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> The move was linked to a fall in users of more than a million, two thirds of whom were using someone else’s password > Subscription cancellations in the firs
by teruakohatu 4y ago
> The move was linked to a fall in users of more than a million, two thirds of whom were using someone else’s password
> Subscription cancellations in the first quarter tripled compared to the previous period, according to Kantar’s research. Of all remaining Netflix subscribers in Spain, one-tenth said they planned to unsubscribe in the second quarter.
So they lost 300,000 paying users whom they think will come back, but 10% of existing users plan on leaving despite Netflix investing in Spanish content.
I think the issue is that people who are paying for an account they are sharing are likely to keep the account active so their family members can continue watching, even if they are also using a competitor. When the family are cut off, they cancel.
- The_Colonel 4y ago> I think the issue is that people who are paying for an account they are sharing are likely to keep the account active so their family members can continue watching. When the family are cut off, they cancel. That's the case for me indeed. I myself basically stopped watching Netflix, somehow the content doesn't do anything for me anymore. But I shared my account with family and they watch it. If this gets to us, and I'm the only one who can watch it, I'm for sure cancelling. The family members with whom I'm sharing the account are very unlikely to get their own account either. (Sharing accounts is a great form of stealth giving to family members who would otherwise not be able to afford such "luxuries". It's much easier to say "hey, I got one free account on my Spotify plan, would you like to use it? Otherwise, it will go to waste" as opposed to awkwardly offering money directly)
- alexdunmow 4y agoInteresting you say that the content doesn't appeal to you anymore. I feel the same way. My observation is that, for the most part, most of Netflix's original content is reality TV and comedy specials. They don't even seem to be bothering to create great content like Stranger Things anymore. We are at the enshittification of Netflix stage.
- therein 4y agoYeah I cancelled my Netflix. 3 of my friends also did. None of us are interested in the kind of content they are pushing anymore. The drop in the stock price was expected news for everyone familiar with the service, at least in my circle.
- aszantu 4y agoI'm watching korean drama and fantasy, also chinese or spanish, they've got a different way of story telling, and I find the aesthetic appealing, can recommend sysyphus, or so, sci-fi and time-travel
- corbulo 4y agoLong been there. 'Hello this is Netflix, you've been greenlit, how may I help you?' was a South Park meme years ago.
- alexdunmow 4y agoAt least they were greenlighting interesting things as well back then. Now I think the main metric that gets you greenlit is being cheap to produce.
- nmz 4y agoSeems like they never heard of the paradox of choice.
- lazyasciiart 4y agoTheir entire business model is that there is value in the long tail of possible choices. The paradox of choice is not a complete description of human behavior.
- nmz 4y agoIt is outdated. Streaming is now cable, which means the business model should revert back to be cable like. Get a couple of killer titles that carry the brand... Disney is doing this well with the Marvel titles. one ends, a new one starts, and they start putting ads of the "new" thing. In short, without quality, there is no choice.
- antoniojtorres 4y agoVery much in the same boat. In my case my family is in Spain while i’m the US. Wonder how that’ll be policed.
- airtag 4y agoMy situation exactly. We're sharing a 4 screen account with 3 friends and no-one even watches netflix every month - we just liked the idea of having access, in case we want to watch something. We already decided, when netflix doesn't allow low-use sharing any more, we'll just cancel and forget about it.
- solids 4y agoAlso, spanish content was better years ago, now everything looks copy paste of the same agenda. Not worth it.
- juanse 4y agoAbsolutely agree. I also had a family account that kept instead not watching anything anymore. In the end I felt like paying for watching propaganda that I could see for free in national television. This came at the perfect time as an excuse.
- therein 4y agoIn my opinion it is no coincidence that the great uncle of the founder is literally Edward Bernays.
- aflorez 4y agoWhat kind of agenda/propaganda is it? Which values are promoted?
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- hulitu 4y agoViolence. Extreme right. I searched for Dracula, got documentaries about nazis.
- DoctorNick 4y agoI mean, what are said documentaries about the nazis like? Are they presenting an uncritical viewpoint? I don't think I've ever seen a documentary about the nazis not include the context of all the horrible shit they did
- colechristensen 4y agoYup, if it weren't for my parents Netflix would spend most of the time suspended because outside of a few things very occasionally, I do not watch it. The value proposition isn't there for me, I'm just being nice to my mom.
- melvinmelih 4y ago> I think the issue is that people who are paying for an account they are sharing are likely to keep the account active so their family members can continue watching, even if they are also using a competitor. When the family are cut off, they cancel. Definitely the case for me. I am able to help out 10-20 family members across 4 countries, and all I have to do is pay a measly $17.99/mo. If that goes away, I will be cancelling my subscription.
- robertlagrant 4y agoI guess their calculus is how much does it cost to support 10-20 streaming users. Is it worth getting $18/mo for? I don't know the answer, but that seems to be their approach.
- Corrado 4y agoIt feels the same as back when the music industry thought that those that pirated music would automatically purchase it if the "free" version was removed. They were wrong then and the streaming services are just as wrong now. I think Netflix (and others) are looking at that 10-20 x $18/month and salivating, not realizing that the money just isn't there. They need to take a page from the Microsoft book and let people "steal" some of the content so they can have a least some paying customers. It beats having no paying customers.
- scarface74 4y agoiTunes was very successful before the age of streaming and for awhile was the number one Music Store. Today, who would waste time pirating music instead of paying for a streaming service?
- tayo42 4y agoI'm pretty out of the loop. Is pirating still easy? I thought tbp isn't reliable any more, and finding reliable torrent sites is kind of hard now? Younger people aren't really on the computer anymore. Like your not going to be torrenting off ipads and stuff
- kuu 4y ago> despite Netflix investing in Spanish content They are obligated by law to create this content See: https://www.innovationmcc.com/post/spain-will-now-protect-its-content-with-a-law-tthat-regulates-productions-in-europe https://www.innovationmcc.com/post/spain-will-now-protect-it... > "Towards the end of 2018, European Parliament approved a law that requires all platforms that provide audiovisual content throughout the continent to have at least 30% European productions within their programming." Edit: formatting
- badestrand 4y agoWow, I never heard about that and I suspect it's not well-known at all inside the EU.
- kuu 4y agoWell, I'm from inside EU and I know it (:
- gbil 4y agoI would say it is known and while they are obliged in a way to do it, I don't believe any other streaming service is doing it in the scale that Netflix does
- mablopoule 4y agoIt is at least well known in France that tv channels ought to produce or broadcast a minimum percentage of french show.
- joebiden2 4y agoIt is so well known that it's common to automatically skip content from within the EU. It's usually low-quality fund-farming subpar filler stuff. The most notable exception are spanish films, and those from lesser-known EU countries. Anything from france and germany is almost by definition trash. In other words: no different than almost all efforts of the EU to "regulate the market" instead of creating incentives. My family is in the process of finding the best suitable and possible emigration target. Unfortunately this is common. The hardest problem are family ties and care of our parents :/ If your downvoting because of derailing the thread, I deserve it, go on. I'm just frustrated how the EU is, at least from the perspective of my bubble, losing almost every game it wants to play.
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- micv 4y agoThis is where I am. Once they cut off password sharing here I'll be cancelling my subscription. They produce very little content I watch these days and license even less as other streaming services have started ring fencing it. It's not a huge expense, so it's fine as long as my parents are getting use out of it, but once that's gone it's going to make no sense for me to keep paying.
- mrweasel 4y ago> When the family are cut off, they cancel. The mistake Netflix makes is to assume that the families and friends, who have been using a shared login, will signup for a subscription on their own. They won't, the value proposition isn't there anymore and these are people who didn't want to pay for the subscription to begin with. I have serious doubts about Netflix calculations on this decision, but I also don't see what else they could do. They can't buy the content people want and they struggle to produce high quality movies and shows. Their productions are beautiful, but the scripts are severely lacking. Sometimes they get lucky and do a good season of a show, only to screw up subsequent seasons.
- freilanzer 4y ago> Sometimes they get lucky and do a good season of a show, only to screw up subsequent seasons. Or cancel really good shows like The OA or Mindhunter...
- SirMaster 4y agoI think Netflix sees 3 people sharing 1 account and thinks that 2 of the 3 would maybe pay for accounts if they block sharing. But in reality they end up losing the 1 account instead because none of the 3 people are willing to pay full price individually. They were all willing to pay 1/3 of the price when sharing.
- mitchdoogle 4y agoAccording to Netflix, there is an initial wave of cancellations, but over the ensuing months, they end up with more paying subscribers than there were before the password-sharing crackdown. They've initialized this crackdown in a few different waves. I can't imagine they would continue to do it if it were detrimental to their bottom line.
- capableweb 4y ago> They've initialized this crackdown in a few different waves. I can't imagine they would continue to do it if it were detrimental to their bottom line. Companies regularly do things that are detrimental to their bottom line because they either misunderstood how their customers use their product, or because they are trying to please shareholders, or a combination of both.
- ilyt 4y ago> According to Netflix, there is an initial wave of cancellations, but over the ensuing months, they end up with more paying subscribers than there were before the password-sharing crackdown. The question begging to be asked here is whether those are new subscribers or people that were using someone's else password, natural growth, or just a good show landed in meantime and a bunch of people subscribed
- _zzaw 4y agoYeah, we'll see how this works out for them in the long run. I have a feeling that the end result here is they'll drive away people who use them for years, and would have continued to use them for years out of loyalty, in exchange for customers who are a lot less attached to them, and will probably be more likely to cancel later on. It's an increasingly crowded market, everyone's distracted, everyone's sick of subscriptions, and nobody has enough money. If I was going to alienate a major chunk of my userbase, this would not have been the time I would've picked.
- caydenm 4y agoNetflix had some great quotes about this from their earnings and specifically called out Kantar's data would show less viewers in the short term. They had noted they saw or expected the users who were on someone else's account and who used it actively to come back with their own accounts or convince the account holder to pay for them I did more of a write up based on what they are shared in their earnings here: https://upollo.ai/blog/learning-from-netflixs-earnings https://upollo.ai/blog/learning-from-netflixs-earnings