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On bad quarter for subscription losses-- driven by dropping out of the Russian marked-- (they'd be up 500k subscribers if not for that) and people are jumping o

On bad quarter for subscription losses-- driven by dropping out of the Russian marked-- (they'd be up 500k subscribers if not for that) and people are jumping on the "Netflix is doomed" bandwagon. That seems very premature to me. Subscription growth has slowed and they may still lose some more, but saying the bottom is dropping out is hyperbole at best & clickbait at worst. (though why not both?). They're facing more competition, and coming out of COVID lockdowns probably means people aren't home as much to binge watch shows. Not enough to doom them unless they start hitting a bunch of own goals.

ehsankia 5y ago
They seem to be stuck in the lose subscribers -> increase price -> lose more subscriber cycle.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  I guess it depends on how they react now, and who the price increase hits. For now subscription loss is a one-off event, so it's a bit early to call it a cycle. They project to lose subscribers this quarter as well, so it could be the start but I'd guess that a base price increase is at least a year in the future since they just bumped it up. If they do it sooner, that would be a key sign of the cycle you're talking about. They have hinted at a price increase for accounts that are sharing passwords. On the other hand they've also hinted at a cheaper ad-supported plan. If they go ahead with an increase for shared accounts that could get messy. There's a lot of potential for angry customers here. Get it right and people will be frustrated at higher prices, maybe cancel, maybe share the cost, but probably not be outraged. Get it wrong and they've got a million or more customers essentially getting fined for sharing an account that they're not actually sharing. It will be interesting to follow along, I just think it's too soon to project any particular path. They could pull it together (maybe?) or they could proceed to botch things up with customer-unfriendly punitive policies and lower quality content as they try to cut costs, and maybe two years from now we'll be looking at a Disney(+) buy out at a steep discount. (more likely, at least the part about screwing things up. A buyout... I don't know. Maybe just stagnation.)

ehsankia 5y ago

They seem to be stuck in the lose subscribers -> increase price -> lose more subscriber cycle.

ineedasername 5y ago
I guess it depends on how they react now, and who the price increase hits. For now subscription loss is a one-off event, so it's a bit early to call it a cycle. They project to lose subscribers this quarter as well, so it could be the start but I'd guess that a base price increase is at least a year in the future since they just bumped it up. If they do it sooner, that would be a key sign of the cycle you're talking about. They have hinted at a price increase for accounts that are sharing passwords. On the other hand they've also hinted at a cheaper ad-supported plan. If they go ahead with an increase for shared accounts that could get messy. There's a lot of potential for angry customers here. Get it right and people will be frustrated at higher prices, maybe cancel, maybe share the cost, but probably not be outraged. Get it wrong and they've got a million or more customers essentially getting fined for sharing an account that they're not actually sharing. It will be interesting to follow along, I just think it's too soon to project any particular path. They could pull it together (maybe?) or they could proceed to botch things up with customer-unfriendly punitive policies and lower quality content as they try to cut costs, and maybe two years from now we'll be looking at a Disney(+) buy out at a steep discount. (more likely, at least the part about screwing things up. A buyout... I don't know. Maybe just stagnation.)