In a vacuum you would maybe have a point, but compared to other popular streaming services like Max and Disney+, I think people are failing to see Netflix's value proposition. A product is it...
In a vacuum you would maybe have a point, but compared to other popular streaming services like Max and Disney+, I think people are failing to see Netflix's value proposition. A product is it worth what the market thinks it's worth. Obviously Netflix's subscriber base is growing due to this change, but I don't think people leaving Netflix are wrong. Everyone's finances are different, I think it's unfair for a single person to decide what's expensive or not expensive. Also, Netflix actively encouraged account sharing in the past. I think that's the main point of contention people have with this change.
If I understand correctly, Netflix mainly cancels the shows so they don't have to pay residuals to writers. I believe they only have to do that for streaming when the show reaches three seasons....
If I understand correctly, Netflix mainly cancels the shows so they don't have to pay residuals to writers. I believe they only have to do that for streaming when the show reaches three seasons. This is also one of the demands of the current WGA strike, and not necessarily the fault of pirates.
I cancelled Netflix recently after having it for many years. They lost a lot of the good shows to other streaming services, and they pissed me off with their new sharing rules (I have a daughter...
I cancelled Netflix recently after having it for many years. They lost a lot of the good shows to other streaming services, and they pissed me off with their new sharing rules (I have a daughter in another city who was watching it more than me). As you said they actively encouraged sharing for years.
I watch HBO more (now MAX) because it had better movies and original content. Now I'm a bit concerned that MAX is making a lot of dumb decisions like flooding the service with silly reality shows and cancelling some of the best content. We'll see how they look in a year or two.
With Disney+, unless you have small kids, it seems like you could watch most of the shows you want by getting it for one or two months a year and then cancelling it.
My problem is not with Netflix specifically, just with the piecemeal nature of streaming services. It feels like we're back at cable package pricing, and it's a pain managing various subscriptions...
My problem is not with Netflix specifically, just with the piecemeal nature of streaming services. It feels like we're back at cable package pricing, and it's a pain managing various subscriptions over time.
That’s competition for ya. The aberrant state we had before was when Netflix had a limited time monopoly on streaming due to being the first mover. In the end, it’s both not desirable to have a...
That’s competition for ya. The aberrant state we had before was when Netflix had a limited time monopoly on streaming due to being the first mover. In the end, it’s both not desirable to have a monopoly nor stable when there’s insufficient barriers of entry.
And we’ve honestly gotten a lot from the streaming wars. So many experimental prestige TV shows that would’ve never been funded before, but anything is worth a shot in the brutal battle for subscribers.
Now, streaming sites will start to die off, and a few will remain. Consolidation as the winners start to win and the losers die is the next stage. So things will get less fragmented, for better or for worse.
Unfortunately, several of these benefits don't apply to live streaming packages, so I have to manage both VOD and live streaming subscriptions. Content that used to be available with a cable...
minus all the adds, being able to watch what you want when you want, pause stuff to start over the next day and being able to cancel and resub any time you want and watch stuff in HD or 4k without paying extra for single channels?
Unfortunately, several of these benefits don't apply to live streaming packages, so I have to manage both VOD and live streaming subscriptions. Content that used to be available with a cable subscription or a single streaming package has been piecemealed to death to squeeze every last cent out of viewers. They hook you, then they charge more. I went from being able to see every Premier League game in the US with a single subscription to needing 3 separate services at one point. If I want to watch a single day of PGA Saturday coverage, I need ESPN+, Peacock, and Paramount+. I mean, come on.
I think part of the reason why your perspective is so different is that not enough people are taking advantage of the "subscribe for a month, watch what you want to watch, then unsubscribe" model...
As for movies and shows I just see whether or not there is anything that interests me, if so, I sub for a month or two, if not I don't...and while I'm subbed I then just watch the stuff that is available there.
Like, I honestly couldn't be more happy and I really do not understand why everyone is so upset.
I think part of the reason why your perspective is so different is that not enough people are taking advantage of the "subscribe for a month, watch what you want to watch, then unsubscribe" model that you've adopted. I think what you're doing is very wise, and a lot of us haven't caught up yet.
Instead, I think a lot of people are coming from a view of Netflix as like... "a background service that's there to provide things to watch when I'm bored." In other words, Netflix is an "always there" passive-watching kind of service, as opposed to a service sought out when actively wanting to view X movie or Y show. ((To be fair, I think the ongoing, automatic subscription model kind of... encourages a "set it and forget it" view of the service? Password-sharing definitely made the "forget it" part a lot easier, too. Not saying it's correct to view the service that way, but I think it's how things have naturally evolved over the past few years.))
Through that lens, it's similar to how Napster and Spotify brought the price of music from $9.99 a CD / $0.99 a song to "everything available for free / a low price a month". There's been this de-valuing of shows and movies as things that should "always be there" for a low monthly price. Whereas, you still see the value of individual movies and TV shows, and paying for an individual subscription feels like a steal for you compared to buying each movie/show individually
I largely agree with you, but let me explain my stance a little bit. If Netflix made sharing passwords non-trivial, sure I would buy a subscription and I wouldn't shed any tears. But this is also...
I largely agree with you, but let me explain my stance a little bit.
If Netflix made sharing passwords non-trivial, sure I would buy a subscription and I wouldn't shed any tears. But this is also what I've always done, it's not illegal, and I'm not really interested in going out of my way to give them money.
IMO it's analogous to borrowing a physical video game from a friend. Is it immoral? I don't know, maybe? But also if you don't want people to do that, maybe come up with a better system? (See digital/online games and DRM).
Well, the # of concurrent streams is also bought and paid for. Ideally the game developer and Netflix would both like to sell an additional game/subscription. That's what they said they did? I...
except that the physical video game is bought and paid already and not costing the developer money when you give it to a friend.
Well, the # of concurrent streams is also bought and paid for. Ideally the game developer and Netflix would both like to sell an additional game/subscription.
I mean, that's what they did...didn't they?
That's what they said they did? I haven't been impacted yet, and I haven't made any attempts to circumvent it. Also, I have a wireguard VPN box I use to access my home network while out of the house. If it's as simple as connecting my parents TV through that, I'll just do that.
This is the part that annoys me the most. The service is bought and paid for under the category of number of streams. I paid for 1, 2, or 4 streams. Why is it an issue where those streams come...
Well, the # of concurrent streams is also bought and paid for.
This is the part that annoys me the most. The service is bought and paid for under the category of number of streams. I paid for 1, 2, or 4 streams. Why is it an issue where those streams come from? If they want to change it and found locations instead of streams, they need to stop charging for number of streams. I should be able to stream as many concurrent streams as I want in my home location. Netflix shouldn’t be able to double charge for the same thing.
When this happened in Portugal a few months ago I immediately paid the add-on fee without complaint. I did so because Netflix was providing that much value to me. I was - and still am - watching...
When this happened in Portugal a few months ago I immediately paid the add-on fee without complaint. I did so because Netflix was providing that much value to me. I was - and still am - watching shows in their library, so it felt fair to pay for the experience (a lot of friends and family disagreed).
Almost all of these shows, however, have been cancelled in 2020 or 2021. I am actually close to running out, and I don't see many new shows being added to the service that I want to watch. Those that do get added are mainly not english language shows anymore, and while sometimes I'll watch good shows from other countries (Dark, Money Heist, Squid Game, etc), that's not usually what I'm looking for. English language shows get cancelled after one season, like Lockwood & co.
So I'll probably cancel in another month or two. I imagine many of the people who are inflating the reported statistic are like me - they're just in the middle of stuff. When many of them cancel, I wonder what the knock-on effects will be?
I'm writing based on the "new" queue, which I thought would list everything that gets added? It certainly seems to, it's just that most of it is garbage (to me at least). Even when comparing...
their internal algorithm isn't the best
I'm writing based on the "new" queue, which I thought would list everything that gets added? It certainly seems to, it's just that most of it is garbage (to me at least).
a mistake A LOT of people make
Even when comparing countries with a decent filmmaking industry, there are often deep cultural differences that shine through the acting, humor, characterization, choice of premises, etc. If I felt like watching a movie with a french sense of humor I would, but most of the time I don't.
My problem with not just Netflix but all the streaming services is that I constantly run into things I still can't watch. It's infuriating to pay for Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max (or whatever...
My problem with not just Netflix but all the streaming services is that I constantly run into things I still can't watch. It's infuriating to pay for Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max (or whatever they are currently calling it), Amazon prime, etc. and still not be able to watch a movie I want to watch. Just last night I wanted to watch the Fast and the Furious movies because I've never seen them and it seems like they are on none of the streaming services I have access to.
To me it's still an access issue where I can't access the content I want to watch despite paying ~$50 a month. I'm not a pirate and I don't currently plan to become one but I can easily understand why people are going that route given the current streaming climate.
Disappointing, but I'm not surprised. Just like Netflix, Blizzard games and now Reddit, people want what they want, and most are willing to make some sort of compromise to achieve such. This isn't...
Disappointing, but I'm not surprised. Just like Netflix, Blizzard games and now Reddit, people want what they want, and most are willing to make some sort of compromise to achieve such. This isn't a criticism, just the way it is.
Not sure what people are even watching on Netflix these days though.
I get Netflix free with my cell phone plan, so I have no reason to ever cancel it. We primarily watch Japanese and Korean series. There's a whole world that the average Westerner has never seen....
I get Netflix free with my cell phone plan, so I have no reason to ever cancel it. We primarily watch Japanese and Korean series. There's a whole world that the average Westerner has never seen. If you're willing to break outside your usual mold, there's a TON of content on there.
I get that most people want Box Office Hit quality movie experience every time, and Netflix falls far short of that, but what they are great at, is bringing foreign series and movies into the...
I get that most people want Box Office Hit quality movie experience every time, and Netflix falls far short of that, but what they are great at, is bringing foreign series and movies into the worldwide exposure. Outside America they are thriving because they show foreign materials that are otherwise not available on other services. For example. I will forever not know what RRR was without Netflix, I watched it as a sort of joke to myself, but then I was surprised that I liked it, It has now become a gateway for me to explore other Indian entertainment material, and we're not even remotely close to India and there are basically no strong Indian culture present in our country. Also Korean series they deliver us has been very very entertaining for my wife, sister, Mother and myself. Their anime selection is also a big hit for my kids.
I know there are other sites that provide this, but you can't really expect a layperson to know how to find these "alternative sites". For them Netflix just works, they pay a small amount and they have no problem watching what they want, Netflix also doesn't have the problem of being throttled, unlike torrents.
So in my opinion, Netflix may not be the best, but they sure do fill most people's needs for entertainment, and they are introducing other cultures to the areas they are servicing. I think Netflix will be okay in the foreseeable future (They might lose out in America, but they were first in many regions of the world, and being first to offer the service does give them a very very big base to stand on internationally)
Thank you for responding with such an insightful reply! It really does show how Americentric my initial knee-jerk response of "What's there to watch anyway" was, I hadn't really considered what's...
Thank you for responding with such an insightful reply! It really does show how Americentric my initial knee-jerk response of "What's there to watch anyway" was, I hadn't really considered what's on in other countries (and that's after being barraged with Nord VPN ads on Youtube, lol).
For them Netflix just works
100%, my wife and I were talking about something similar about plug-and-play features, namely with our Xbox. It's neat to be able to emulate Switch games on my PC and mod Skyrim and yadda yadda, but just being able to sit down and hop in Fortnite in two minutes is a huge draw sometimes. Same reason why I just pay for Paramount+ and Youtube Premium rather than bother with torrenting and messing with my Plex server at times.
Just a little aside if you like Indian movies, next time a scammer from India calls you, we get duct cleaning service calls from India here, Instead of hanging up ask him if any good movies came...
Just a little aside if you like Indian movies, next time a scammer from India calls you, we get duct cleaning service calls from India here, Instead of hanging up ask him if any good movies came out over there, I havnt tried it yet, but I got this tip on reddit, supposedly most of them will open right up
I'm not a big fan of presenting the situation like that - it's overly judgemental on a fairly bog standard transaction. I know you said it isn't a criticism, but it's hard to not read it as a...
I'm not a big fan of presenting the situation like that - it's overly judgemental on a fairly bog standard transaction. I know you said it isn't a criticism, but it's hard to not read it as a implying that people, when getting the password sharing prompt, subscribing themselves is a "bad thing".
If, as a fully conscient adult, look at the Netflix subscription, and think "I will derive more than $15 out of this in this month", and give Netflix my money for it, I don't think there's any issue at hand.
Same for Diablo or OW2 with Blizzard. Yeah, Diablo 4 is a $70 game with $25 skins. You know what you're getting into. Blizzard doesn't have a monopoly on video games by any means. If you still get into it, it means Blizzard's made a product worthy of that price tag. And that's fine - value and worth for entertainment are so subjective that everyone will have wildly different considerations.
No no, I largely agree with what you're saying. It really wasn't meant to be a criticism, but quite literally just how things are. Everyone is has to make some sort of compromise with what form of...
No no, I largely agree with what you're saying. It really wasn't meant to be a criticism, but quite literally just how things are. Everyone is has to make some sort of compromise with what form of media they consume, be it social media, video games made by companies with controversies, or something as mundane as the Netflix topic that initially brought up this discussion. And that's fine, the onus isn't on the individual consumer to singlehandedly save the world, so to speak, and I never meant to imply that it was.
So apparently this was rolled out in Canada a while ago but I (yes, a grown-ass adult with my own kids) am still using my parents Netflix without any trouble. If it does get rolled out my plan is...
So apparently this was rolled out in Canada a while ago but I (yes, a grown-ass adult with my own kids) am still using my parents Netflix without any trouble.
If it does get rolled out my plan is to put my parents home network and my TV on a VPN, not sure if that will be enough.
If what you mean is that your TV will VPN into your parents' home network then yes. Otherwise, if you put your parents and your TV on a VPN (like Nord for example), then you AND your parents will...
If what you mean is that your TV will VPN into your parents' home network then yes. Otherwise, if you put your parents and your TV on a VPN (like Nord for example), then you AND your parents will lose Netflix.
My brother's plan is in a position to be able to travel home from school every week and be able to resync his laptop with home WiFi, so it's not the worst thing in the world, but it's still a...
My brother's plan is in a position to be able to travel home from school every week and be able to resync his laptop with home WiFi, so it's not the worst thing in the world, but it's still a little off-putting.
Are they sharing how many subscriptions have been cancelled? is this a 5 feet forward (and 20 steps back) situation? seems like they're focusing on 'sign ups' and not total subscriptions.
Are they sharing how many subscriptions have been cancelled? is this a 5 feet forward (and 20 steps back) situation?
seems like they're focusing on 'sign ups' and not total subscriptions.
I'm not surprised, not even for pessimistic reasons. First: I don't agree with the move, but I'd bet most people saw password sharing as "too good to be true" especially considering Netflix's...
I'm not surprised, not even for pessimistic reasons.
First: I don't agree with the move, but I'd bet most people saw password sharing as "too good to be true" especially considering Netflix's previous acknowledgement of the activity. In the real world, not the people ranting angrily online, I would wager people are just rolling with the punches. Basically they just went "welp, time to get my own sub."
We'll see if this is sustained, of course, but it seems Netflix may have gotten what they expected from this.
How so? You pay for some number of simultaneous screens. (E.g. Four for premium.) The new restriction that all those screens have to be in the same physical location seems unreasonable to me. I...
most people saw password sharing as "too good to be true"
How so? You pay for some number of simultaneous screens. (E.g. Four for premium.) The new restriction that all those screens have to be in the same physical location seems unreasonable to me.
I just switched from premium to the standard plan. I'll miss 4K streaming, but I can't support Netflix's decision to penalize password sharing. I've been a customer since the DVD rental days.
The TOS and general language expressed it was for sharing in a household. I would assume a reasonable person would understand that anything else, even with Netflix's passive permission of it (not...
The TOS and general language expressed it was for sharing in a household. I would assume a reasonable person would understand that anything else, even with Netflix's passive permission of it (not enshrined in a user contract, but a tweet) would be an acquiescence of the behavior, with the unserstanding that it could change.
At least that was my opinion from the get-go: they wouldn't use that specific language in their official, attempting-to-be-legally-binding documents and communications if limiting a password to a household was not, ultimately, the desired outcome.
One of those new subscriptions was ours. We'll keep it for as long as it takes to finish watching Shadow & Bone with a friend, then cancel. So maybe these subscriptions will continue... Or maybe...
One of those new subscriptions was ours. We'll keep it for as long as it takes to finish watching Shadow & Bone with a friend, then cancel.
So maybe these subscriptions will continue... Or maybe some people will drop them once they're not in the middle of a show.
We're probably odd man out but we were sharing passwords with our kids in college but jumped from Netflix with the 'Cuties' controversy in 2020. They had to adult and get their own accounts. Now...
We're probably odd man out but we were sharing passwords with our kids in college but jumped from Netflix with the 'Cuties' controversy in 2020. They had to adult and get their own accounts.
Now we only have Amazon Prime and there's still way too much content to watch it all, dont think we need more than one streaming service.
So they saw a spike of new subscribers after implementing the new rules, no surprise there. However how many did they lose in comparison over past few years, is there a net increase or decrease?
So they saw a spike of new subscribers after implementing the new rules, no surprise there. However how many did they lose in comparison over past few years, is there a net increase or decrease?
I'm slightly surprised. I saw lots of posts of people canceling, and figured that the delays that they had in doing this were due to cancellations. But I guess people really like Netflix and their...
I'm slightly surprised. I saw lots of posts of people canceling, and figured that the delays that they had in doing this were due to cancellations. But I guess people really like Netflix and their plan is working.
We canceled ours a while ago. Using Prime video just because it comes with the Prime subscription (making my way through The Expanse), and then I just pirate the rest because I refuse to participate in the streaming landscape of 10 different subscriptions.
For all you know those who posted those comments did cancel their Netflix subscriptions. They were just a tiny minority and not representative of the population.
For all you know those who posted those comments did cancel their Netflix subscriptions. They were just a tiny minority and not representative of the population.
That's my point, you don't know. You are gloating as if anyone that posted that type of content is a hypocrite and didn't cancel. But you have no reason to believe that they didn't just because...
That's my point, you don't know. You are gloating as if anyone that posted that type of content is a hypocrite and didn't cancel. But you have no reason to believe that they didn't just because Netflix's overall numbers went up.
In a vacuum you would maybe have a point, but compared to other popular streaming services like Max and Disney+, I think people are failing to see Netflix's value proposition. A product is it worth what the market thinks it's worth. Obviously Netflix's subscriber base is growing due to this change, but I don't think people leaving Netflix are wrong. Everyone's finances are different, I think it's unfair for a single person to decide what's expensive or not expensive. Also, Netflix actively encouraged account sharing in the past. I think that's the main point of contention people have with this change.
If I understand correctly, Netflix mainly cancels the shows so they don't have to pay residuals to writers. I believe they only have to do that for streaming when the show reaches three seasons. This is also one of the demands of the current WGA strike, and not necessarily the fault of pirates.
I cancelled Netflix recently after having it for many years. They lost a lot of the good shows to other streaming services, and they pissed me off with their new sharing rules (I have a daughter in another city who was watching it more than me). As you said they actively encouraged sharing for years.
I watch HBO more (now MAX) because it had better movies and original content. Now I'm a bit concerned that MAX is making a lot of dumb decisions like flooding the service with silly reality shows and cancelling some of the best content. We'll see how they look in a year or two.
With Disney+, unless you have small kids, it seems like you could watch most of the shows you want by getting it for one or two months a year and then cancelling it.
I just think in a world where there are better options, netflix hasn't really differentiated itself in a positive way.
My problem is not with Netflix specifically, just with the piecemeal nature of streaming services. It feels like we're back at cable package pricing, and it's a pain managing various subscriptions over time.
That’s competition for ya. The aberrant state we had before was when Netflix had a limited time monopoly on streaming due to being the first mover. In the end, it’s both not desirable to have a monopoly nor stable when there’s insufficient barriers of entry.
And we’ve honestly gotten a lot from the streaming wars. So many experimental prestige TV shows that would’ve never been funded before, but anything is worth a shot in the brutal battle for subscribers.
Now, streaming sites will start to die off, and a few will remain. Consolidation as the winners start to win and the losers die is the next stage. So things will get less fragmented, for better or for worse.
Unfortunately, several of these benefits don't apply to live streaming packages, so I have to manage both VOD and live streaming subscriptions. Content that used to be available with a cable subscription or a single streaming package has been piecemealed to death to squeeze every last cent out of viewers. They hook you, then they charge more. I went from being able to see every Premier League game in the US with a single subscription to needing 3 separate services at one point. If I want to watch a single day of PGA Saturday coverage, I need ESPN+, Peacock, and Paramount+. I mean, come on.
I think part of the reason why your perspective is so different is that not enough people are taking advantage of the "subscribe for a month, watch what you want to watch, then unsubscribe" model that you've adopted. I think what you're doing is very wise, and a lot of us haven't caught up yet.
Instead, I think a lot of people are coming from a view of Netflix as like... "a background service that's there to provide things to watch when I'm bored." In other words, Netflix is an "always there" passive-watching kind of service, as opposed to a service sought out when actively wanting to view X movie or Y show. ((To be fair, I think the ongoing, automatic subscription model kind of... encourages a "set it and forget it" view of the service? Password-sharing definitely made the "forget it" part a lot easier, too. Not saying it's correct to view the service that way, but I think it's how things have naturally evolved over the past few years.))
Through that lens, it's similar to how Napster and Spotify brought the price of music from $9.99 a CD / $0.99 a song to "everything available for free / a low price a month". There's been this de-valuing of shows and movies as things that should "always be there" for a low monthly price. Whereas, you still see the value of individual movies and TV shows, and paying for an individual subscription feels like a steal for you compared to buying each movie/show individually
This argument only works in a vacuum. I’m not just paying for Netflix.
I largely agree with you, but let me explain my stance a little bit.
If Netflix made sharing passwords non-trivial, sure I would buy a subscription and I wouldn't shed any tears. But this is also what I've always done, it's not illegal, and I'm not really interested in going out of my way to give them money.
IMO it's analogous to borrowing a physical video game from a friend. Is it immoral? I don't know, maybe? But also if you don't want people to do that, maybe come up with a better system? (See digital/online games and DRM).
Well, the # of concurrent streams is also bought and paid for. Ideally the game developer and Netflix would both like to sell an additional game/subscription.
That's what they said they did? I haven't been impacted yet, and I haven't made any attempts to circumvent it. Also, I have a wireguard VPN box I use to access my home network while out of the house. If it's as simple as connecting my parents TV through that, I'll just do that.
This is the part that annoys me the most. The service is bought and paid for under the category of number of streams. I paid for 1, 2, or 4 streams. Why is it an issue where those streams come from? If they want to change it and found locations instead of streams, they need to stop charging for number of streams. I should be able to stream as many concurrent streams as I want in my home location. Netflix shouldn’t be able to double charge for the same thing.
When this happened in Portugal a few months ago I immediately paid the add-on fee without complaint. I did so because Netflix was providing that much value to me. I was - and still am - watching shows in their library, so it felt fair to pay for the experience (a lot of friends and family disagreed).
Almost all of these shows, however, have been cancelled in 2020 or 2021. I am actually close to running out, and I don't see many new shows being added to the service that I want to watch. Those that do get added are mainly not english language shows anymore, and while sometimes I'll watch good shows from other countries (Dark, Money Heist, Squid Game, etc), that's not usually what I'm looking for. English language shows get cancelled after one season, like Lockwood & co.
So I'll probably cancel in another month or two. I imagine many of the people who are inflating the reported statistic are like me - they're just in the middle of stuff. When many of them cancel, I wonder what the knock-on effects will be?
I'm writing based on the "new" queue, which I thought would list everything that gets added? It certainly seems to, it's just that most of it is garbage (to me at least).
Even when comparing countries with a decent filmmaking industry, there are often deep cultural differences that shine through the acting, humor, characterization, choice of premises, etc. If I felt like watching a movie with a french sense of humor I would, but most of the time I don't.
No!
My problem with not just Netflix but all the streaming services is that I constantly run into things I still can't watch. It's infuriating to pay for Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max (or whatever they are currently calling it), Amazon prime, etc. and still not be able to watch a movie I want to watch. Just last night I wanted to watch the Fast and the Furious movies because I've never seen them and it seems like they are on none of the streaming services I have access to.
To me it's still an access issue where I can't access the content I want to watch despite paying ~$50 a month. I'm not a pirate and I don't currently plan to become one but I can easily understand why people are going that route given the current streaming climate.
It's user hostile nonsense. It needs a swift and strong opposition.
Disappointing, but I'm not surprised. Just like Netflix, Blizzard games and now Reddit, people want what they want, and most are willing to make some sort of compromise to achieve such. This isn't a criticism, just the way it is.
Not sure what people are even watching on Netflix these days though.
I get Netflix free with my cell phone plan, so I have no reason to ever cancel it. We primarily watch Japanese and Korean series. There's a whole world that the average Westerner has never seen. If you're willing to break outside your usual mold, there's a TON of content on there.
I get that most people want Box Office Hit quality movie experience every time, and Netflix falls far short of that, but what they are great at, is bringing foreign series and movies into the worldwide exposure. Outside America they are thriving because they show foreign materials that are otherwise not available on other services. For example. I will forever not know what RRR was without Netflix, I watched it as a sort of joke to myself, but then I was surprised that I liked it, It has now become a gateway for me to explore other Indian entertainment material, and we're not even remotely close to India and there are basically no strong Indian culture present in our country. Also Korean series they deliver us has been very very entertaining for my wife, sister, Mother and myself. Their anime selection is also a big hit for my kids.
I know there are other sites that provide this, but you can't really expect a layperson to know how to find these "alternative sites". For them Netflix just works, they pay a small amount and they have no problem watching what they want, Netflix also doesn't have the problem of being throttled, unlike torrents.
So in my opinion, Netflix may not be the best, but they sure do fill most people's needs for entertainment, and they are introducing other cultures to the areas they are servicing. I think Netflix will be okay in the foreseeable future (They might lose out in America, but they were first in many regions of the world, and being first to offer the service does give them a very very big base to stand on internationally)
Thank you for responding with such an insightful reply! It really does show how Americentric my initial knee-jerk response of "What's there to watch anyway" was, I hadn't really considered what's on in other countries (and that's after being barraged with Nord VPN ads on Youtube, lol).
100%, my wife and I were talking about something similar about plug-and-play features, namely with our Xbox. It's neat to be able to emulate Switch games on my PC and mod Skyrim and yadda yadda, but just being able to sit down and hop in Fortnite in two minutes is a huge draw sometimes. Same reason why I just pay for Paramount+ and Youtube Premium rather than bother with torrenting and messing with my Plex server at times.
Just a little aside if you like Indian movies, next time a scammer from India calls you, we get duct cleaning service calls from India here, Instead of hanging up ask him if any good movies came out over there, I havnt tried it yet, but I got this tip on reddit, supposedly most of them will open right up
That's an interesting thing to try, and maybe I will. Thank you for the Idea.
I'm not a big fan of presenting the situation like that - it's overly judgemental on a fairly bog standard transaction. I know you said it isn't a criticism, but it's hard to not read it as a implying that people, when getting the password sharing prompt, subscribing themselves is a "bad thing".
If, as a fully conscient adult, look at the Netflix subscription, and think "I will derive more than $15 out of this in this month", and give Netflix my money for it, I don't think there's any issue at hand.
Same for Diablo or OW2 with Blizzard. Yeah, Diablo 4 is a $70 game with $25 skins. You know what you're getting into. Blizzard doesn't have a monopoly on video games by any means. If you still get into it, it means Blizzard's made a product worthy of that price tag. And that's fine - value and worth for entertainment are so subjective that everyone will have wildly different considerations.
No no, I largely agree with what you're saying. It really wasn't meant to be a criticism, but quite literally just how things are. Everyone is has to make some sort of compromise with what form of media they consume, be it social media, video games made by companies with controversies, or something as mundane as the Netflix topic that initially brought up this discussion. And that's fine, the onus isn't on the individual consumer to singlehandedly save the world, so to speak, and I never meant to imply that it was.
So apparently this was rolled out in Canada a while ago but I (yes, a grown-ass adult with my own kids) am still using my parents Netflix without any trouble.
If it does get rolled out my plan is to put my parents home network and my TV on a VPN, not sure if that will be enough.
If what you mean is that your TV will VPN into your parents' home network then yes. Otherwise, if you put your parents and your TV on a VPN (like Nord for example), then you AND your parents will lose Netflix.
If I understand it correctly, you just need to join to your parents wifi once every 30 days, and they will consider the account legit
I think that’s true for mobile devices, not TVs and streaming boxes.
My brother's plan is in a position to be able to travel home from school every week and be able to resync his laptop with home WiFi, so it's not the worst thing in the world, but it's still a little off-putting.
This is why we can't have nice things.
Are they sharing how many subscriptions have been cancelled? is this a 5 feet forward (and 20 steps back) situation?
seems like they're focusing on 'sign ups' and not total subscriptions.
I'm not surprised, not even for pessimistic reasons.
First: I don't agree with the move, but I'd bet most people saw password sharing as "too good to be true" especially considering Netflix's previous acknowledgement of the activity. In the real world, not the people ranting angrily online, I would wager people are just rolling with the punches. Basically they just went "welp, time to get my own sub."
We'll see if this is sustained, of course, but it seems Netflix may have gotten what they expected from this.
How so? You pay for some number of simultaneous screens. (E.g. Four for premium.) The new restriction that all those screens have to be in the same physical location seems unreasonable to me.
I just switched from premium to the standard plan. I'll miss 4K streaming, but I can't support Netflix's decision to penalize password sharing. I've been a customer since the DVD rental days.
The TOS and general language expressed it was for sharing in a household. I would assume a reasonable person would understand that anything else, even with Netflix's passive permission of it (not enshrined in a user contract, but a tweet) would be an acquiescence of the behavior, with the unserstanding that it could change.
At least that was my opinion from the get-go: they wouldn't use that specific language in their official, attempting-to-be-legally-binding documents and communications if limiting a password to a household was not, ultimately, the desired outcome.
One of those new subscriptions was ours. We'll keep it for as long as it takes to finish watching Shadow & Bone with a friend, then cancel.
So maybe these subscriptions will continue... Or maybe some people will drop them once they're not in the middle of a show.
We're probably odd man out but we were sharing passwords with our kids in college but jumped from Netflix with the 'Cuties' controversy in 2020. They had to adult and get their own accounts.
Now we only have Amazon Prime and there's still way too much content to watch it all, dont think we need more than one streaming service.
So they saw a spike of new subscribers after implementing the new rules, no surprise there. However how many did they lose in comparison over past few years, is there a net increase or decrease?
I'm slightly surprised. I saw lots of posts of people canceling, and figured that the delays that they had in doing this were due to cancellations. But I guess people really like Netflix and their plan is working.
We canceled ours a while ago. Using Prime video just because it comes with the Prime subscription (making my way through The Expanse), and then I just pirate the rest because I refuse to participate in the streaming landscape of 10 different subscriptions.
That's surprising
also paywalled article
https://archive.is/z0inC
Doubly so considering how little content is actually on Netflix relative to the past.
LOL all those meme followers chanting how much they hate NetFlix were really just full of hubris and hot air.
It's probably more that the group of people boycotting Netflix and the people signing up after this went into effect aren't the same people?
Just because they've seen an uptick in subscriptions it doesn't mean that the people that were vocally against it are the ones doing the subscribing.
For all you know those who posted those comments did cancel their Netflix subscriptions. They were just a tiny minority and not representative of the population.
That's my point, you don't know. You are gloating as if anyone that posted that type of content is a hypocrite and didn't cancel. But you have no reason to believe that they didn't just because Netflix's overall numbers went up.