Netflix Customers Canceling Service Increasingly Includes Long-Term Subscribers (9to5mac.com) 110
Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers last quarter and potentially two million this current period, according to a note to shareholders from last month. Now, new research highlights that the number of long-standing subscribers canceling Netflix rose precipitously in the past few years. 9to5Mac reports: The data provided by the research firm Antenna to The Information shows that people who had been subscribers for more than three years accounted for just 5% of total cancelations at the start of 2022, while it hit 13% in the first quarter of 2022: "Newbie subscribers, meantime, accounted for only 60% of cancellations in the quarter, down from 64% in the fourth quarter. Also in the first quarter, overall cancellations rose to 3.6 million people, compared with around 2.5 million in each of the preceding five quarters. Antenna says it draws its data from a panel of 5 million Americans who anonymously contribute their streaming subscriptions."
While Netflix is losing ground, the streaming market as a whole is gaining more subscribers, and Antenna's data suggest a connection between the price increase and Netflix's subscriber losses: "'Consumers vote with their wallets on a monthly basis, and now there are just more viable candidates on the ballot,' said Brendan Brady, media and entertainment lead at Antenna. Also, since many entertainment companies, like NBCUniversal and Disney, have pulled their shows off Netflix and put them on their own services, Netflix has had to rely more on its originals, which have been hit or miss, he said."
While Netflix is losing ground, the streaming market as a whole is gaining more subscribers, and Antenna's data suggest a connection between the price increase and Netflix's subscriber losses: "'Consumers vote with their wallets on a monthly basis, and now there are just more viable candidates on the ballot,' said Brendan Brady, media and entertainment lead at Antenna. Also, since many entertainment companies, like NBCUniversal and Disney, have pulled their shows off Netflix and put them on their own services, Netflix has had to rely more on its originals, which have been hit or miss, he said."
Less movies, higher prices (Score:5, Insightful)
I signed up to watch real movies, not their home grown bullshit.
Higher prices, less movie content. What do you expect?
Re:Less movies, higher prices (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay, so literally every point made here is inaccurate in some capacity...
Rather funny to hear a complaint of "higher prices" when speaking about a company that has embraced the concept of shared access instead of attacking it.
I mean, they've been eyeballing password sharing crackdowns for quite some time...it's a bit unclear how one can "embrace" shared access while reducing the number of concurrent streams and cracking down on shared access.
I wonder what Netflix should expect? Insist their users actually pay for the service?
I don't think there are too many people who have issues paying for Netflix. I think the problem was that Netflix started with a value proposition that was, probably, a bit too good...and then they've both increased the price and decreased the delivered value at the same time. What I think Netflix should "expect" is that pricing increases are going to cause more customers to give actual thought as to whether or not they value the service enough to pay the asking price.
What a novel concept to help fund obscene licensing costs for all those movies people enjoy.
And herein lies the other half of the rub. $8/month back in 2009 involved "Friends" and "The Office" and "Seinfeld" and countless other licensed series that lots of people enjoyed re-watching. Then, certain episodes started to disappear due to odd specific licensing requirements. Then, entire series started to disappear. Then, more movies started to disappear. Then, entire content providers started to disappear as they started rolling their own streaming services. All the while, Netflix was upping their prices. Adjusted for inflation, their original asking price would be around $11/month, but it's $16. They're paying lower licensing costs and there are fewer movies. That's not 'funding licensing costs for movies people enjoy', that's just the opposite...and it shouldn't be any surprise that Netflix was going to eventually hit a tipping point.
They cannot do that without being labeled some kind of "racist" by their competitors.
It's neither racism, nor their competitors claiming that it is. Honestly, it's more that Netflix thrived as being a super cheap alternative to cable when they had the infrastructure. They had the apps everywhere, Disney/CBS/NBC/MGM/Sony/Universal had the content, everyone came out on top. Then, reality happened. Content creation takes time and money. The studios had spent decades making content, in most cases recouping their outlay through theatrical releases and VHS/DVD sales and holding the distribution rights for decades thereafter. A streaming service...takes far less time and money to create. It was only a matter of time for the studios to get some programmers to take some time to replicate the infrastructure Netflix had, and cut the middleman. This left Netflix doing the far more expensive work in a far shorter timespan, and doing so without theatrical releases to help offset production costs.
Sure, after the bottom races something will rise from the ashes. It will probably look a lot like a DVD player.
Nice as that would be, I feel like most studios (Netflix included) loathe the idea of permanent ownership transfer which physical media enabled. I applaud CBS for still releasing shows on physical media, but Disney doesn't have DVD copies of any of their D+ shows, and I can't buy Blu-Rays of "For All Mankind", either.
Really, that sort of question is either going to be something everyone forgets about, leaving people to do de facto seasons (3 months of Hulu, 3 months of Netflix, 3 months of Disney, 3 months of Paramount), or this will be something that ends up being discussed in a courtroom somewhere.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
HAHAH Illegal.... HAHAH.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Most people do not do it because it's more technical/detailed than they can handle.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, it is.,
Willfully creating a copy of a copyrighted work without permission from the copyright holder or their suitably deputized agents (or more specifically creating a copy that they did not directly intend for you to make, like making a copy other than a cache copy of a movie to optimize a legitimate streaming experience, for example) certainly would qualify as copyright infringement unless the circumstances of making the copy would have otherwise fallen under fair use. Just in case there wa
Re:Less movies, higher prices (Score:5, Interesting)
The obvious strategy for them to take with the loss of so much licensed content from other publishers would be to reduce their prices accordingly. Why should I pay just as much for 1/4 the content?
Seems to me that Netflix excels at making series - their steady stream of original SF and fantasy options at least (the majority of my TV watching) have consistently put pretty much everyone else to shame, while leading competitors in the genre like Paramount and Disney instead insist on rehashing (and generally butchering) old franchises.
That's quality content I'm happy to pay for - just not as much as when their catalog was much larger and I spent correspondingly more time using their service.
But scaling down in the face of falling demand is something very few companies handle gracefully, so I rather suspect Netflix will crash and burn badly as they try to maintain the same revenue (and executive compensation) despite the fact that they simply no longer have nearly as much product to sell.
The way things are going it's only a matter of time before I drop them - I would have done so already if I wasn't splitting the cost with my GF. I certainly won't be downgrading to an ad-supported plan - I already abandoned free broadcast TV to get away from that noise, and I'll no more pay for the "privilege" of watching their ads than I will the cable company's.
Even if there's no additional costs, ads generally cost 10-20 minutes of my life per hour of content - I'd have to get paid way less than minimum wage for that trade to be worth considering.
Re:Less movies, higher prices (Score:4, Insightful)
Where Netflix seems to be making a mistake, imo, isn't by moving to more of its own content (because buying content was becoming too expensive) but by not doing more of it and earlier, potentially acquiring a studio or buying rights to content from the original holders; and even potentially licensing their content to be shown elsewhere. If Netflix produces a show it costs a good amount of money upfront, but in theory they have something that generates value for years. They seem to think they can spend a decade making content so that they have a strong catalogue but they don't have that kind of time.
Re: (Score:2)
Netflix is at great risk of going into the Fox death-spiral, where they cancel everything after one season, or even after a few episodes, and people just give up on their new shows. Not just viewers, but the people making the shows don't want to sign contracts with them when they could go to a rival that will give them the opportunity to develop their product before canning it.
Re: (Score:2)
the people making the shows don't want to sign contracts with them when they could go to a rival that will give them the opportunity to develop their product before canning it
I don't think that most serial content is developed by people who want to develop their art and watch their creative baby flourish. It's a transactional thing. Once in a while there's a runaway success like The Simpsons, large sacks of money are harvested, and the creatives behind the franchise bask in the public adulation, but their initial motivation wasn't "become famous and have my franchise known worldwide", but simply "pay the bills".
Re: Less movies, higher prices (Score:2)
I didn't use someone else's account or allow them to use mine....
Re:Less movies, higher prices (Score:4, Insightful)
many entertainment companies, like NBCUniversal and Disney, have pulled their shows off Netflix and put them on their own services, Netflix has had to rely more on its originals
I just don't see how the current situation is sustainable long term. There are too many streaming services, each with their own exclusive content. Each one has a couple of decent shows, but nobody wants to subscribe to 6 different streaming services.
What *SHOULD* happen is everyone puts their content on one platform and then divide up the money among all the different companies. Similar to the situation with conventional television. I pay one cable TV company and they provide content from a hundred different sources.
Unfortunately, corporate greed has reached such a level that I just don't see that happening.
Re: (Score:2)
What *SHOULD* happen is everyone puts their content on one platform and then divide up the money among all the different companies.
The one platform was Netflix. What you describe is exactly the business model that is being abandoned.
I pay one cable TV company and they provide content from a hundred different sources.
That is different because the infrastructure cost of the cable creates a natural monopoly [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The one-platform-to-rule-them-all would charge high prices and pay the content creators low percentages. That's what happens when there is only one game in town. To prevent that, we need multiple streaming providers, and they need a way to differentiate themselves from one another.
I don't like the current state very much, but it IS easy to jump providers every few months.
Re: (Score:2)
"What *SHOULD* happen is everyone puts their content on one platform and then divide up the money among all the different companies."
Now that's just commie bullshit there.
Re: (Score:2)
If they did as you are suggesting, making one service that pays out to multiple companies we'd be right back to where we were with cable. Pay $150 a month or more for one or two channels you actually want, and dozens of nonsense bullshit channels nobody actually watches.
Where streaming is right now is pretty terrible, and I doubt it can last, but I really don't want to go back to a cable style subscription either. Maybe pay per content? If I dig a show, I have no problem paying per episode or per season. He
Re: (Score:2)
For a while, Netflix was producing very good original content. They still make a lot of good stuff, which they then kill off unceremoniously. I'm not going to name titles, as that's not really important. However, Netflix has a REALLY bad habit of killing off shows just as they're finding their footing. They're even proud of their mismanagement of resources. It's no wonder people are bailing.
One of the reasons they do this is because (and they've stated this) they don't much care about their existing custome
Re: (Score:2)
I was going to say to the GP, I subscribed to Netflix for the original content.
I'm not surprised Netflix is losing subscribers fast. They have cancelled a load of shows I was interested in, or lost the rights to them. I quite liked Cowboy Bebop, and all the Marvel/Defenders stuff. I look at Netflix now and there just isn't much that is of interest to me.
Maybe if they picked up Batwoman I'd have another look, since they seem to be the main reason why it was cancelled. But really, what does Netflix have to of
Re: (Score:2)
Netflix doesn't seem to have anything now, and if they do come up with something good it will probably get cancelled before I've even finished watching season 1.
Netflix is the google of TV. Except unlike Google, which is big and unique enough (yeah there's lots of search engines, but meh to all or most of them) to make arrangements with copyright holders that work for them, Netflix is just boned. But they still think they're the shit which is why they keep cancelling shows before they have a chance. They aren't, which is why they need to keep them running longer. If you look at the really successful shows of history lots of them had to suffer through a couple of se
Re: (Score:2)
I quite liked Cowboy Bebop
That'd make you one of the only ones. I believe they still have the original anime, which is superior in every regard. I'm not sure you can take an existing property and turn it into a campy show and expect it to go over well with an existing fan base. I'm not even sure if there's much room for camp in general these days.
Netflix has a good set of comedy specials, a good selection of documentaries, and a few decent shows like the Witcher. With the pandemic there were fewer movies getting made so it isn't
Re: (Score:3)
Netflix produces content that reflects the subscribers they want to attract.
For the first part, the people who used Netflix were technically adept and they studied what kind of content those people liked because they were growing. That's why "they produced good content in the past".
Now that Netflix is everywhere, they have to produce content oriented towards their changing subscriber base and what they want to watch, which may include content that doesn't appeal to the geek crowd.
Basically they're creating
2 months a new to watch interesting new content (Score:2)
For a while, Netflix was producing very good original content.
That is certainly part of the problem. However I think it is bigger, long term users simply ran out of content, even the old stuff. At some point one eventually finishes rewatching all the old TV series and movies of interest. Then one scrolls through the listing for many minutes finding nothing of particular interest. With interesting new content not coming fast enough one thinks they will unsubscribe 10 months out of the year, resubscribe for 2 months and watch the last year's interesting new content.
Re: Less movies, higher prices (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I signed up to watch real movies, not their home grown bullshit.
Define "real movie". What makes it real? The actors? The writers? The company who made it?
To be clear a lot of what Netflix produces is shit, but not really any shitter than any other production company out there. But there's some genuinely excellent stuff on there as well. Some well written engaging stories, some high budget stuff, and some academy award winners too (if you judge a movie based solely on what others think).
Maybe you define "real movies" as only movies which have come to a cinema? Well a no
Re: (Score:2)
Is a "real movie" one produced by another studio available on its own streaming service? What's the difference again? Honestly, Netflix subscribers watch more TV series than movies so they do put a lot more investment on that end.
Re: (Score:2)
They removed Free Willy!? (Score:4, Funny)
Is there any other reason to extend my subscription?
Easy to rotate the streaming services (Score:5, Interesting)
Netflix is my family's constant, although if they start charging extra if you're streaming from multiple IP addresses, that may change. I subscribe to Hulu and others a single month at a time, watch the shows I like on them, and cancel.
Not as good as the DVD service (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not as good as the DVD service (Score:4, Informative)
We used to subscribe to Netflix's disc-based service to get older stuff as well. In our case lots of older TV series. We dropped that after having a hard time actually getting discs that worked. I checked back a couple of years ago, and every series I wanted to watch wasn't even complete anymore in their library. You just couldn't even get discs.
Their streaming service kept losing good content which they replaced by some of the worse series I've ever seen. Bad acting, bad writing, bad directing. Copies of other (better) shows from elsewhere. I wouldn't start watching a series until they had 2-3 seasons anyway, since it seemed like 75% of their series were single season. We dropped them a year ago.
Then cable TV prices went up recently and they dropped channels. It was already pretty annoying with the random schedule changes and constant ads. So I axed that as well and signed up for Hulu for the first time, but I'm getting to the point where it's just too much work to find good shows.
Re: (Score:2)
When I canceled Netflix's disc service, I had a queue over 100 titles deep and most of them were listed as "Long Wait" or "Very Long Wait." Some of them missing discs altogether and only partial series. I had a lot of niche things I'd never seen, mostly older TV. If I wanted something more recent or popular, I would have just streamed it.
Re: (Score:2)
I note that quite a bit of older stuff seems to be on what was IMDBtv - now called Amazon Freevee. There are ads (which is a shame), but so far not many advertisers, so they're not too bad (yet). Got a quick hit of the A-Team the other night, and I see the Back to the Futures are on there too.
Yeah, I'm one of those former long term subscriber (Score:5, Informative)
I had a Netflix account since the DVD by mail days in 2006. For me, I ended up leaving because the prices kept going up every year while the amount of new quality content on the service kept shrinking.
I'm hopeful that they'll turn it around at some point, but I'll go watch Disney+ until then.
Just subscribing a few months to each service (Score:2)
I had a Netflix account since the DVD by mail days in 2006. For me, I ended up leaving because the prices kept going up every year while the amount of new quality content on the service kept shrinking. I'm hopeful that they'll turn it around at some point, but I'll go watch Disney+ until then.
Let me guess, you would scroll through for several minutes and find nothing of particular interest? That's where I started to think why bother subscribing. For many years catching up on old TV and movies would provide something to watch. For example, I rewatched every Star Trek series and found a few episodes I missed back in pre-DVR days. That took time. But eventually I caught up with Star Trek, Babylon 5, and various other nerdy content.
Post Netflix I signed up for Disney. That lasted a little while b
Re: (Score:2)
Us too. I was an early adopter 3 dvd plan guy.
Had it since then.
On the very cusp of canceling because:
- there's nearly nothing of interest any more, all the good movies are gone, shows are gone elsewhere
- Netflix's own has occasional gems but most of it is woke bullshit (yet, startlingly, they defend "Cuties"?)
- if they follow through with the IP limiting, then we're probably done as our 4 20-something kids all use our login from their apartments.
Fuck it, if they go, Plex is honestly 10x better already. I
Turkey Trick (Score:2)
The biggest issue Netflix has right now is value for money. The top plan is $20, almost 3x the price since Netflix launched. The average US consumer can no longer afford it.
Meanwhile, those of us who do the "turkey trick" get the exact same Netflix account for $4.
The global "pay the max you can afford in your own country" pricing model has fallen apart when US consumers are expected to subsidize growth in the rest of the world.
Re: (Score:3)
The global "pay the max you can afford in your own country" pricing model has fallen apart when US consumers are expected to subsidize growth in the rest of the world.
Amusingly this isn't even Netflix's fault. The licensing fees for showing content in other, less developed markets are less because the copyright holders are trying to increase demand...
Re: (Score:1)
The cost in "less developed countries" is also offset by the reality that the locals can't pay anywhere near US prices and often have real storefronts where pirated content is sold at bargain basement prices. There isn't much financial incentive going after these illegal distributors.
It's a huge untapped market and the content and delivery systems are already made, so the costs are marginal. There are still some interesting restrictions on licensing though where some content just doesn't go overseas through
I discarded my subscription (Score:2)
Too many of the few programs I might wish to watch are scattered across too many services. It's simply not worth $10/month when the shows or movies I might wish to see are all premium with limited access, and are gone when I might want to see them later.
Focus on retention (Score:2)
Re: Focus on retention (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. If a service releases episodes week by week, I just wait until it's all done to start watching or subscribing.
I know someone who did it for a different reason (Score:5, Informative)
Re: I know someone who did it for a different reas (Score:2, Informative)
That's why I've been buying series on disc. It can't be edited or removed should something about it become 'problematic'. I'm not putting the California cult in charge of my viewing.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
She cancelled when she found out Netflix had cut out some scenes
Cutting out scenes and entire episodes is hardly new. Part of the problem is that streaming platforms don't have to disclose this behavior. On TV, at least for movies, they have to disclose when a movie has been modified from it's original and how.
One of my notable example of streaming services Swiss cheesing a series is Quantum Leap. The series has a lot of retro music that streaming services couldn't or wouldn't pay the rights for and decided to just not stream some episodes.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
How "rich" would they be if there were not woke? For example, Star Wars was woke, and it made about a billion. But, it should have made 2 billion.
You can't appeal to everyone, and you have to make choices. Most science fiction and fantasy fans are progressives, especially the science fiction ones — but most fantasy is pretty progressive too, with a whole lot more equality and less oppression than their nearest historical analogues. You also have to appeal to people not only in the present but also the future, so if you're expecting people to get more liberal in the future then you're going to want your media to be more liberal than the current
Re: (Score:2)
But, if the shows are preachy and unteresting because they are PC, then money will be lost, now and in the future.
That's what people said about TOS when it was new.
I don't think these shows are progressive, they're tiresomely cliche. There is no progress.
That's not what people say who are seeing themselves represented for the first time. They're watching. And so are lots of other people, who don't give a shit either way.
Re: (Score:2)
You're a woke guy looking at the world through a woke lens, in your echo chamber. You will never understand.
I am by definition not in an echo chamber, because your message reached me, and here I am discussing it with you. So that was a stupid lie. Whatever you think woke means, maybe I'm that. But we all view the world through our own lens. The people who use "woke" as a pejorative, like yourself, are viewing it through a lens of privilege, selfishness, and greed. You want to preserve your privilege because it keeps you able to punch down, and prohibits others from punching up. I understand perfectly.
Supply, demand, and innovation (Score:2)
Forgotten subscriptions (Score:1)
A lot more people will forget to unsubscribe to a service when it is $8 vs the same service for $15. Part of the beauty of subscriptions from the corporate side is just that. "How much can we charge before people will remember and cancel" and I think we just hit that point for Netflix.
They were alone, once. Not anymore. (Score:2)
They didn't even make their own content at first. They sold reruns at a time when the broadcast networks hadn't figured out how that whole 'streaming' thing was supposed to work, when "TV's" used a CRT and "smart" was a function of the remote control - if you had one of those fancy TV's, that is.
The guys who made Seinfeld and Star Trek all figured out how to do their own streaming, or partnered with someone who did. All the major studios and all the major networks figured out what their various propertie
Re: (Score:2)
Of all places, I'm surprised Slashdot is focusing on this weird "woke rationale" instead of the real issue: all the other media megacorps are exercising IP restrictions and pulling their content from a third-party service.
I think Netflix's decline is more evidence that the entrenched interests have basically taken their ball and are using IP laws to perform what is basically anticompetitive behavior: the big players like Disney have taken their content and made themselves the exclusive distributors. The wr
Streaming fees (Score:2)
It's obvious (Score:1)
"Going woke" is boring and preachy (Score:2)
The problem with the whole "going woke" thing is that they keep on banging on that drum long, long after we've all heard the beat. It's boring and preachy. Yeah yeah yeah another character from a beloved movie/series is replaced with the Underrepresented Identity Character of the Month, endlessly, month after month after month.
They're so clueless that they don't even know when they've won. They keep on preachin' like it's 1995.
I'm a very long time subscriber, and I just got tired of it. I'm not gonna sit he
Re: "Going woke" is boring and preachy (Score:2)
I really don't like anything that's "preachy", does not matter if it's from the left or right. Makes you feel like a kid being lectured by your parents.
Re: "Going woke" is boring and preachy (Score:1)
They changed shoulder and started to part with wokism, by defending Dave C., after they started going down.
Re: "Going woke" is boring and preachy (Score:2)
"They changed shoulder and started to part with wokism, by defending Dave C., after they started going down."
Wokeism is annoying. Gratingly so. But considering the other extreme of the pendulum, it doesn't seem so bad.
Re: (Score:2)
What's all this 'woke' stuff about Netflix? This is the company that defended Dave Chappelle's largely joke-free stand-up special, and told its own employees they could go an work elsewhere if they didn't like it.
Telling employees they could leave is the new position of Netflix, one adopted after the subscriber loss. The initial reaction refused to dump Chappelle but it was definitely very conciliatory and appeasing to a handful of protesting employees. Netflix has absolutely changed its approach to these employees.
Elephant in the room (Score:1)
Too many foreign language programmes with badly dubbed English doesn't help...
Though I did enjoy watching 'Old enough'.
Re: (Score:2)
Dubbing is always going to be worse than real acting. Just watch with subtitles and enjoy the actors that got hired for the parts. I do watch a lot of Korean TV series on Netflix.
Hopefully... (Score:2)
Re: Hopefully... (Score:2)
I like to see quality tv content continue to rise, but realistically, it's not going to happen.
The TV industry is riding an unusually high wave right now, but it won't last forever. Then it's back to the dull crap of the early 1990s.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
Foreign stuff vapourized (Score:2)
We liked watching the foreign movies. They were usually more interesting than Hollywood stuff.
Then one day it was gone.
Now it's pushing all the stuff I hate. This long term subscriber is ready to stop giving them money. It's not the price, it's the content.
Amazon does OK with their pay per movie options.
Various ROKU channels get us TV shows we watch.
Netflix is used mostly for pacifying grandkids when they visit, but there are other options for that and I would prefer them to be doing something interactive,
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Old boy was the best.
Even their DVD service is degrading.. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Even their DVD service is degrading.. (Score:2)
I'm surprised that in this day and age they are still in the DVD delivery business.
I think that is one arm of the company that they really want to cut off. It wouldn't surpeise me if they are now losing money off of this.
Re: Even their DVD service is degrading.. (Score:2)
"consolidation to just a few distribution centers, it takes much, "
Skyrocketing gas prices and logistics is just so damn expensive. I expect this to disappear within a year or two as the reason for them to continue these operations is dwindling fast.
Because of too much homopropaganda. (Score:1)
Seems About Right (Score:1)
Unfortunately, I just haven't had any desire or reason to restart the subscription. Netflix is providing an ever-decreasing list of things I'd actually want to watch, and other live or library streaming services provide more for me.
Not much great content (Score:2)
My family still uses it, but I rarely do.
Netflix just doesn't have much anymore that I care to watch.
Don't like much of their original content (there have been exceptions, but rarely), and don't like many of the increasingly few movies and TV shows.
Hulu is working out OK for me so far. They have a lot of older but good TV series.
Do I put gas in the car or food on the table (Score:2)
...or pay my ever skyrocketing rent.
This could have something to do with all of those cancelled Netflix subscriptions and people hooking the areal back up to the TV set.
Re: Do I put gas in the car or food on the table (Score:2)
Both gas and food prices are skyrocketing. 7+$/gallon in downtown LA.
20 years + (Score:2)
Then they switched over to streaming only and I was OK with that. Been thinking about going back to just that. I'm not a connoisseur of cinema, I just wanted to see the best movies of all time and oddities and my personal
One trick that streaming services hate... (Score:2)
The trick is rotation.
I subscribe to Netflix for 1 month a year, and watch whatever new content that has accumulated. No need to wait 11 months for a slow trickle. And never forget to cancel auto-renew immediately (I have been burned before).
HBO Max had a half-off for a year promotion. So I keep it going. $7.50/month is currently acceptable. Once it runs out it will go to rotation with the others.
Disney+? I was subscribed during their latest TV series, and then let it expire. I might check out the new "Obi
Maybe their woke products ain't that popular (Score:2)
Price increases always trigger reevaluation (Score:2)
Netflix recently increased their prices, and that led to people having a new look at their Netflix subscriptions and deciding whether they still represent value for money.
But beyond that, I think Netflix has gone too far in the direction of pursuing new subscribers, at the expense of holding onto the ones they have. The biggest problem is quick cancellations of shows. It's getting to the point where people are afraid to start watching anything other than a few big blockbusters, because they're concerned tha
Oooh, that's me (Score:1)
I cancelled my streaming subscription in February for two reasons: the UX became horrible and the was little to nothing to watch.
If they hadn't made the UI so painful I probably would have kept the subscription for a combination of nostalgia and hope (that they might finally have something to watch). But, the combination of a shitt
Re: (Score:2)
Obama voice-over on a nature thing at netflix is a sign that somebody there uses cash for access - lets be reasonable and you do not have to be an ex president to do a voice-over.
Not an american but ex-presidents do not come cheap i think
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Progressives have this quaint theory that they're so popular. By 2:1 you believe, which is a ridiculous ratio. If that were anything close to the truth, the Democratic party's popularity rating wouldn't be in the crapper right now. Open your eyes, friend. The first step to solving a problem is speaking the truth to yourself.
Re: (Score:1)
Secondly, you are wrong about the numbers. "Progressives" may be 2:1 over conservatives in
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
You'd think so, but socially progressive people outnumber socially regressive people 2:1 in the US, so it's ultimately more profitable to lean liberal in your social messaging. You'll note, economic progressiveness doesn't exist in TV. Even nu-Trek has ditched the communism established by TNG/DS9.
And then there are the subscribers from rest of the world, who don't give a damn...
Re: (Score:2)
You'd think so, but socially progressive people outnumber socially regressive people 2:1 in the US, so it's ultimately more profitable to lean liberal in your social messaging.
Socially progressive and woke are two very different things. The US is roughly split equally among liberals, independents and conservatives. Independents tend to lean liberal on social issues and conservative on fiscal and security issues. Woke loses many independents dues to fiscal and security positions. They lose some liberals too, woke takes some good ideas to bad extremes.
While you are roughly correct about American being about 2/3 liberal leaning on social issues. You are absolute wrong in extendin
Re: Go woke, Go broke... (Score:2)
"They lose some liberals too, woke takes some good ideas to bad extremes."
This is a general age old problem that is by far not limited to politics or Woke/MAGA. Sometimes people get killed because of it.
This is why kids need to be taught to think for themselves, and to recongnise and call out anything being taken too far.
Re: (Score:2)
"They lose some liberals too, woke takes some good ideas to bad extremes."
This is a general age old problem that is by far not limited to politics or Woke/MAGA. Sometimes people get killed because of it.
This is why kids need to be taught to think for themselves, and to recongnise and call out anything being taken too far.
Thinking for themselves is the key here. Not to trust a person or dogma because of perceived good intentions, etc. The problem is that thinking for themselves requires some understanding of the different opinions on a matter, on listening to those you agree with and those you do not. We are not doing so well in that regard, judgements as to what should be called out becoming rather poor as a result. The "boy who cried wolf" effect leading to call outs being ignored since they are repeatedly false alarms.
Re: (Score:2)