Netflix Cuts Subscription Prices in Over 30 Countries (wsj.com) 68
Netflix has reduced the cost of its service in more than three dozen countries in recent weeks, as it tries to appeal to customers around the world who have an ever-growing list of streaming options. From a report: The streaming company's recent price cuts span Middle Eastern countries including Yemen, Jordan, Libya and Iran; sub-Saharan African markets including Kenya; and European countries such as Croatia, Slovenia and Bulgaria. In Latin America, nations including Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Venezuela have seen reductions in subscription costs, as have parts of Asia including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. The cuts apply to certain tiers of Netflix in those markets -- in some cases halving the cost of a subscription.
As recently as last month, Netflix executives talked about raising -- not lowering -- prices. In a January earnings call, co-Chief Executive Greg Peters said the company is looking for places where they can afford to raise prices, which feeds continued content investments. "We think of ourselves as a non-substitutable good," Mr. Peters said. Netflix also has an opportunity to add new subscribers in markets where it doesn't currently have a large share, he said.
As recently as last month, Netflix executives talked about raising -- not lowering -- prices. In a January earnings call, co-Chief Executive Greg Peters said the company is looking for places where they can afford to raise prices, which feeds continued content investments. "We think of ourselves as a non-substitutable good," Mr. Peters said. Netflix also has an opportunity to add new subscribers in markets where it doesn't currently have a large share, he said.
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I hope you mean single-player, offline games with no DRM/server bullshit. Because these days a lot of games, that people paid for, require online servers which right now are going offline left and right because the game companies are trying to cut their losses.
Nonsubstitutable good? (Score:5, Interesting)
As recently as last month, Netflix executives talked about raising -- not lowering -- prices. In a January earnings call, co-Chief Executive Greg Peters said the company is looking for places where they can afford to raise prices, which feeds continued content investments. "We think of ourselves as a non-substitutable good," Mr. Peters said.
It seems Mr. Peters is discovering they are very much substitutable as more options become available when content owners remove their own content and start their own services. Netflix' challenge is remaining profitable while still being able to create compelling new content; unlike Amazon, Apple, Disney, the major networks, Netflix doesn't have revenue streams beyond streaming to help underwrite streaming. Unless the cuts increase subscriptions and revenue above that lost from the cuts, if they are forced to raise prices they'll upset subscribers and may ultimately wind up with less than before; starting a death spiral they cannot get out of.
Password sharing (Score:4, Interesting)
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I somehow agree with you, in that they're pissing off old customers and won't make enough money for some years ahead.
But in the other hand, having two or more customers paying half price is a better business than having one paying full and sharing the password with others. This is, if they succeed and end up really having more subscribers.
Re: Password sharing (Score:1)
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Yeah, I guess that's why they're trying lowering prices now. To see if customers will continue to cancel or if more subscriptions will be generated.
Re: Password sharing (Score:2)
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Maybe but long term I suspect Netflix thinks its better to have people paying less but using their own accounts.
If you get more individuals to subscribe rather than share password at a higher price, you probably see slightly more revenue today AND a higher volume of subscribers means a lot more revenue add with each incremental price increase. Raise prices by $0.25 nobody is going to cancel over that, raise it by a $1 and people will bolt, its psychology.
Put another way if two people share a password and p
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Netflix encouraged sharing accounts. Then they implied doing so was stealing. Taking away a major part of your product like that, AND springing some kind of moral bullshit on your customers to justify it gets you a lot of permanently pissed off former customers. And a company with majority penetration of a market doesn't have a lot of new customers to gain.
Netflix pulled their "password sharing" thing because they're desperate. It backfired worse than they thought so now they're slashing prices in markets w
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Yes but some people may just quit and pay nothing, or one will get another service. For me I share with my parents, my parents got netflix basically for my children, they hardly watch it, for me its not worth the price even at $2 I will not be getting it, I do occasionally watch it but only because I am board, there are no must watches, or really like to watch there. If I was to get a service I would get another one and anything I wanted to watch on Netflix I would watch at my parents. It is also possible t
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They have to cut the price in half in order to compensate for their assinine policies. They wanted (I dumped them) to pay for four simultaneous streams (of whcih I could only use one) but suddenly refused to permit me to seel half my subscription to someone else. So now they get absolutely fuck all unless they cut their subscription price in half (they can cut the number of streams in half also -- they just cannot reduce the quality -- or they will still get fucking nothing).
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So they make it impossible to share an account. See usage drop like a stone so they lower the price.
[Citation Needed] There's no evidence anywhere that their usage has dropped like a stone as a result of the password sharing policy. At best there's a few angry people venting on Twitter. Specifically none of the countries they are dropping prices in are countries where they've implemented their password sharing crackdown.
In reality Netflix is in panic mode. They are doing a lot of things in parallel. One decision isn't causing another in this case.
They are pissing off old long time customers and are having a lot of trouble adding new ones.
No, most users don't care. They pissed off far more users r
Expected (Score:5, Interesting)
With all the backlash from banning account sharing, they need to do something to retain customer loyalty. In our case, we were sharing a 4-stream top-tier subscription (and the 4K resolution included was fine) between two households; we have removed the subscription when they banned sharing. It seems they were expecting all shared accounts would become individual paying accounts or would accept to pay extra to share, but reality has blown up and many people have used this to notice they are subscribed (maybe sharing, but nonetheless) to too many streaming services.
Re:Expected (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? Cracking down on people sharing content doesn't create new customers, you say?
Why do I suddenly have a really odd deja-vu?
Re:Expected (Score:5, Interesting)
It probably does create some new customers. Just not enough to offset the number that quit over the inconvenience.
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Well, account sharing is technically worse (from the perspective of the business) than piracy. When people pirate Netflix's content, they may or may not have been willing to pay for what they received for free, but the Netflix does not directly suffer a loss. When people share a password though, that eats up some bandwidth on Netflix's service, so Netflix might actually prefer the sharers to pay up or GTFO.
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Sure. That's why they charge by the stream. Oh wait, they can't do that because it would piss off people with kids.
And they're not quite that desperate yet. Give it a few months.
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Yes and No the also may gain, they may gain by the fact that the initial account holder gets 4 streams instead of 1 or 2.
But if you are paying for 4 simultaneous streams you should be able to watch 4 simultaneous streams.
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But in turn, if I can't share my subscription with my neighbor and thus only pay half the price for it, I probably don't want to afford it, so you even save bandwidth for two streams, but you're also down one subscription.
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No, they weren't. In the press releases they acknowledged they would lose customers.
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Aside from the increased cost, I think it was a prompt to remind people to cancel that Netflix subscription that they never watch.
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With all the backlash from banning account sharing, they need to do something to retain customer loyalty.
They aren't dropping prices in countries where they've implemented account sharing. There's also no evidence of any mass customer exodus. Just a few angry people on twitter.
WSJ (Score:3, Insightful)
They cut prices in Venezuela too (Score:4, Insightful)
The trick is that in countries like Venezuela or Yemen, Netflix is prioritizing subscriber growth, this is part of a three prong strategy:
On one hand they lowered the prices, the 720p price got lowered, and the people with 1080p were offered 4K at no extra cost. Since many people here do not have a 4K capable internet (even if they have the money to pay, the infra is not up to par) for Netflix this amount to a token gesture.
On the other hand, we all pretty much know that this move is in preparation to the crackdown on Password sharing, by making prices lower, they hope to convince some sharers to get their own accounts.
Finally, the Ad-Supported tier has not been introduced in many of these markets (Venezuela included) yet, this will be introduced concurrently with (or shortly after) the password sharing crackdown, so even if a sharer was reticent to get their own account, this may tip the scales.
Remember, Wall street still values subscriber count count/growth.
And also remember that in emerging economies, sometimes there are upsides, so some persons that were password sharing because they had little money, and due to the crackdown made a sacrifice to go ad-supported may improve their situation enough to go 720p and latter on 1080p.
JM2C
YMMV
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Yes, fat lazy ignorant Americans are subsidizing the Netflix costs of the hard working people of the developing world that they exploit for low cost labor and natural resources (or bomb the shit out of them if they get too uppity). Thank you America, land of the free and home of the brave. What would we ever do without you.
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On reflection, do you think the comment I was responding to was also a bit harsh or at least a generalization? Are you familiar with the concept of hyperbole/irony or do you take everything that everyone says literally? Are you new to the internet or just unbearably stupid?
America subsidizes the rest of the world. (Score:1, Troll)
As usual. I'd cancel that shit right now if my wife didn't demand the comedy specials.
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America also subsidizes corn farmers and cries foul when other countries do the same.
The reality is that america isn't subsidizing anything in netflix. You can't have "one size fits all" pricing because you're not selling the same product anyways. Netflix catalogs are different in all countries.
Go put on your MAGA hat and yell TERKING JERBS with your trumpist friends, clown.
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America also subsidizes corn farmers and cries foul when other countries do the same.
The reality is that america isn't subsidizing anything in netflix. You can't have "one size fits all" pricing because you're not selling the same product anyways. Netflix catalogs are different in all countries.
Go put on your MAGA hat and yell TERKING JERBS with your trumpist friends, clown.
Read the comment again. "America subsidizes the rest of the world" in this case isn't talking about government subsidies; it's stating that customers in the US pay a higher price so that Netflix can offer their services cheaper elsewhere in the world. Nothing in that statement yells trumpist.
Different markets will have different prices. Netflix doesn't have broadcast rights to the same catalogs in all countries. Economies are different in different countries. Minimum wage in the US is $7.25 / hour (some sta
Re: America subsidizes the rest of the world. (Score:1)
> Read the comment again. "America subsidizes the rest of the world" in this case isn't talking about government subsidies; it's stating that customers in the US pay a higher price so that Netflix can offer their services cheaper elsewhere in the world.
Yeah, about that. Last I checked (just now) $9.99 is significantly cheaper than £10.99, even if you add 20% VAT on top.
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Why did you write a comment responding to mine that says exactly the same thing I said?
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Netflix has killed the value of the "1 hour special". It used to mean something. When HBO and even Comedy Central were the defacto custodians of these, there was some effort to curate them. Quality mattered. Now it doesn't. Anybody with 15 fans and their own Shure microphone can be a Netflix stand-up star. It's awful.
I'm glad to see some of the great ones jump ship. In some cases, it's back to HBO. More power to them.
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On that note, I guess given Netflix's current financial problems, Netflix is a shining example of how the alt-righter's "Get woke, go broke" is actually the exact opposite of reality.
Most comedy on Netflix is quite left, there are some right as well, but maybe its influenced by my political stance. People who are left think more things are right, and people who are right think more things are left. I don't really know where I sit, since I am not an impartial judge. I think I am in the correct place on the scale but who doesn't think that?
I actually find none of their comedies funny left or right, its just people talking about their political opinion, or how dysfunctional they are. Then
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I think most of what you're saying still boils down to "shitty comedians." There are legitimate laughs to be had in the domains you don't want to hear about. I get that you want "silly" but lots of people want more. As the great comedians all said, you can joke about anything. And you should. It's healthy and level-setting.
People will forgive a LOT o left or right leaning in the material if the "funny" is present. The fatal flaw is to be polarized but "unfunny".
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Ah yes (Score:2)
It won't gain you anything but infrastructure and support costs in additional markets, and it's not bringing back the customers who pay more in non-developing countries.
Password sharing plays out for me as I expected... (Score:3)
My password is shared with my retiree mother, who lives in another household. Neither of us are heavy watchers - it's a convenience. However, I do pay the top tier for 4K streams. It would be silly to put all that money into great video and then clamp it over a few dollars... We make no attempt to hide the fact that it's two households. Our region saw the password sharing restrictions come in at the start of the year, and so far it has had no impact at all. I haven't had to sign in again on anything, nor has she. Business as usual.
I suspect that there's an "ET" - "Egregiousness Threshold" - under which they won't bother you, kind of like doing 8km/h over the limit. And that's exactly what I would do if I were them.
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Mine too. So far no problems, but the minute there are, the subscription gets cancelled.
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I have noticed if you watch via web browser those restrictions don't apply either.
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No you are doing it wrong. This is the internet. You need to be outraged over a change without actually seeing if you're affected by it. Take to Twitter. Threaten to delete your account. Make noise! BE ANGRY! Otherwise why are you even online?
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Damn it... you're right. I'm doing it wrong.
Netflix is evil. Burn the motherfucker down.
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Books are usually the last thing the cultural marxists want to censor and adulterate, too.
They are getting their too https://time.com/6256980/roald... [time.com] removing words like fat.
So they're the unicorn in a herd of horses? (Score:5, Funny)
"We think of ourselves as a non-substitutable good," (co-Chief Executive Greg) Peters said.
Yeah, well I think of myself as god's best gift to women, but that's not true either. These corporate dicktards seem utterly unaware of the utter contempt this kind of pompous drivel rouses in sensible people.
10 months without NETFLIX, I found nothing new. (Score:1, Insightful)
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Agree. Almost. Have found about 6 things in the past year. None recently. The only decent stuff is currently coming from Korea and a little bit from Scandinavia. Zero from US, UK, AUS, zero always in spanish.
Re: 10 months without NETFLIX, I found nothing new (Score:3)
Are you seriously claiming Netflix has a woke problem, but Disney doesn't?
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Re: 10 months without NETFLIX, I found nothing ne (Score:2)
I mean sure. If you're still into superheros after the 65th new release in a decade, then Disney is the way to go. Not sure what that has to do with "woke"-ism on the two platforms.
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There are still a few decent shows but yea the slim pickings keep getting worse every year. What pisses me off is that they will have like Season 1 of One Punch Man but not Season 2. Or have Paradise PD but not Brickleberry. WTF.
I don't know what genre(s) you are into but my top rated stuff would be:
* Arrested Development
* Big Mouth
* Bojack Horseman
* Cobra Kai
* Community
* Formula 1: Drive to Succeed
* History of Swear Words
* Human Resources
* Paradise PD
* RRR
* Seinfeld
* The Umbrella Academy
Others I've watche
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DISNEY+ has literally sucked all the life out of NETFLIX and left only leftist woke gibberish behind.
Well guess what, my partner and I cancelled Netflix quite awhile ago because there was nothing either of us wanted to watch on it. Yeah, we're a gay couple and we watch the same sort of entertainment as you straight folks most of the time. Imagine that. Turns out that a streaming service having compelling content is the really the crux of the issue, and badly written tripe is still badly written tripe even when the filmmakers go out of their way to make it extra inclusive...
Re: Wokeflix loses share. Woke Mind Virus. (Score:2)
Yes. Cuties is so woke.
TIL more about Iran sanctions (Score:2)
At first glance I was wondering how Netflix is able to operate in Iran, which is sanctioned by the U.S.
I had assumed that would be forbidden, but I just investigated to find that music, movies, and other art are excluded from the sanctions.
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Art forms like this usually are since it provides a means of spreading propaganda. But in general people have a very incorrect view of sanctions. Sanctions are usually highly specific and do not represent an all out ban of any business deal. Doing so often has a tendency to hurt the very countries imposing sanctions (in Iran for example the Shah Deniz consortium is except from sanctions despite 10% of the profits going directly to the Iranian government, because... natural gas).
Subscription options still too limited (Score:1)
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Same here, although I do remember reading that the low-end accounts were supposed to be upgraded to 720p at no cost a few months ago? Didn't seem to have happened in Canada yet.
Netflix=crack dealer (Score:1)