This is so strange to me. I guess people enjoy being ripped off and getting less and less value for their money.
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.
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.
I would guess the perception is that its still the best streaming service.
Also the crackdown in account sharing is helping.
Stremio + Torrentio .
I’m confused by this password debacle. I am on my brother’s (US) family plan, but I’ve been living abroad the whole time. Nothing has changed for me at all. Does this mean there are some exemptions, that the crackdown just hasn’t hit my brother yet, or that he’s paying more now on my behalf without my knowing?
Netflix does let you add “guest” users in different households now, although It could be it just hasn’t hit you yet. When they announced the password crackdown it stopped Netflix working in my second household, but we just logged out and in and we haven’t been “blocked” since.
It seems for the initial debacle they blocked loads of accounts but I don’t know how often they do a ban wave or if they just figured the original announcement would get more people to buy subscription’s (which seems to have worked).
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.
Physical media FTW. I wish it was easier to obtain movies and shows physically. I like to own my stuff.
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.
I would have to sanity check that math, honestly. I am so sporadically in so many of my media subs that if we counted by watched items as opposed to all items you get access to it may break even.
That said, I’d be lying if I said I don’t have BluRays still shrink-wrapped that I haven’t watched, so I guess it does cut both ways.
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.
In Switzerland pirating is also legal, so I know what I do :)
It’s legal but I also want to support the movies or shows I enjoy. So buying or subscribing is the only way for me.
🏴☠️
Shame on those customers.
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.
Thanks for this tip. I hadn’t heard about this before, and it sounds like an interesting thing to add to my tool chest.
so if you browse youtube that can go via a country that does not allow ads.
Can you tell me more about this? I’ve never heard about that this is a thing, and it sounds like a good thing to known
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.
Yes I do use opnsense and it was more annoying than control d. I tried both options.
I see. IMO the opnsense method is good because it’s set and forget, works across all devices without needing to touch them
I mean so is control d a set and forget. Even more so because they manage any changes and workarounds the companies come up with. Its basically designed for this. Having tried both options its my preferred option.
I have no idea what control d is
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.
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.
I don’t think any company that becomes shit ever goes back to being not shit again…
Oh, well. In general, I agree, but there must be examples that don’t fit with your statement. In the end, companies pursue profit, ideally, offering a better service gives you exactly that. I know this rarely is the case, but it can happen.
Arguably MS has become less shit over the last decade. But yes.
You must not work in IT
Do you remember the “open source is cancer” MS?
That proves their recent moves are not perceived by people as unfair, contrary to what “the common web” said
Yeah I guess. It’s very shocking to me, but people have spoken…
You can’t trust people. People listen to Cold Play and voted for the Nazi Party.
People. What a bunch of bastards.
What’s wrong with Coldplay?
People will pay for things that they perceive to be unfair deals.
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.
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.
Didn’t read the article but I wonder how many people will now sub for a short period and cancel.
Like say you have a group of 3 and 1 person subbing indefinitely before and now there might be 3 people subbing for 2-3 months each. For a period of a year that’d be 12 months vs about 9 months.
So right now they might have increased their subs and revenue but it might change over a longer period of time? Or maybe people are just too lazy and will keep their subs. Who knows.
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.
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.
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.
Nothing to do with Americans specifically. Netflix gains are worldwide.
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.
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 .
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.
I guess someone else is paying for our cancelled subs now. Hope they enjoy their shitty service.
Yep it’s disappointing that they aren’t getting punished for their bullshit. They’ll never get any money from me anyways.
We have a free subscription through our home fibre bundle.
