Netflix's Dominance Starts to Slow as Streaming Rivals Gain (nytimes.com) 78
The New York Times reports:
Netflix still rules the streaming universe. As of the end of March, it had 207.6 million total paying subscribers, with about 67 million in the United States, the company noted in an earnings report on Tuesday. But its main competitors — Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+ and AppleTV+, as well as the old-guard streamers Amazon Prime Video and Hulu — have cut into Netflix's share of viewers' attention... according to the data firm Parrot Analytics, which has developed a metric to rate not only the number of viewers for given shows, but their likelihood of attracting subscribers to a streaming service.
In its latest rankings, Parrot reported that Netflix's share of total demand — a measure of the popularity of its shows — was slightly above 50 percent for the first three months of the year, compared with 54 percent a year ago and 65 percent in the first quarter of 2019. In other words, competitors have started eating into Netflix's dominance.
That showed up in the numbers. For the first quarter of 2021, Netflix reported the addition of four million new customers, below the six million it had forecast. The company expects to add only one million new customers for this current quarter ending in June. Netflix shares plummeted about 10 percent in after-hours trading on Tuesday, after the earnings announcement...
Although competitors are gaining ground, Netflix is in its best financial shape of its history. It hit a milestone at the end of last year, when it said it would no longer look to borrow money to fund its content slate. Another way to look at it: Netflix finally became a truly profitable business after topping 200 million subscribers, each paying an average of $11 a month. In other words: Its competitors are still losing lots of money on streaming.
In its latest rankings, Parrot reported that Netflix's share of total demand — a measure of the popularity of its shows — was slightly above 50 percent for the first three months of the year, compared with 54 percent a year ago and 65 percent in the first quarter of 2019. In other words, competitors have started eating into Netflix's dominance.
That showed up in the numbers. For the first quarter of 2021, Netflix reported the addition of four million new customers, below the six million it had forecast. The company expects to add only one million new customers for this current quarter ending in June. Netflix shares plummeted about 10 percent in after-hours trading on Tuesday, after the earnings announcement...
Although competitors are gaining ground, Netflix is in its best financial shape of its history. It hit a milestone at the end of last year, when it said it would no longer look to borrow money to fund its content slate. Another way to look at it: Netflix finally became a truly profitable business after topping 200 million subscribers, each paying an average of $11 a month. In other words: Its competitors are still losing lots of money on streaming.
Kinda oversimplifying this... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it takes a little more math than "how many subscriber they have" to figure this out. Whether a streaming provider brings in enough revenue to cover their content costs is going to depend on how big the library is and how the streaming company came about it. Clearly a company that already owns the rights to their content, like Disney and ViacomCBS, would have different costs associated with their library than a provider that is having to get licensing agreements for shows. Yes, there are the actual production costs of all the Marvel-Universe series, but there's also the catalog of live action and animated movies Disney+ has. Also, services like Hulu have the additional revenue of their advertising in their lowest-tier plan to take into account. Speaking of Hulu, the ABC Network content is made for the television network itself, but Disney owns both ABC and a majority stake in Hulu, so they have programming that they already bankrolled off traditional media and can put on their (other) streaming platform.
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Exactly, everybody has watched Netflix empty during the pandemic.
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Not me. I keep my Netflix consumption rationed at one Star Trek episode per day. There are loads more fun things to do than being a couch potato.
Re: Kinda oversimplifying this... (Score:1)
Netflix DVD is the best service out there (Score:5, Interesting)
Every month I spend an hour or two looking for movie recommendations, and 10-15 minutes filling my queue. I rarely lose time scrolling through the endless, mostly bland choices on six different streaming services. I have seen more fantastic movies and television in the last six months than I have in the last five years of slogging through broken interfaces.
Re: Netflix DVD is the best service out there (Score:2)
What's Netflix DVD ? Different from the normal netflix we have ?
Re: Netflix DVD is the best service out there (Score:4, Interesting)
Netflix DVD is the original version of the Netflix product. You get so many DVD/Blu-ray discs at a time, and drop them in the mail after you watch them. No lag/jitter problems and better audio/video quality across the board. It's not an option for people with phones and tablets only, but a much better experience if you have a TV with an HDMI input.
Re: Netflix DVD is the best service out there (Score:4, Funny)
Netflix DVD is the original version of the Netflix product...It's not an option for people with phones and tablets only, but a much better experience if you have a TV with an HDMI input.
TV? Check.
HDMI input? Check.
So how do I get this round thing, in there again?
- GenZ
Re: Netflix DVD is the best service out there (Score:2)
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Um, Netflix streaming goes up to 4k and the picture quality is excellent. I don't have any issues with jitter or lag. No 4k Bluray player needed either, almost anything remotely "smart" has the Netflix app on it.
Streaming is much preferred to mucking around with discs. The only thing better than steaming is The Pirate Bay.
Re: Netflix DVD is the best service out there (Score:4, Interesting)
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Netflix's success with streaming has ruined streaming I feel. Because the competition comes out and shouts that they want profits too, then instead of competing directly on who has a good service and diversity of content, they demand to balkanize it all and yank content away from Netflix and create exclusives. So instead of being able to see Iron Man on every streaming service, you can only see it one single place (not counting pay-per-view movie sites like Fandango). Or they get overly monetized like Am
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I don't dispute the quality of those films, but most of those were made 50 to 70 years ago.
And most people below 50 years old, who are not film majors, simply do not have the attention span necessary to watch those kinds of film anymore.
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Um, Netflix streaming goes up to 4k and the picture quality is excellent. I don't have any issues with jitter or lag.
Nothing proves an argument like one data point.
I am glad you have a good connection, but I wonder how representative that is of an average household. Particularly because often it isn't even a question of saving money, but a function of choosing 1 out of 1 available internet providers.
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It may be capable, if your home internet is also capable, but ultimately the max bit rate is less than the max bit rate from a 4k disc.
Most of the time this doesn't mean much, but I have heard complaints from people about quality dipping during full motion scenes.
Of course, no idea if 4k blu-ray is on dvd.netflix.com.
I'll concur with the convenience of streaming, though he is right about the content streaming rights being a mess and the disc selection being pretty thorough for back-catalog items (though str
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Um, Netflix streaming goes up to 4k and the picture quality is excellent. I don't have any issues with jitter or lag. No 4k Bluray player needed either, almost anything remotely "smart" has the Netflix app on it.
Streaming is much preferred to mucking around with discs. The only thing better than steaming is The Pirate Bay.
it isn't the resolution so much as things like bit rate and compression type I have issues with. Especially noticeable in dark scenes even more so with motion the compression artifacts etc are problematic vs dvd. Below average quality even for the moderate to higher bit rates used vs properly encoded video files. The way they produce those delivery formats prioritises speed/low power over quality is my guess which is understandable if it is the reason, doesn't mean I like it. I notice it on all browsers I'v
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but a much better experience if you have a TV with an HDMI input.
Not really. First you have to wait to see if the movie you want is on Netflix DVD. Then if its a popular movie you have to hope you are at the top of the queue or it might be months before you see it. But then, if its a unpopular movie or old one then you have to hope they even have it in stock, or a quantity on hand. If not, you will be waiting months before you get it, if at all.
Then when you get the disk in the mail you have to be concerned if the disk has been cracked or broken during shipping.
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Redbox has an extremely limited selection. Given that there is a queue for Netflix DVDs, this means that it is actually popular. Of course you can say you don't like popular stuff because it's too popular ("no one eats there anymore, it's too crowded"), but it is a very useful service.
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Or is that just for streaming, and they still offer all the DVDs that they offered 10 years ago?
Re: Netflix DVD is the best service out there (Score:5, Funny)
I believe a Netflix DVD is some kind of round-shaped storage medium that is delivered to you via a horse and buggy, and then you just point the round-shaped device at the sun or at something bright as you rotate it and then, you're able to see the moving pictures within it.
Re: Netflix DVD is the best service out there (Score:2)
It's the original stone age snail mail Netflix service.
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You are confused between two products: "Netflix" which is their streaming service with about 6,000 titles, and "Netflix DVD" which has over 100,000 titles.
Consider understanding what someone has stated before you dive into personal attacks. It makes you look ignorant and petty.
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you must have really low standards, because netflix is filled with thousands of crap titles, it really does take a while to find something even known.
If you think Netflix is full of crap titles you should take a look at the horrendous pile of shovel-ware otherwise known as Amazon Prime Video. One thing I actually like on Netflix is that they have a large quantity of European, S-American and Asian stuff that I normally would not watch because of I don't know the language and can't be bothered to read subtitles but now that they have begun to dub it all in English I'm watching it and much of this media is every bit as good as the US and UK stuff.
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The reason Dutch people speak their languages so well is because of subtitles. Just saying. Besides, we know how the actors sound in their own speak. In other words: subtitles rule and FTW etc!
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I did see an article in a Finnish magazine which tried to argue that the reason Finnish schoolchildren were better at reading than German schoolchildren was because most of the Finnish television imported from America was subtitled, whereas German television from America was dubbed.
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I wasnt aware i needed to list every other similar shovelware video streaming service out there. Yes Amazon PV is full of crap as well.
> One thing I actually like on Netflix is that they have a large quantity of European, S-American and Asian stuff that I normally would not watch because of I don't know the language and can't be bothered to read subtitles
Re: Netflix DVD is the best service out there (Score:2)
Agreed, a lot of the titles now struggle to meet syfy channel level of quality , that says a whole bunch
Re:Netflix DVD is the best service out there (Score:4, Interesting)
On the other hand, Hollywood just handed out $205,000 swag bags to nominees at their latest award fiasco, so I don't expect much. I'll enjoy the fact that if I can't find something on the fscking stream services (Hulu? CW? Fox? I'm looking at you!) I can just pirate the shit.
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I'm generally happy with Netflix. If you throw Netflix and Amazon Prime together it's better. What does annoy the living crap out of me is the lack of a unified streaming service or application. It's annoying to have to flip between six or so streaming services to find something.
On the other hand, Hollywood just handed out $205,000 swag bags to nominees at their latest award fiasco, so I don't expect much. I'll enjoy the fact that if I can't find something on the fscking stream services (Hulu? CW? Fox? I'm looking at you!) I can just pirate the shit.
AppleTV has a TV app that aggregates most streaming services - it has a unified search, shows the most recent stuff you've watched across the services (unified "last watch/continue"), and will even recommend new episodes of things you're watching. Here, it covers HBO, Amazon Prime, Disney+, a couple of local TV services... there's pretty much only one thing missing from it: Netflix.
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Pity their interface on the Apple TV is so confusing.
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Pity their interface on the Apple TV is so confusing.
I think the user interface is pretty good. Now, if you're going to explain someone non-technical the difference between AppleTV the hardware, the Apple TV app (also available on iPad/iPhone) and AppleTV+ the streaming service you're probably going to wish you could do something more logical instead, like explain the dupes on Slashdot.
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Roku does this, but as I only have one service I haven't used it much for TV series. I have used it for movies, in which case 99.9% of the movies I want to see were only available for ridiculous prices.
(Seriously, I did not see Age of Ultron for many years because it was over $15 to watch it once whereas all the other Marvel movies were in the $1-$5 range. And for everyone who says Age of Ultron isn't that good and you don't need to see it, there are so many plot points and characters in later movies that
Re: Netflix DVD is the best service out there (Score:2)
What does annoy the living crap out of me is the lack of a unified streaming service or application. It's annoying to have to flip between six or so streaming services to find something.
So basically cable TV then.
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And the applications between services can be so bad. Netflix I like, it's easy to use. The "skip back 10 seconds" part used to work great on Roku but has been problematic for the last few years, but everything else is nice. Whereas Amazon Prime video drives me nuts, the fast-forward gets progressively faster so trying to skip forward 5 minutes often has me at the end of a movie before I can lift my thumb. The Youtube control on Roku or PC alike is just utterly lousy and devoid of usability.
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Well, holy crap. I didn't know that was still going. Thanks.
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Every month I spend an hour or two looking for movie recommendations, and 10-15 minutes filling my queue. I rarely lose time scrolling through the endless, mostly bland choices on six different streaming services. I have seen more fantastic movies and television in the last six months than I have in the last five years of slogging through broken interfaces.
Yep, I have both Netflix and Netflix DVD. Netflix is mostly for TV shows and it is getting to the point where I may switch to only to DVD as that is about all I use these days.
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How much of this isn't "streaming" but the relative commitment of relying on the DVDs at hand for something to watch?
Back in the day when music choice meant listening to one of the 2-3 cassette tapes in my book bag or listening to nothing at all, I felt more satisfied listening to music I couldn't easily skip than when I have my entire 40 gig library and nothing seems to satisfy and I relentlessly skip songs.
I think this is something like the paradox of choice or something, where too much choice ends up bei
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Netflix DVD is the best service out there...
...for determining what movies I want to download and watch tonight.
Actually, even better is https://www.dvdsreleasedates.com/
Jokes aside, Netflix still has a dominant position for me, but not because it's all that much better. I like the way Netflix was, with virtually every old movie and TV show on the planet. Then most every movie studio and TV network decided to balkanize the play field. They withdrew their content from Netflix and all decided to go it alone. This was a terrible decision. They all
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I'm using mainly free streaming services (Peacock, Pluto) along with cable TV for live sports. I've cut back the subscription level on cable to the minimum for now but that may go in the future. I'm looking into a powered OTA to get local channels.
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The DVD recommendation is so good. I can't remember the last time I liked something more than what Netflix estimated.
The big problem is the post office. It now takes 8 days minimum to turn a disk around, when I used to be able to do it twice a week.
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Fuck China.
Good luck with that. As of Monday, April 26, 2021 there were 1,443,857,877 of them so you'd better order up a container shipload worth of Viagra before you get started.
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Fuck China.
Good luck with that. As of Monday, April 26, 2021 there were 1,443,857,877 of them so you'd better order up a container shipload worth of Viagra before you get started.
Not that many. *Half of them are the wrong sex. Lots will be too old, or young. Then take away the ugly ones.
It's too late now, if you have issues with that you should not have pledget to fuck all of China.
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*Half of them are the wrong sex.
Stop being homophobic.
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Tip: Serialize, not parallelize subscriptions (Score:5, Insightful)
Go for Netflix for a month or two, then cancel.
Then next for a month or two, then cancel.
Rinse and repeat.
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Why? We're into month 14 of free Dismay+ - we'll have had 18 months before this trial runs out (it's looking like we may be able to extend another 6 months after this one is done too). We're certainly never paying for it though - it's getting the least use of anything at the moment.
We're into about month 4 of a a year of free Apple TV+ too. If apple make a half decent Macbook Pro this year, we might even get another year off 'em, but that's a lot less certain. Some nice stuff on there, but it's a bit too li
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Is that Disney+ 'free' through a phone or internet plan? Well, once again that's not free.
In not registering with 5+ services. (Score:4, Insightful)
I've got Amazon prime and Netflix. That's more than enough for me. I'm not registering with a plethora of services. It's just a nuisance. I'll start "pirating" content I want but can get with the services I already have.
I hope the market catches on and finds a way to unify services.
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I've got Amazon prime and Netflix. That's more than enough for me. I'm not registering with a plethora of services. It's just a nuisance. I'll start "pirating" content I want but can get with the services I already have.
I hope the market catches on and finds a way to unify services.
I also have Disney+. Out of the three I watch Netflix the most which is not saying much since I don't spend much time gawking at the TV. Amazon prime is a flaming pile of garbage with a few gold nuggets mixed in. I only got Disney+ to watch the Mandalorian and the other upcoming Star Wars stuff. Other than that D+ is also full of garbage, Disney garbage. The only difference between the Disney garbage and Amazon garbage is that the Amazon garbage looks like it was way cheaper to manufacture.
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Amazon prime is a flaming pile of garbage with a few gold nuggets mixed in.
Agree.
I have a feeling that the Amazon Prime Video is just a consolation prize to get you hooked on paying for Amazon Prime.
If you want to get a feeling how how badly Amazon don't want you to leave, try to cancel your Amazon Prime subscription.
The number of clicks it required, and how much the option leave was made to be hard to find is impressive and depressive.
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If you want to know what Prime's worth, notice how hard it's pushed with delivery of any physical purchase from Amazon.
They can't even give Prime away, they have to bundle it with an unrelated service AND charge you extra for turning down the bundle.
So a Prime subscription is worth the shipping differential on Amazon... payable to the customer, not Amazon.
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Ditto. I have Prime anyway for the shipping, and their streaming service has some oldies that you don't find on Netflix. If I want to watch an older good movie, Prime Video has a higher chance of having it.
I was doing the "get Netflix for a month every 3 months" thing, until I read how you can sign up with a foreign account where it's cheaper through a VPN, but outside of the VPN it works like a local account. So I am paying almost the same I was with the "1 out of x" (depending on x), but don't have to wor
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I've got Amazon prime and Netflix. That's more than enough for me. I'm not registering with a plethora of services. It's just a nuisance. I'll start "pirating" content I want but can get with the services I already have.
I hope the market catches on and finds a way to unify services.
Don't forget that it's morally acceptable to "pirate" Disney as they're happy to do it to other people themselves.
https://www.polygon.com/2020/1... [polygon.com]
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This is it right here.
I have NetFlix. I have prime due to shipping, but I don't really even try and watch it.
At times I do wonder how Netflix would do with a platform model. Like say instead of a Disney streaming services, they added Disney content to Netflix and you could pay a disney upcharge per month. I'm not saying it's that's an ideal situation. I'm, just saying I wonder about it.
There have been times I would want to see content from another streaming services, but I'm just not going to sign up for a
New way to watch Netflix (Score:3)
Re: New way to watch Netflix (Score:2)
I've always thought Netflix goofed by canceling a few things too early. Marco Polo being one example.
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More and more shows on Netflix and Amazon and Disney+ are changing to once-a-week releases to combat this. It's getting more rare for all episodes ot drop at once.
I fully expect the next season of Stranger Things and Black Mirror to only drop one episode a week.
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More and more shows on Netflix and Amazon and Disney+ are changing to once-a-week releases to combat this. It's getting more rare for all episodes ot drop at once.
"combat this"? On the opposite, by subscribing 1 / 4 months a year, you can see - at once - all episodes that were released in between. If you prefer to watch an episode, then wait for a week to see the next, you deserve to pay the full price.
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You can always wait to see a series until all episodes are out. That's how Netlfix used to be - you couldn't see the latest season of Walking Dead, you had a wait a year. And same with other series you watched before cutting the cord. Having to see an episode as soon as it's available is like being a slave to cable all over again.
Netflix is still best (Score:1)
Kudos Netflix (Score:2)
I’m surprised.
Retired to Panama (currently 7% IR) escaping SARS CoV-2 in USA. Great Netflix series like “Fauda” filled empty hours quarantined. The calibre and quantity of quality shows has been a welcome surprise. Six months in it seems to be thinning but great viewing continues with a little initiative getting outside your comfort zones.
Amazon Prime was equally entertaining but when it thinned early the fringes on the platform were not as rewarding to venture out of your comfort zone.
App
Old school protectionism (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:3)
Hardly suprising (Score:2)
I'm about to cancel my Netflix account.Netflix's content is so trashy that I haven't watched anything on it for months. The only watchable content on Netflix is decades old and I've already seen it all.
streaming doesn't work (Score:2)