If Netflix’s reporting on the matter is to be believed, then it’s an ironic outcome considering the wave of strongly-opinionated comments predicting the death of Netflix following the crackdown on password sharing. I guess convenience and habits really trump principles and posturing.
I unsubed. But many did not.
I would’ve but I had already cancelled over a year ago because Netflix doesn’t have anything worth watching.
Yeah, I have been wondering just how bad their content has gotten, or of I somehow got pigeonholed by their filtering algorithms. Somehow almost everything was rated two stars out of five and just plain bad, or in some random language that I don’t speak.
I’m really pissed off when the same movie keeps appearing in every section with different thumbnail. Yes I’ve been fooled by both the category and the different appearance but I don’t recall ever being tricked into watching something, only annoyed and frustrated
What I'm finding and what's really annoying, is that every streaming service out there has like 1 or 2 shows and a couple of movies I want to see. Someone will bring up a show, but oh sorry, it's on Crave. Or nope, that one's on Disney Plus. That other show? It's on Prime.
I recently canceled Netflix and moved to Crave, and I am certainly no happier. Thank God I barely care to watch TV as it is.
I never gave them money to begin with, we are not the same.
Gustavo Fring meme
I hated the crackdown but resisting on “principles” is bizarre to me. I left Reddit and Twitter due to principles. Netflix wanting to get paid for their service and content is reasonable. Wanting a business to serve you up free entertainment with no catch?
Also before anyone tries to claim hypocrisy - The difference between that and Twitter/Reddit is myself and the community create the content and are forcefed ads.
Netflix wanting to get paid for their service and content is reasonable.
Sure, it's reasonable, and why I started subscribing in the first place. But if I pay for four screens, I expect to be able to use all of those four screens, no matter what address they are being viewed from.
Yeah that’s totally fair and Netflix fucked that up
You skipped the part where Netflix actually encouraged account sharing for a long time. Now they frame the account sharers as thieves. Also the other part where quality of content goes down while subscription prices go up while still not providing plans with hq streams for single people. Which all was tolerable for a few bucks a month. Without sharing netflix is simply not worth the money
Except netlfix sold people a license to view 3 streams then told people they couldn't decide who used those streams.
It was always going to lead to more subscribers because more people would lose access to Netflix so would subscribe themselves than would cancel their account because others couldn’t use their login.
The people that lost Netflix weren’t subscribers, and lots of them would have them subscribed. The subscribers had no reason to unsubscribe.
The subscribers had no reason to unsubscribe.
I was the subscriber and I unsubscribed because I alone wasn't using it enough to justify the price. When I knew my sister and her family were watching too, it felt more like it was worth it.
Always and inevitably, each of us underestimates the number of stupid individuals in the world
Just because they don’t share the same opinion as you doesn’t mean they’re stupid. Netflix is great for just sitting down and watching something random and discovering new shows and movies - especially foreign ones. It’s also priceless for kids shows for parents.
In the timeless wisdom words of George Carlin,
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
Step 1: Crack down on password sharing.
Step 2: Open subscriptions to foreign countries with cut-rate pricing.
Step 3: Announce subscriber growth.
We’re too smart for you Netflix. Your revenues are actually down because of all the premium-paid subscribers leaving your platform.
Sorry, but that's just incorrect.
Average daily Sign-ups to Netflix reached 73k during that period, a +102% increase from the prior 60-day average. [...] Cancels also increased during this period, but not as much as Sign-ups. The ratio of Sign-ups to Cancels since May 23rd is up +25.6% compared to the previous 60-day period.
That's US-only data.
https://www.antenna.live/post/a-first-look-at-the-impact-of-netflixs-password-sharing-crackdown
I'm not surprised. The number of people sharing accounts who now need their own was always likely to be greater than the number who were going to cancel. They only had to convert a fraction of the non-subdividing viewers for it to work out in their favour. I think they'll find they have less viewers now, though.
The approach of tacitly allowing account sharing to build viewership then cracking down on it to boost revenue is smart enough as a business strategy. It signals what most of these companies will do when it comes time to really monetise.
I worry for the future of the internet when YouTube and Google really kick off. It's going to be a subscription hellscape (it is already, but it's going to be so much worse).
I had a family account, but I stopped using it since going abroad to uni once they cracked down. The amount of content is just at the point where I don't see any value to subscribing.
Generally though, exactly what killed cable TV is killing my use of Netflix and other services. All the interesting stuff is now so spread out on so many different services, it's just no longer worth it.
Dealing with N different subscriptions and different websites, is too much BS to deal with AND pay for, so I'm just going to run my own server.
It is trivial to sign up for a service when you want to watch something, and then cancel it when you don't, until there's something else you want to watch on the service. That is the benefit over cable.
Most people still treat it like a cable subscription: always on, even if they're not watching it.
That's a good thought and would probably work if I lived alone and only watched one thing at a time.
But I would say it depends on your use case and the size of your household. We are 4 ppl in my family that watch different content on the same TV at different times of the day. We have Netflix (the wife's show is here), Disney (kids), HBO (me), Viaplay (family movies in my native language when we all watch together). I have been sharing thease accounts with my brothers family but we are about to move to Plex, I would rather buy DVD or digital releases and host it myself then use all thease subscriptions.
If they would price it better, could work together and all be used in the same interface on my tv then maybe I would be willing to go back.
I have spent thousands of dollars over the years on my Plex setup. I'd caution against the assumption that switching to Plex and hosting your media is going to be cheaper in the short run, or maybe even the long run, than paying for streaming services. Depending on your use case you may even need to pay for Plexpass. (Hardware encoding, iirc, is locked behind their Plexpass subscription.) And factor in the inevitable troubleshooting you'll have to do when something doesn't work for your brother's family.
Do the math for yourself, is all I'm saying. It's not automatically the better solution.
Those are all good points and I'm happy you replied, as it will probably help other who read this 😊
However I already have a Plex server for my older media (VHS 😅 tapes) that I have converted to digital, that's hosted on my NAS, and lifetime Plex pass. I have been meaning to look into open source replacements but many older smart tvs only have Plex 🤷
I canceled when the news broke about shared accounts. Haven’t missed it at all. Arrrr!
Fucking corpos always win
Well I wasn't one of them. I canceled mine.
Corporations bank on the fact that the majority of people would rather complain than go back on what's convenient for them. This was obvious from the start.
If they ever start instituting ads regardless of membership tier, then it's back to buying discs for me. It's just going to turn into another cable service eventually.
I didn’t want to subscribe to Netflix but I subscribed after using someone else’s account for years just because my wife was insistent about it.
We already have access to someone’s Plex with Ombi and can request whatever TV shows or movies we want. But she’s too impatient to even wait for max. 24 hours for a movie or a season of a TV show to be downloaded. And sometimes requests fail, since it’s reliant upon inherently unreliable means of downloading like torrents.
Netflix is unfortunately still more convenient than piracy for the average user. But if it was up to me only, I wouldn’t have chosen to subscribe.
I host a Plex server that my friends use, they just text me what they want and I'll get it. Is there an official request feature? Or are you just talking about asking the host like I do?
I cancelled when they first rolled out their test. Cheaper to get a VPN and sail the seas again.
IMO this is not surprising, I actually considered buying stock in Netflix, because they were so low.
I'm guessing the ones to complain the most, were the ones who were at the free end of those shared passwords.
I don't use Netflix myself, but adding advertising for slightly cheaper subscriptions, and ending password sharing, seemed like an almost guaranteed win for Netflix to me. At least in the short term.
People here may disagree and find it outrageous, but most people probably don't care enough to make a big deal out of it, and will simply choose the option that suit their needs best.
The account I share with family still works, but the second it doesn’t… it’s the pirate life for me
I cancelled and don't miss it.
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