Netflix To Lose 1 Million Subscribers 349
tekgoblin writes "In light of the recent price increase at Netflix, it made quite a few subscribers mad. Netflix expects to lose around 1 million total subscribers in the short term after the price changes (which split off separate subscription plans for streaming video and DVD rentals). On top of the price increase, Netflix will lose their contract with Starz in February, which will cost them around 1,000 total streaming titles from their collection."
What do they expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well really, what the heck did they expect? The e-mail they sent out about splitting up the streaming and dvd mailing services was ridiculously patronizing.
I mean, I would have been a lot more okay with things if they'd just been straightforward and said "look, the people we get our content from are raising the prices on us, we need to charge you more to cover it". That's fine, that I can understand.
Instead, those assholes decided to pitch it as some sort of super awesome deal, where instead of being forced to pay for streaming and dvd mailing together, you're now paying for them separately! It's great! So much better than the old deal! And you, the consumer, are such an idiot that you're not even going to notice that the price of your plan increased significantly, doubling in some cases! (if you're like me and you were on the 1 dvd + streaming plan).
Do they not have any sort of market demographics at all? Do they have no idea the kinds of people that subscribe to their service? We're more likely to be early adopters, for goodness' sakes; we're not going to appreciate being talked down to like we're children who can't do math.
And look, I do appreciate Netflix - as convenient as Redbox is, it doesn't quite have the selection. It's just, reading that goddamn e-mail about the new plans left such a bad taste in my mouth I couldn't stand giving them money any more.
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I thought they did pitch a super awesome deal.
I had been paying $16 a month for a couple DVDs and streaming, but I never really streamed much content. I would if I was bored and had nothing else to do but overall the streaming selection was too thin. After the announcement I moved to DVD only and now pay $12. I like having the option of de-coupling the streaming, especially in light of the impending price increase for streaming (via the studios).
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It makes a lot of sense (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes, but that's 1 million people that are probably moving to competitors and 1 million people that are likely spreading ill will about Netflix as well. A million people even if it is only 4% of the customers is still a lot of people and certainly greatly increases the likelihood that potential new customers are going to come into contact with an dissatisfied customer.
Re:It makes a lot of sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Netflix does not have competitors.
All the cable company and sat company offerings are super expensive. In so many cases you are literally paying over a $100 per month for a package and plan that allows you the privilege of spending even more ridiculous amounts renting movies for 24-48 hours.
The aforementioned bullshit takes the crown, but then there are their competitors which provide you with the illusion of ownership with DRM'd systems. Blockbuster is a competitor physically and now with streaming as well. However, their pricing plans are hysterical. Same offer to "own" a DVD for $15-$30. Streaming "Rentals" are in many cases more costly than it ever was to rent them physically.
Amazon is basically Block Buster's Bullshit Online(tm). Renting a TV Show for $2? Really? Same thing with the movie rentals. Unlimited Amazon Prime has nothing really good for selection. Netflix beats them hands down in that department. If you want commercial free current TV show episodes, sure you're fine. I kind of find it hard to be a competitor though if you are spending over $100 per month on show rentals because you are really into several weekly show. Prime is just being pronounced with the "bs" silent.
Redbox is convenient, but it is like the radio. Only the best (paid) get played and you have limited options. They also make their money on you forgetting to return it, which is why they are priced well at a $1. Seriously, if you are lazy, overworked and tired you would probably think, "Fuck it. It's a $1. I spend more at Del Taco everyday". They are coming out with streaming, but Netflix is pretty fast. Not to mention queued. It's hard to call Redbox a real competitor right now. Closest too it, certainly.
The rest are a bunch of websites like Hulu who deliver advertising laden worthless crap that often force you to install so much DRM infrastructure in your computer, calling it "your" computer is like a farcical play where you are the king of the idiots, but don't know it.
Nevertheless, Netlfix is going to die. Precisely, because it has no competitors at this point.
All the market share that Netflix has destroyed, and revenue grabbed, in the cable and sat networks, which affected the content producers as well, and the advertisers which are none to happy right now, did not earn Netflix any friends. When you can't tell a cable TV network from a content provider you are really fucked on Netflix's flip side which is eating the fuck out the bandwidth everywhere for free, and those are pretty much the exact words from the executives. Seriously, ISPs just love it when they are overselling by 50-100x and you cause them to actually have to start delivering on promises. It's like a run on the banks and they don't have the cash on hand. They have been messing with ISP and backbone provider profits for quite some time.
Big Content is not happy. They could not forsee Netflix becoming what it is, and they were in their experimental phase with licensing for streaming. They have realized they have to do so period. Much like movie companies realized they have to distribute R5 releases to Russia almost right after the movie hits theaters to compete with the pirates. So they became more cooperative figuring they were going to at least make some money, rather than no money. Plus, who knows how this will work out.
Nobody on the content side wants Netflix to continue on the streaming. DVD is a different story entirely, as most people can only rent a certain amount of DVDs each month which allows for a regular profit. Unlimited streaming is the opposite, as Netflix will never pay what they can get from Blockbuster, Amazon, or Hulu. Cable and Sat markets are the super premium bonuses.
Price goes up? Who gives a shit. Not by much. Still the best bang for your buck short of out and out piracy. Nobody talks about their TV and Movie selection right now. Pretty extensive and unlimited.
When Netflix stops having s
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eating the fuck out the bandwidth everywhere for free, and those are pretty much the exact words from the executives.
Free bandwidth? Netflix is paying for hosting and bandwidth. The customers are paying their ISP for bandwidth. It is being paid for on both sides.
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May have caused revenue to go up. (Score:4, Insightful)
Netflix did better than I thought they would. They only lost 4% of their subscribers over this, and it looks like their revenue is going to go up. Pretending that everyone was on the cheapest plan, they used to have 25 million subscribers paying $10 a month for $250 million/month. Now they have 21.8 million paying for streaming and another 14.2 million paying for DVD, each at $8 a month for a total of $288 million/month. Since the price of the larger plans didn't change as much as the cheapest one, I think it is safe to say that they will be making more money when this is done than they did before.
Suppose they had given a $2 discount for people on both plans, like I thought they should. They would have increased revenue further by doing that if everyone stayed, and 2.6 million more people decided to go with both plans, or alternately if the same number left but 4 million decided to have both plans. Of course, that doesn't consider increased costs of both plans.
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This is a great point. They can actually make more money off of the fewer customers. What they should actually be worried about is the perception of the loss and the apparent stock decrease it is causing.
Still, I think they could have managed this a lot better. I'm one of the people who canceled.
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You are making a poor assumption. Not everyone is going to automatically subscribe to both.
I'm not making that assumption. RTFA, it says exactly how many people opted to subscribe to both vs just one or the other.
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But that only makes sense if they can preferentially drive off the customers that lose them money. Otherwise, they could raise their prices a bizillonety percent, and have a business with fantastic margins and zero revenue
It is quite likely that many of those being driven off by higher streaming prices were the money-losing group, but I'm sure they lost more than they'd like. And clearly Wall Street is pretty concerned for what this portends.
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If they lose customers, but get more money per customer, it can work to Netflix's advantage big time. Their costs are mostly on bandwidth, and if they lose 1 million customers, that's 1 million fewer people to feed data to. That amounts to major cost cutting, so even if revenues drop a little but are offset by lower costs then they win.
That's a pretty big if - and it oversimplifies the situation. Really the math works out to something like this:
(Total revenues lost - Cost of mailing physical discs - Bandwidth costs - Content costs) from the vanished subscribers < Increased revenues from hike + Profit margin gained by subscribers driven to streaming only plan - Profit margin lost by subscribers driven to mail-only plans
And then if, like me, someone were tempted to mail in their final discs by taping the mailer to a phone book but
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Right on the mark. (Score:2)
This comment hits the mark right on the head.
It was bad enough before how much content was actually available to stream versus by mail, especially compared to (not really competing, I guess alternative is more apropos) services e.g. XBL. Now that service is losing even more titles due to licensing issues with Starz. What terrible timing to try and spin a price increase as something consumers actually want, when the service you're charging more for is actually LOSING VALUE. This makes no sense on the fac
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They already lost Starz (Score:2)
Unless something's changed in the last week or two, they've already lost Starz (The Washington Post [washingtonpost.com], CNN Money [cnn.com]).
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Well it was an awesome deal for me since I never used their streaming anyhow, so I didn't like having to subsidize it through my subscription, and my DVD-only sub decreased in price.
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According to the blurb, they expected to lose 1 million subscribers.
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I mean, I would have been a lot more okay with things if they'd just been straightforward and said "look, the people we get our content from are raising the prices on us, we need to charge you more to cover it". That's fine, that I can understand.
Yeah if you were in Netflix's position what would you do? Potentially piss off the people who set the prices for the content your customers want access too or shit on part of your customer base? It puzzled me too for a bit, then I realized there was probably some business contracts where they could not name the studios as being a cause, I mean there are only about 6 major content distributors and they all march very closely together.
In fact all the stories that reported the price increase only speculate
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This reminds me of the Sprint commercials I keep on seeing recently these days.
First a disclaimer, I am a customer of Sprint and I like Sprint for the most part, but their commercial just pisses me off.
Sprint claims that they're the only one that "do not lie about their monthly rate", but in the same commercial they claim that their rate is "only $79.99 with no extra fees" which is a load of crap. They have an unexplained $10 data premium fee (that they're now applying to every new phone, not just the new s
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If you are a Prime customer, you can also stream a bunch of movies from Amazon.
I have no interest in buying physical media anymore though. The last of my modest collection was donated to Goodwill last year. The library is a nice idea, unfortunately my local library isn't very local and there are lot more choices for movies that don't involve a 25 minute drive across town.
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Linux client (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Linux client (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Linux client (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah. For Apple.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Netflix probably is looking at all those HTML5-only iThings and thinking it could make a tidy profit from them.
Linux, not so much.
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No, for Linux [engadget.com].
(Yes, I know ChromeOS is a specific distro, but it's a chrome plugin as a Linux .so library, so the chances it'll run on other distros are pretty high)
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I'll bet you a dollar that it won't run without special [DRM] hardware.
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That is true for me as well. I gave the trial an attempt once and canceled when I found out it wouldn't work on linux. Then a friend reminded me the ps3 was an option... and I subscribed for a month only to fire up the ps3 and find out they'd been hacked and I couldn't install netflix so I cancelled again. It's just not worth a third time, especially after the recent changes.
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The only computers I have run either linux or FreeBSD, so there are no options for netflix for me at the moment.
I take it you don't own a television then, right? Because a Roku [amazon.com] is dirt cheap and simple to operate (and linux based ftw). Plus with all the private channels it's really handy.
If the Linux-owning crowd is small, the linux-owning crowd that doesn't have a TV has to be even smaller. That's not to say it's invalid, just that here might be more Amiga users still around.
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Tell me more about the private channels?
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Tell me more about the private channels?
There are probably more 'private' channels than ones available in the store. They're content that Roku doesn't want to advertise for some reason or other.
This list looks fairly well-maintained, if blinding in its layout:
http://www.catastrophegirl.com/rokuchannellist.htm [catastrophegirl.com]
On my satellite package I get Fox and CNNHN. On Roku, I pick up Democracy Now, Al Jazeera, Russia Today, CNN International, BBC World, etc. It makes for a bit of a different level of awareness.
Even t
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Of course, that's assuming there is both a Gnome client and a KDE client, as well as maybe an Emacs Lisp client to grab that last 1 or 2 subscribers.
If they really want to make inroads into the Linux userbase, they ought to figure out how to get Richard Stallman to write a manifesto calling for a Free Software Netflix client. If they could do th
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1000 good titles lost... (Score:2)
Starz makes up a big portion of the GOOD options on netflix. I'm probably dropping my service for the blockbuster equivalent if I can get more choice.
The price increase would be fine if I got more in streaming... instead I just get more useless strange crap made in backyards.
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I did that for similar reasons. Granted the likelihood of Starz being dropped wasn't yet known, but I've found Blockbuster to be a good buy. Although, possibly not if you don't have a Bluray player and don't play video games. So far I've saved enough borrowing Assassin's Creed Brotherhood to more than make up for the cost of service.
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Remember that Starz is really just a middleman, not a content creator, and that the content they have can be purchased directly from the owners, very likely for cheaper than what Starz wanted to charge Netflix for the upcoming year. Starz' content is definitely good, but there are already rumors that Netflix is inking deals with several of the content owners that provide content to Starz. The actual impact on the Netflix catalog could be negligible still, despite how it sounds now.
Re:1000 good titles lost... (Score:5, Insightful)
an unmatched selection of titles
Including the newest titles anywhere...
use BITTORRENT !!!
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Bittorrent doesn't stream. My connection is fast enough to stream Netflix, but not fast enough that I can decide what I want to watch, torrent it, and then watch it.
Actually uTorrent 3 does stream, assuming of course you have a fast enough swarm. I tried it and it works, not that the waiting has been a big issue for me as I've usually had a backlog to watch.
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No they don't. None of their stuff was HD. It all had long-ass, annoying "STARZ IS AWESOMESAUCE!!!1!" intro/outro animations, and I never saw anything on its list I wanted to watch...
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I was one (Score:2)
Pricing games and post cancel charges oh my! (Score:5, Informative)
I tried changing my bank account info and when I called to ask them to reverse a pending charge on the wrong/old account I was told that I would have to close/cancel my service with them, and then restart service at a new higher rate!
So I cancelled. Completely.
Now I have to play the "contest the charge on the credit card game" even though I cancelled on the 9th the charge still showed up on the 11th.
You'd think they would be doing anything to just maintain their current customers, but evidently not.
Say hello to RedBox !
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Now I have to play the "contest the charge on the credit card game" even though I cancelled on the 9th the charge still showed up on the 11th.
You are aware it can take up to three days for a credit card charge to be finalized and show up on your account, right? I have no explanation as to the first part about them saying you'd have to cancel your account to reverse a charge, but if you saw a charge show up two days after you canceled chances are it had already gone out when you called them.
Streaming titles at Netflix (Score:2)
I am more concerned about Netflix loosing streaming titles than the price hike. Out of about 50 titles in my instant queue only 5 or 6 are available for streaming and the number is in fact decreasing. If Netflix looses more streaming titles then I will probably switch to DVD-only plan or go to DirecTV/Blockbuster.
What kind of future can Netflix streaming have? (Score:5, Insightful)
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expects (Score:2)
If they expect to lose this many customers, they must also expect to gain enough of a profit margin from the price hike that they can afford to lose this many customers. It's not like they're standing under a bridge and expecting it to fall on them - they are electively changing the prices. This is assuming that a rabid monkey hasn't taken over the management of Netflix, which is not an unreasonable hypothesis given their bizarre adherence to their horrendous new interface despite an overwhelming sentimen
Netflix won't let me re-up my stash (Score:3, Interesting)
I've tried repeatedly to restart my subscription, since the DVD-only option is very appealing. But they don't even offer it. (No lie.) I don't see streaming as a viable option for many years, so it's back to the public library for me.
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I think you need to call them to get the DVD only option.
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They didn't seem to need me to call when I signed up in the first place. An offered option shouldn't be hidden or require negotiating a maze of circuitous channels. What a bunch of knuckleheads!
Sounds like a win for Netflix (Score:2)
Article and summary imply incorrectly (Score:5, Informative)
Netflix is not saying that they will be losing 1M of their existing customers. Rather, they're altering their guidance for the next quarter by 1M subscribers, which is an important distinction, since it more or less halves the impact from what most people here seem to be thinking. Previously, they had been expecting a decent growth of 400K in the upcoming quarter, but now they are projecting a net loss of 600K in the quarter, hence the 1M number. Yes, it's bad, but it's not as bad as losing 1M of your current customers in addition to however many potential customers you'd lose as well.
The article and most of the other blogs are glossing over this detail, but numbers are always important.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-netflix-20110916,0,5009354.story [latimes.com]
Let's do some math (Score:3)
Let's assume 25M subscribers at the standard DVD + Streaming plan, which I believe was $11/mo. We can chop off a few zeros and still get the same effect, so let's do that and keep our math simple.
25 * 11 = 275
I think the cheapest is now $16 for both, so let's figure out what they'd be making if everyone who stayed kept the same plan at the higher rate.
24 * 16 = 384
Let's derive a quick formula.
(24 - x) * 16 + x * 8, where x is the number of people who choose DVD /or/ streaming.
24 * 16 = 384 = (24 - 0) * 16 + 0 * 8
Now, let's solve for 275, to assume they'd be making the same amount.
275 = (24 - x) * 16 + x * 8
I put this into my handy equation solver because I'm too lazy to work it out in my head and can't find paper/pen...
x = 109/8, or 13.625.
Netflix could go down to 10.375M users of the DVD+streaming, and have 13.625M users of one or the other and still make the same amount of money.
Methinks Netflix did their math beforehand. They're going to be making bank, and savvy shareholders are buying now on this dip on bad news. Happens every time. Netflix is here to stay, for as long as the content owners will allow it to exist.
Not a SINGLE shift in streaming+dvd customers? (Score:2)
Prior to model change:
Streaming only: 10,0m customers
Streaming+DVD: 12.0m customers
DVD Only: 3.0m customers
Post-implementation of the new pricing model, Netflix expects the customer base break-out to be:
Streaming only: 9.8m customers
Streaming+DVD: 12.0m customers
DVD only: 2.2m customers
So let me get this straight - the price for streaming+dvd is at least doubling - and Netflix is not expecting that customer count to go down at all. Instead, th
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After I cancelled with Netflix (Score:4, Funny)
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Your sarcasm detector is broken.
Losing neflix would be a loss to us all (Score:4, Interesting)
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Also, $60/mo for cable for $8/mo for netflix is misleading, since you have to buy the Internet connection (from the cable company, in my case) to have netflix in the first place. Netflix streaming is more comparabl
Wait...you think they're doing it wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
So according to TFA, Netflix had 12 million people paying $10/month for streaming+DVD. Those 12 million people will now pay $16/month. That's an extra $72m/month.
10 million (like me) are streaming only at $8/month. They're losing 200,000 of those, or $1.6 million/month.
3 million get the DVD only plan. They're losing 800,000 of those. I don't know what the average DVD only customer pays, but let's be generous and say it's $20/month. This'll cost Netflix $16m/month. They're still $55 million/month in the black.
So you're all saying Netflix has done something really stupid because they're...making more money?
Netflix has pissed people off simply because people don't want to pay more, not because the service isn't worth it. I get TONS of value for my $8/month. I may get around to adding the DVD bit for those shows I can't stream because another $8/month is peanuts. I spend more than that for one movie ticket. I spent more than that on lunch today. But somehow I'm supposed to be all outraged that a service I actually like wants me to pay that much to watch movies all month long. I just don't see it. Sorry.
#DearNetflix (Score:4, Interesting)
You certainly made the "short list" of features that led to me giving up my Linux install and my wonderfully uber-compatible XBMC installation. In fact, you were the most important factor leading to the change. The fact that XBMC and MythTV work together as well as the Bundys when it comes to broadcast televison, well, now that I think of it, that's the only other reason. Rest assured, you were the reason for the switch.
Now, Microsoft made $50 on the transition; I'm a student. And Windows Media Center is pretty damn good, once sufficiently beaten into submission. I have it now as compatible with videos as XBMC, with metadata collection and display almost as good. However, you guys were nice enough to build an add-in to WMC, cool. $8 a month is pretty awesome for HD movies to just be THERE. Schweet.
However, that just ain't the case. Even though I'm a lucky bastard and can pull down about 3MB/s (and yes, I mean a little over two 1.44MB floppy disks, or maybe 0.0001 Libraries of Congress), "HD Video" just won't play. I don't use quotes for effect, I use them because that's what you call it, I can't get your player to cough up any information about what the hell resolution, frame rate, color profile, or codec. It skips and sputters, surely because Silverlight 4 isn't hardware-accelerated - but Silverlight 5 just isn't there either.
Now, I can: 1. Minimize WMC. 2. Start Firefox. 3. Go to your website. 4. Log in (WMC is logged in separately). 5. Go to My Account. 6. Click Video Steaming Settings (or whatever the hell it is) 7. Change the rate to 1GB/hr. and 8. Click Next. This gives me a 404 error, but it's been changed. 9. Return to WMC, completely stop the movie, and restart. Then we have video. I can't change that shit in the WMC client. That's cool, but it's not HD. Can I get a discount?
Now, I'd be cool with the fact that my HTPC (which is otherwise quite capable of 1080p, thankyouverymuch) isn't getting HD content, because I could at least have that thing playing and use another device, like my iPhone. Now, I was paying for the ability to stream HD to one device, and I wasn't getting that. I can't give you numbers for sure because your client is so locked down. However, I'm pretty sure that the SD-only stream my HTPC receives plus the mobile video on my iPhone still isn't the resolution I was paying for, but that's now blocked.
Can I have my money (and time) back?
(P.S. Dear Slashdot: You owe me karma back from the Google+ post. How the HELL did that end up there?)
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#firstworldproblems
Streaming customers... (Score:3)
Are getting screwed. I like the option of getting a DVD for a show that wasn't available via streaming. But when the price changes came, I decided I used streaming more than the real video service, so I opted for the streaming only at 8 bucks a month. Now they are losing stars, which means I am not essentially paying the same for a greatly reduced service.
I have seen the value acquired for the dollar spent on netflix rapidly diminish over the past several months. I'll probably end up canceling entirely and go back to waiting for a service to come along that does streaming right.
( note: I'm not entirely blaming netflix here, they're the middle man and have to play games with the content holders, who we all know are bastards. Doesn't change the end result however. )
It's all my fault. (Score:3)
My wife (who is homebound due to a workers comp issue) watches Netflix streaming. A lot.
She complains continuously that they do not have the latest releases available to stream, but then she finds herself a new (to her) TV series and watches that.
And when I say "watches," I mean "vigorously consumes". She starts from episode 1, and goes until she reaches the end.
She uses up to about 450 gigabytes per month of bandwidth doing this, by my measurement.
So, as saddened as I am that Netflix's new pricing scheme has finally come to shove, I am moreover disheartened that I have allowed such a travesty to fester to such an extent that it affects all of us.
I would like to take this opportunity to apologize. I am unreservedly sorry for my wife's behavior and any impact that it may have upon you and your family.
-adolf, #21054
I might come back to Netflix (Score:2)
If I do, it will be for the streaming only service. If there is something only offered by them on DVD, then I'll just download the bitch elsewhere.
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Considering this myself, or at a minimum dropping to a disc only. Their streaming library has sucked of late. I've used it too infrequently to merit the price increase.
Re:WHAT??!?! (Score:5, Interesting)
I ditched them for Blockbuster and I'm happy with the service. I'm paying a bit more because I hadn't been getting Blurays, but for the money I'm getting Blurays and games as well. Seems to take the same amount of time to return discs as I was with Netflix.
I have to admit that I get a lot of satisfaction out of their share price dropping by fully half since they announced the price hike. It's amazing to me that they thought that they could make that comment about it being the price of a couple lattes during a period where there's a lot of people who are really hurting for work. Especially without even bothering to roll out anything new to justify the price hike.
Worse still was the comment later that it wasn't to pay increased licensing demands.
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Odd because my plan dropped significantly, enough that I switched to the 5 out at a time plan, which BB doesn't even offer. How the blockbuster streaming working for you btw?
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Netflix doesn't have a streaming plan. At least not one that can accurately be called one. I rarely if ever used it as the selection was so poor. It was overpriced at $2 a month and it's even more overpriced at $8. For that I can get hulu or rent a couple movies online from Blockbuster.
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I'm sure they didn't want to hike their prices. But the studios that provide the movies and TV shows demanded huge (like, order of magnitude) increases in their cuts. Netflix had a choice: close up shop, or raise prices. In the end, they may go under either way. That is the studios' goal, after all. They want to control distribution.
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That's really not true. According to Netflix, the reason for the price hike has nothing to do with licensing fees. Which makes me wonder what precisely it is that they're needing the money for.
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I think they made that comment before they lost their sweet heart deal with Starz.
Re:WHAT??!?! (Score:5, Interesting)
Also went to Blockbuster. We only use Blu-Ray and DVDs (no games or streaming). Netflix took so long to send us new releases (spent 2-3 weeks in the "Long Wait" queue) that my wife would usually rent from BB. We have a BB store within 10 minutes and now that they've gone to unlimited envelope exchanges in store, we are MUCH happier than we ever were with Netflix. Plus, BB gets new releases a week or two before Netflix.
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If Blockbuster would carry long-tail title, they might get my business. In the meantime, Netflix is the only way for me to see the films I want to see. No brick and mortar store rents them in my area (read: anywhere in Iowa) and Blockbuster doesn't even have them with the shipped disk method.
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It made me sad to see so many good stores with personality driven bankrupt to feed the blockbuster machine. I took great pleasure in watching blockbuster g
Re:WHAT??!?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Out of 1,000 movies, a good 70% of them are old black and whites, or westerns, crap I could care less about. Another 20% is kids movies, and out of the left over 10%, well... I watched all the good ones I wanted to.
But I do watch some of the series they have on there... Firefly (rewatch that alot), Scrubs (rewatch), Star Trek series (Watching Enterprise now), Law&Order CI (watching), etc.
That makes it kinda worth it. They have a few more months before I decide to drop them.
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Thank you for pointing out that I was tired while posting and made a mistake or two.
tell the rest of the story (Score:4, Interesting)
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Hand of the free market at work. X customers willing to buy at Y price equals Z total revenue. You maximize profit often leaving many customers out of the equations. Its just that simple for Netflix as it is for food, water, safety, legal representation and healthcare.
Its capitalism just what our founding fathers, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Rand had in mind.
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While losing a million subscribers is generally a bad thing... I would think they will be doing fine with the other 24 million of us.
No kidding. You don't even have to do the math to find out that after the new price change the loss of 1 million subscribers will still result in them earning more money total than before. Also it's expected that they would have to charge more for an increasingly expensive service to host.
Also, the prices for Streaming AND DVDs have gone up. If you do one or the other, you actually save money now.
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Heck, the linked article even includes a set of charts showing where Netflix plans to lose customers. Yes, Netflix will lose 200K streaming only customers and 800K DVD only customers. On the other hand it expects to have roughly the same amount of users that use both services (12 million). The difference, of course, is that now these 12 million customers (roughly half of Netflix's users) will be paying twice as much as they were previously.
And somehow the idiots on Wall Street think that this is a *bad
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The problem is that Netflix was the leader in the industry and had mostly run the competition out of business. This particular misstep was ill timed as Blockbuster isn't yet out of business and there are several other providers of streaming media that are needing customers to get started.
Driving a million customers into the hands of the competition at this stage is really bad for them. OTOH, it's really good for the consumers as there are still other options available.
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Blockbuster could be free and I still wouldn't do business with them. Watching all the Blockbuster stores in my area close over time has been pretty satisfying.
You're right that there are lots of other great options though. Other than Netflix, in the past year I've rented from RedBox a few times (including some games), from Directv, and from Vudu.
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It isn't offensive and unless you know the backstory it does sound idiotic. Way back in the '90s, Blockbuster was very powerful and dominated my local market. They treated customers very poorly back then. They screwed me with bogus fees a couple of times and I finally vowed to never do business with them again.
These days I have an unbelievable number of options for entertainment, so the loss of Blockbuster doesn't worry me at all and in fact I'm happy to see them go.
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That's me. I dumped the streaming service. I very, very, very rarely used it to begin with. It was bad enough when they [i]raised[/i] my price the first time in order to cover other people streaming all of the content they wanted. Now I only pay for the number of discs I want, and it's about the same price I was paying years ago.
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I wonder how many of the people who stayed just picked a cheaper subscription option that didn't include streaming?
1) Bait 2) Switch 3) ??? 4) Profit!
I went streaming only; the physical media via mail doesn't really appeal to me anyway.
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We also went streaming only. If Netflix doesn't have something I want to see, I can usually find it on a different service like Vudu.
I'm wondering if 1 million lost customers might ultimately help Netflix when negotiating for streaming rights. The copyright owners have an unrealistic (IMHO) idea of what their movies are worth and now Netflix has hard data to show that a significant number of customers will not pay more.
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I'm not impressed with the streaming movies, but the documentary/history selection keeps me entertained.
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Where they really fell down was how they tried to sell it to the customers. It's pretty well established that during a down economy you don't raise prices if you can help it, you definitely don't raise prices by +60% and if you have to do that then you certainly don't make condescending comments about how it's only the cost of a couple lattes. Lattes are much less elite than they used to be, but they're still significantly more expensive than the alternatives are.
I might have gone along with it had they bee
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For streaming you might also want to check out Crackle. It's ad supported, but the ads seem to be infrequent enough as to make it a reasonable proposition. Also, Amazon Prime is worth a look, but they have a small catalog IIRC.