it from my home screen. All I get is “Keep Watching” and then recommendations. However, adding a show to your list seems to suck you immediately into a black hole of just that thing. It completely overrides the recommendation engine until you go out of your way to watch something else. I dunno, I just keep finding my interactions with Netflix baffling and with the price continuing to rise harder and harder to justify outside of picking up for a month at time when my “Things to watch on Netflix” list hits a show and two movies worth.
• hatware 5y ago
  I wish Netflix understood how tone-deaf their engineering blog can come off. They frequently tote how they're 'saving bandwidth' with this optimization or that optimization. If you have a mid-range or better TV and care about quality, you'll notice pretty quickly that their bitrates are abysmal. I get it, they are responsible for a lot of bits flying through the matrix and they need to be smart about it. But I expect quality to remain the same or get better over time, not get worse. It's not engineering at that point, it's accounting.
• criveros 5y ago
  Sure, but you can share you account with 3 other households.
• k3liutZu 5y ago
  Yeah, let's extrapolate 20 years from now.
• mehphp 5y ago
  While I think streaming platforms are still a better experience than cable ever was, one thing that is really irritating is that I have to have half a dozen services if I want to watch a variety of content. IMHO, the cable model of having all (most) content in one place was nice at least.
• clircle 5y ago
  That's fine. With one, (still) cheap subscription I'm entertaining people in three different households right now. It's well worth it. I don't even like much of the content on Netflix anymore, I'm just glad I can entertain so many people without three cable bills. When they take away multi-household family support, I'll either cancel or pass the buck to someone else.
• KingOfCoders 5y ago
  Rewatching Xfiles on Disney+ to my personal taste the show is so much better than a lot of current shows.
• can16358p 5y ago
  Value based pricing.
• sschueller 5y ago
  Any Swiss people in this thread? I am curious if the new law that prevents companies from auto redirecting to a Swiss page with higher prices would require Netflix to let Swiss people purchase the subscription for example in the US where it costs less? The new law also forbids companies from blocking the use of Swiss credit cards on non Swiss sites.
• theodric 5y ago
  They have a product people want, unlike cable. This is market forces working as designed.
• karmelapple 5y ago
  No ads, so it’s still much better than cable to me.
• GekkePrutser 5y ago
  It makes sense as cable is no longer an interesting offering at all. We don't like to sit down at a certain time anymore just because some show is starting. That's so 1985 :) And the 'watch later' options are usually only available for a couple weeks here. In fact I gave up my live cable 4 years ago and haven't missed it. I only have internet now. I had a service to watch some channels over the internet but cancelled it in 2020 because of covid as there were only doomsday talkshows left. And since that time I didn't miss it at all. Don't think I'll ever go back to live TV. All the news I can get more easily on a webpage. Having said that the level of fragmentation in video streaming services right now is ridiculous. Eventually the industry will just make piracy mainstream again.
• funOtter 5y ago
  We found that we were not watching much on Netflix. We dumped it, replaced with Discovery+, and have been happy with that for the past 12 months.
• spoonjim 5y ago
  I really question the Netflix strategy. When they started streaming, they had something very unique —- a large streaming user base and the technology to deliver them videos. They could have built a big platform business where everyone funneled their content through there and Netflix took a cut off the top. Instead they licensed the content outright giving the studios the incentive to compete, now everyone has the technology to deliver streaming video and Netflix is competing on content where there have been tons of incumbents for 100 years.
• jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 5y ago
  Call me when Netflix costs $100/month and has ads after every 2 minutes of content. I mean, its sad to see Netflix slowly getting worse, but don't forget what kind of hot garbage cable is. Keep in mind you can rotate streaming services. You can basically have a never ending buffet of content for $10-15 bucks a month.
• lvl100 5y ago
  We are back to a point where you’re better off buying shows and movies a la carte.
• at_a_remove 5y ago
  I wonder how long it will be until they reconsider their "disc by mail" approach. Bear with me a bit: one of the largest complaints I hear from people is the fragmentation, that is, if you have a particular section of content, you need a particular subscription. Many people are fine with "whatever is on these N services I have" but others are not. They want a particular film or show. Blockbuster is gone, but for one store in Oregon. Redbox has managed to skim off the top of any rentals. Family Video has apparently pivoted to selling discs at some very reasonable-looking prices. This leaves Netflix as the sole group that could work on distributing the "long tail" of movies that are not in the cream skimmed off by Redbox. I have never used it myself, but I have heard secondhand that Netflix has been neglecting this segment, letting the waiting lists for desired movies become longer and longer. It may simply be inherently unprofitable. However, if it is only relatively unprofitable, they may turn this around and refresh the service. One of the bigger problems with it is that the discs all eventually die, so something that only had a few thousand copies made will eventually just vanish, as mishandling kills one disc after another. It's interesting to think about it. I will admit that I am one of those "I want to see this, not 'whatever is available,' but this particular thing!" viewers, but perhaps my segment of the population is so small as to just not be worth it.
• NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
  Almost as fast as their library is shrinking! https://www.soda.com/news/netflix-movie-library-shrinking/ https://www.soda.com/news/netflix-movie-library-shrinking/
• errantmind 5y ago
  My Netflix account goes way back to the mid 2000s. I just cancelled it over this price increase. I'm definitely not getting $22 (Premium + tax) of value from Netflix every month. They just don't make all that much good content. My go-to is still HBO (and not 'HBO Max'), whose production quality I would have preferred Netflix to emulate.
• the_doctah 5y ago
  Netflix needs to figure out how to put out good content that people actually want to watch. I cancelled when they thought that rebooting Masters of the Universe, turning it into feminist propaganda, and then having Kevin Smith lie about the content, was a good idea. I don't give money to companies who actively trash the things I like for woke points.
• _jezell_ 5y ago
  And I'd still rather have Netflix than basic cable 30 years from now as well.
• __warlord__ 5y ago
  I don't mind the price increase for Netflix, we get good value out of it, especially for my family that uses the service a lot. However, most of the original series I watched from Netflix are cancelled now and that's why I don't like or trust their offerings, I usually don't have free time and when I want to spend it watching something I just don't want to watch something half-baked and cancelled. Hopefully the Witcher doesn't get the same treatment but hey! history always repeats itself.
• pym4n 5y ago
  Netflix has by far the best UI but the same can't be said about content. When you start using a streaming catalogue app like JustWatch, the UI becomes less important and content becomes the main focus. I think content is what we are looking for at the end of the day, right? It's getting hard to justify Netflix price because they have a great UI and a few interesting shows. IMO, the best bang for your buck today is Prime Video, Disney+ and CuriosityStream, all wrapped up by JustWatch.