This is so strange to me. I guess people enjoy being ripped off and getting less and less value for their money.

  • shirro@aussie.zone
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    8 months ago

    Growth of a few million subscribers is nothing for a company the size of Netflix and there could be all sorts of creative accounting going on.

    Executives patting themselves in the back to justify bonuses is self serving bullshit. Quality and value build long term brand profitability but that is too hard for MBAs. Cost cutting and screwing customers is all they know. In a few years people will be asking what the fuck happened to Netflix.

    I was a relatively early adopter of Netflix before it was available in my country and used it via VPN back when Netflix had more to gain by allowing that. They made some interesting shows that justified the very affordable price. Now there is more content and most is crap. I rotated subscriptions for the last year but I am hard out now. And ad supported tiers don’t fix it for me because I would rather eat shit than watch them.

    • ohlaph@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      They want you to eventually pay more and watch ads. It’s their long-term goal.

    • _sideffect@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I also doubt the numbers and wonder if they’re outright lying just to boost stock (which is working apparently)

  • VodkaSolution @feddit.it
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    8 months ago

    That proves their recent moves are not perceived by people as unfair, contrary to what “the common web” said

    • 1984@lemmy.todayOP
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      8 months ago

      Yeah I guess. It’s very shocking to me, but people have spoken…

    • LetMeEatCake@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      I’d agree, though I wonder how much of this is how appealing consumers find the competition? None of them seem to be making major inroads at the moment. The biggest competition is also raising prices, nullifying the competitive penalty Netflix would face from that move.

      • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        It just proves that avergae people want their TV and don’t give a fuck about how much it costs.

        My wife is a perfect example: We leached off my mom’s Netflix for years. I don’t really care, we have Plex that I manage and Netflix blows, so it’s all her. Mom ended up cancelling with the latest price hike. Brother and I took bets. My wife lasted 36 hours before making her own account. I lost my bet.

    • Pohl@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      They upset and turned away people who were not willing to pay. Not a big loss. In the meantime they added tons of people who would pay if given a small push.

      I have never really been sure how exactly “the internet” thought they would be punished for this move. It seemed kind of bullet proof to me. Like, sure you’re leaving and never coming back, but you were not really a paying customer and never would be.

    • eskimofry@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      This doesn’t prove anything. Netflix can project whatever they want. It takes time for their shitty decisions to affect them.

      How many of these subscribers are bundles and in emerging markets? Netflix doesn’t reveal such details.

  • nostradiel@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Yeah, but they don’t mention how many they lost during price uprising, so I’d say it somehow equals.

  • Thief@lemmy.myserv.one
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    8 months ago

    One way I have reduced my subscriptions is by using control d. I know vpns are popular on lemmy but I found it an annoying to have to have a vpn for each device I wanted to bypass a country lock. Moreover it was annoyyng for some devices like apple tv that does not support a vpn. Establishing a vpn on the firewall broke other services that I needed to work locally in my country.

    Control d on the other hand is a dns proxy tunnel so you just alter the dns on the devices you want to use it, and in their control panel you can have different countries per service - so if you browse youtube that can go via a country that does not allow ads. Bbc iplayer can be told to go via uk and so on. This is a lot more convenient and allows you to retain your country for all services except the ones you want to tunnel.

    • yeehaw@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      For the annoyance, you could just use some open source firewall like opnsense to create a site to site to your VPN provider and route anything destined for your shady services through it.

  • WallEx@feddit.de
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    8 months ago

    I would guess the perception is that its still the best streaming service.

    Also the crackdown in account sharing is helping.

  • DirkMcCallahan@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    A lot of it is familiarity. I begged my parents to cancel Netflix, especially since they complain about the programming (or lack thereof); I pointed out that they could try another streaming service for a month, and then if they really hated it, then they could just go back to Netflix. But they wouldn’t even entertain the possibility. They’re afraid of change.

    And Netflix is making bank on that.

    • selokichtli@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      Their competition sucks big ass, too. I guess branding matters in this case. For example, once you watched the classic HBO TV series (The Sopranos, The Wire…), you don’t need it anymore. The others have even less going on.

  • Rolling Resistance@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    This would be strange if Netflix didn’t have enough of easily accessible good content.

    When after finishing work we want to watch “a movie”, it’s much easier to choose a Netflix recommendation than to do a half an hour reasearch online and then wait for the movie to be downloaded.

    Now add to this time, energy, and expertise needed for looking up and trying pirating options, figuring out technical aspects, paying for a VPN, doing maintenance… Very few can and are willing to do all that.

    • SeabassDan@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      For me it’s usually hear about a few things that could be interesting throughout the day and download them while I shower after work. A 5gb movie comes through in a few minutes so I don’t even feel it. It’s usually 2 or 3 at a time, and since I’d still be going in blind on Netflix recs, it doesn’t seem much worse.

  • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I can’t say I’m terribly surprised. Many people are too lazy to pirate and the alternative services are also pricy now. Cable and satellite companies did the same stuff before streaming, and most people were too hooked on the product to abandon it.

    The comments in a Reddit and Lemmy post are not indicative of broader behavior. Just because everyone in the comments says they’re bailing, that doesn’t mean Netflix is screwed. This is a bubble.

    • thrawn@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      With massive businesses in the US, I operate on one very simple assumption: Americans will take anything. Low quality products, price hikes, evil behavior— nearly 100% of the time, it doesn’t matter. Americans will take it lying down.

      Very rarely, there will be significant pushback. Usually this leads to a minor walking back, but the thing that was tried will probably be tried again. Among hundreds of “this is now worse” decisions, maybe two or three are actually significantly haltered or occasionally truly stopped every year.

      I don’t even really blame them. American consumers have been treated like absolute shit for so long, and the draw of escapism on TV is probably hard to resist.

      • clgoh@lemmy.ca
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        8 months ago

        Nothing to do with Americans specifically. Netflix gains are worldwide.

  • MudMan@kbin.social
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    8 months ago

    Yeah, I thought we had figured this out after Twitter. Or Reddit.

    FWIW, I did not remove my subscription, but I did respond to the recent price bump by downgrading to a lower tier, and we’re still sharing it (if they ever shut us down for that I’m certainly not paying a second sub, but so far the locations are close enough and it’s used rarely enough in one of them that it’s never been an issue).

    The big thing that I did was to go back to physical media and home streaming. Boycotts won’t work, but that? That might. At least it’ll make it less likely for physical media to be fully eliminated as an option.

    • dandi8@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      Physical media FTW. I wish it was easier to obtain movies and shows physically. I like to own my stuff.

      • Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        I love physical media but I also know that if I was buying everything I’m watching on Netflix, it would be way more expensive than my subscription.

        Still I love buying dvd’s and blurays.

  • selokichtli@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    Maybe this is the people telling the other competitors to fuck off with their own streaming services. Maybe they think staying loyal to just one of them, things can go back to resemble how it was +5 years ago.

  • normalexit@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I cancelled around the time the password policy changed. I found less and less compelling shows to watch and the old favorites like the office moved on to other services.

    It’s a bummer they aren’t facing consequences for their price hikes and other shenanigans .

    • Lad@reddthat.com
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      8 months ago

      Yep it’s disappointing that they aren’t getting punished for their bullshit. They’ll never get any money from me anyways.

    • 1984@lemmy.todayOP
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      8 months ago

      I guess someone else is paying for our cancelled subs now. Hope they enjoy their shitty service.

    • Zekas@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I’ve been waiting to get hit with it so I can finally cancel but for whatever reason it’s kept working. Feels like ok value with it split over 5/6 people. It’s supposedly rolled out here in nordics but no one’s had issues.

  • Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    Well Netflix is still the best streaming service when you think about the price and the content.

    I was just a price hike away from resigning but it never happened.

    In Switzerland there are also a lot of streaming services which haven’t arrived yet.

    And we’re still sharing our account with my mom who lives 15 kilometers away from us.