Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Movies Television

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."

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Netflix Customers Canceling Service Increasingly Includes Long-Term Subscribers

Comments Filter:
  • by registrations_suck ( 1075251 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2022 @07:48PM (#62547624)

    I signed up to watch real movies, not their home grown bullshit.

    Higher prices, less movie content. What do you expect?

    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 18, 2022 @08:32PM (#62547714)

      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.

      • 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].

      • 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.

      • "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.

      • 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

    • 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

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        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

        • 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

        • 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

      • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        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

      • 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.

    • Netflix has real competition. And studios are moving content to their own services. Families on a budget are going to ditch cable but not see a huge saving due to internet. So they subscribe to Disney to keep the brats at bay. Netflix becomes secondary.
    • by Maavin ( 598439 )
      I rather like lots of their "homegrown bullshit"...
    • 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

    • 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.

    • Same here. Sadly this trend will persist across most all of the streaming platforms to a lesser or greater extent. The price increases are going to make us drop them now. Kind of over the higher and higher cost with few movies. we hate the theaters and watch them when they stream. But if they are not going to bring them to the service then we have little to keep us subscribed.
  • by thesjaakspoiler ( 4782965 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2022 @08:08PM (#62547676)

    Is there any other reason to extend my subscription?

  • by CmdrPorno ( 115048 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2022 @08:13PM (#62547684)

    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.

  • by ZipK ( 1051658 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2022 @08:14PM (#62547686)
    I signed up with Netflix many years ago to gain access to their library of vintage films on DVD. The streaming service never fully replicated that, and consistently traded third-party material for original. With TCM and Criterion offering streaming services that are vastly superior to Netflix Classics, I ditched Netflix years ago.
    • by nwf ( 25607 ) on Thursday May 19, 2022 @12:52AM (#62548190)

      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.

      • 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.

    • 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.

  • by leonbev ( 111395 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2022 @08:23PM (#62547696) Journal

    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.

    • 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

    • 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

  • 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.

    • 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...

      • 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

  • 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.

  • I truly believe that they need to focus on retention. There are ways of doing that are overtly hostile and actually better for your consumer. For instance, they should stop putting their original stuff out all at once. All the other streaming services put out week by week... The audience will end up thanking you for it. I can't remember what happen a year ago in Ozark. I had completely forgotten about it until it showed up in my recommendations. I've heard tons of people say "there's nothing good to w
    • If I have to wait a week between episodes, I'm almost guaranteed to forget or lose interest. Binge watching is far better for me. As to the year between seasons, sometimes networks do 'recap' shorts to help with that, and they work wonderfully.
      • Yep. If a service releases episodes week by week, I just wait until it's all done to start watching or subscribing.

  • by lsllll ( 830002 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2022 @09:05PM (#62547774)
    She cancelled when she found out Netflix had cut out some scenes from The Office (U.S.) and cut a whole episode of Community, the one about D&D and the character that pained his face dark because he was a dark elf. Worse yet, they didn't leave a placeholder for the episode. Instead they re-numbered all the subsequent episodes so that you wouldn't even know that the episode was removed. This actually happened in 2020 before they actually stood by Dave Chappelle's routine, so it didn't make sense. Nevertheless, she was upset that they would make up her mind for her, rather than giving a warning at the beginning of the episode, have it excluded from autoplay, and have a click-through, noting that you understand that the episode may be disturbing to some.
    • 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.

    • Was this done by Netflix or by the content owners? There's also an episode of Seinfeld, for example, that is not played on syndication because of similar issues (the Puerto Rican Parade episode) but it isn't obvious to me if that was NBC's choice, the syndicator's choice, or the production company's choice.
    • 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.

  • Evolve or be left behind.
  • 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.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • 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

  • Best way to make the fees okay is to just cancel and keep 1-2 services going per month. Switch around when the content gets boring. Vote with your dollars!
  • Raising prices + more competition = less subscribers. For UHD you have to pay $20. By far the highest. Even HD is 16 which is still higher than its competition. If you want to demand higher prices, you have to provide a service that warrants it, or people will go elsewhere. I still find stuff I enjoy on Netflix, but I also find stuff I enjoy on Disney, Hulu, and AppleTV, and those services are much cheaper and don't charge extra for UHD (admittedly Hulu UHD content is scarce). I am keeping Netflix aro
  • 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

    • 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.

  • Too many foreign language programmes with badly dubbed English doesn't help...
    Though I did enjoy watching 'Old enough'.

    • 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.

  • ...more competition for subscribers will keep them more focused on finding more attractive content. I think the quality & variety of TV series in general, from all services, has increased dramatically in recent years & I hope this trend continues.
    • 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.

  • 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,

  • ... and degrading quickly. Too many series with one disc or one season missing. Too many popular series that have no DVDs available to watch. I've been reluctant to sign up for their streaming because of the way I've seen them let the DVD service deteriorate.
    • Not to mention the turn-around time for discs is almost a week now for my address. It used to be I could get a disc in two days but now, with the consolidation to just a few distribution centers, it takes much, much longer to the point where I can realistically only get two discs a month. There's also lots more "short wait" / "long wait" then ever before so often the disc I want isn't even available. Getting on the waitlist at the library is faster sometimes.
    • 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.

  • Not mentioning fucking with historical realities. Like the 5th season of The Last Kingdom. What an utter abhorration by historical standards.
  • I canceled my Netflix subscription when I was briefly unemployed to keep expenses down, and originally intended to start it back up once I started my new job.

    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.
  • 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.

  • ...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.

  • Yep I've had Netflix for slightly over 20 years. Started when it was a DVD rental, (then BluRay!) Went through a number of 100 best lists and optimized my viewing for maximum U.S.P.S. delivery windows. I'd already cut cable off as a waste and this was movies and some good TV shows by mail.

    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
  • 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

  • A rising tide of frustration and anger over its woke offerings has backfired--to no one's surprise but the woke.
  • 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

  • Can't remember when I started my DVD subscription, but it was early on (2000, 2001???). So, I've had the streaming service since it became part of the DVD sub back in 2008.

    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

Economists state their GNP growth projections to the nearest tenth of a percentage point to prove they have a sense of humor. -- Edgar R. Fiedler

Working...