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Movies Television United States

Prime Video Replaces Netflix As No. 1 Streaming Service In US (deadline.com) 47

Prime Video has supplanted Netflix as the No. 1 subscription streaming outlet in the U.S. in an annual ranking compiled by research firm Parks Associates. Deadline reports: The company didn't disclose its methodology for how it isolates the number of Prime Video subscribers, a metric long cloaked in secrecy due to Amazon's general reluctance to disclose statistics about its Prime business. Still, Parks has been a reputable tracker of the streaming space for more than a decade. For many years in the 2010s, its rankings looked consistent, with the former "Big 3" of Netflix, Prime Video and Hulu sharing the top three spots, always with Netflix at the top. Today, the rankings are much more fragmented given how many new players have entered the scene. The list reflects total subscribers through September 2022, via the OTT Video Market Tracker, a Parks offering described by the firm as "an exhaustive analysis of market trends and profiles of the nearly 100 over-the-top video service providers in the U.S. and Canada."

Amazon said last year it has more than 200 million Prime members, with Prime Video among the program's benefits. Several weeks ago, the company also recently said The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has been viewed by more than 100 million Prime subscribers worldwide. [...] Netflix, meanwhile, has hit a plateau in the U.S., even shedding a small amount of subscribers over recent quarters. The company reported 73.4 million subscribers in the U.S. and Canada as of September 30, up 100,000 from the previous quarter but below levels in 2021 and earlier this year.

On a global basis, of course, Netflix continues to lead the field with a bit more than 223 million subscribers. Disney has been hot on its heels, with Disney+ now at 164.2 million and the company overall reaching 235.7 million across Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+. The rest of the 2022 chart looks relatively similar to the 2021 edition, though NBCUniversal's Peacock broke through to take the No. 10 spot as Showtime dropped out of the picture.

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Prime Video Replaces Netflix As No. 1 Streaming Service In US

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  • Netflix is Shit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by theshowmecanuck ( 703852 ) on Friday December 02, 2022 @10:15PM (#63098316) Journal

    Netflix has succumbed to what I call Novell Syndrome, as did Blackberry and others like them. Novell got so full of themselves as network software providers they didn't think anyone would be able to catch them up. So they ignored requests by customers to make life easier, preferring to keep it difficult thinking they could control the market by their exclusivity. Their hubris brought them crumbling down. Netflix somehow still thinks that because they were first they can still drive things. They still keep making 'let's see what shit will stick to the wall when we throw it' kind of bullshit shows, failing to recognize it is almost all shit. They fail to realize people only watched it because it was the only thing around. Instead of airing curated content, you know stuff that people evaluated before paying to have it made, they have just kept on as always. Other services have been providing better content. For the price of Netflix, I can have several others that actually have way more shows worth watching. Even in Canada, the volume of shows that Prime has is smaller than Netflix, but the volume of worthwhile shows is higher. And with their add-ons, even more. I get better selection by far on Prime, than I do with Netflix, for the same price. And whenever some other service has a show that I can binge the series, I will sign up for a month. But day to day, I only want to pay for one service. Otherwise I end up paying as much as cable if I pay for a whole bunch. Anyway, Netflix is shit.

    • Netflix went out of its way to make life easier for customers going so far has to partner with isps to improve performance by installing custom hardware their own expense at ISP data centers.

      What's killed Netflix is they don't own their own content and it was only a matter of time before technology made streaming cheap and easy enough that the people who actually own all the content after decades of mergers and acquisitions could just put Netflix out of business.

      It's the inevitable result of unregul
      • by mjwx ( 966435 )
        What is really killing Netflix and threatens to do the same to Prime is the balkanisation of streaming.

        Netflix used to have all the content. Then the 3rd party content started disappearing as others started their own streaming services, Disney pulled their stuff to force people into Disney+, same with Paramount, AMC, et al. So we've dozens of streaming services and Netflix' original content is just not enough to justify the £10 a month it must cost now.

        The same is happening with Amazon Prime Vi
        • That's more or less what I just said except it's not balkanisation it's consolidation happening with their competitors. There's a reason why Amazon through half a billion dollars at Lord of the rings. There's basically two media companies left standing in america. Disney and Warner Bros. Think of something you've seen in the last 20 or 30 years and odds are one of those two companies owns it.

          It is orders of magnitude more expensive to create a new property then to purchase an existing property with an e
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      Meanwhile, Tubi destroys them all while being free.

      Yes Tubi has ads, but they are not that bad, though it depends on what you watch it seems, which actually makes sense. Why subject viewers to ads for old/shit/obscure shows when you probably pay almost nothing to provide it? I've watched whole movies without seeing an ad, and when you do see them, they STILL manage to have less of them than fucking youtube.

      Giving even half a shit about your customers in today's world can go a looong fucking way. Should be a

    • Re:Netflix is Shit (Score:4, Interesting)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday December 03, 2022 @04:50AM (#63098674)

      From the outside it may look like hubris, but all you external views are explained simply by the changing demand in the world. You talk about shows worth watching which implied there's specific content you wish Netflix had. Yet I bet Netflix did have such shows in the past. The reality is the landscape changed. Netflix was wholly reliant 3rd parties to make content they could sell to you and those 3rd parties are the ones who cut them out.

      "Other streaming services" is nothing more than a euphemism for "producers of things I like on their own newly launched service". I get that too. We're very close to dropping Netflix, but that was going to happen one way or another, not because of their hubris, but rather competition from others and the realisation that they didn't make anything... and now that they are making things it's things I'm not interested in.

    • Prime is just as bad, if not worse, than Netflix. However, they are different. Prime offers many B movies that you will not find on Netflix, but which are better than the mass-produced mass-market garbage you have to pick through on Netflix. Also, on my TV, Prime is far buggier than Netflix.

      • Also, on my TV, Prime is far buggier than Netflix.

        I think that is pretty much on all TV's and interfaces, Prime is complete shit for the interface both while browsing for shows and the absolute garbage in show controls.

  • Just like Android wins. The service isn't the product. As soon as you take away "this absolutely has to be profitable, all by itself," you're better able to produce something that pleases customers.
  • by SoonerPet ( 893902 ) on Friday December 02, 2022 @11:58PM (#63098438)
    When their video service comes free with the Prime membership that subscriber count means nothing. I've been a Prime member for over a decade and have literally watched 2 videos through them. It's just not on my radar and I have no interest in it. I already have Netflix and others, so Amazon video comes in 4th or 5th place in relevance to me. I'm sure there are millions of similar Prime subscribers who have never even used any of the video feature, but mainly care about the shipping and other Prime benefits. By this logic, every single T-mobile subscriber could also be counted as a Netflix and AppleTV sub as well since they come free with most of their plans now, whether you use that benefit or not.
    • by theshowmecanuck ( 703852 ) on Saturday December 03, 2022 @01:18AM (#63098512) Journal

      Then you lose. But you sound proud of it. Prime has a lot of great shows. More than Netflix, easily. Netflix just makes a lot of shows, but all of them, all of them, are shit.

      • So cyberpunk 2077 and Godzilla singular point are most definitely not shit. They're two of the best shows to come out of the anime industry in the last 10 years. Beast stars is also pretty great. Kuromukuro it's fantastic but ends on a cliffhanger and never got picked up for another season. Seven deadly sins is great if you stop at season 2. There's a little good content in the later seasons but they just didn't have the budget.

        As for the rest of the stuff if your a normie there's a bunch of drama shows
      • by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Saturday December 03, 2022 @02:01AM (#63098550)

        Then you lose. But you sound proud of it. Prime has a lot of great shows. More than Netflix, easily. Netflix just makes a lot of shows, but all of them, all of them, are shit.

        Prime might have more quality shows but the UI is brutal.

        They spent almost half a billion on the first season of Rings of Power, but then they posted the other LOTR movies with broken subtitles [reddit.com]. Another show I tried watching while working out was almost unwatchable because the subtitles randomly lagged 1-2 seconds and missed sets of dialogue.

        And I'm sure there's good shows on there, somewhere, but the only thing I ever see recommended/promoted is their in-house shows (no better than Netflix's shows) or crappy low budget action films.

        They've clearly spent a lot of money on it, but Amazon seems to lack the organizational focus to make it a polished product.

        • then they posted the other LOTR movies with broken subtitles

          That reminds me of when I watched Buffy on Netflix. The were points in the show where the picture cut out and went to a blue screen with a play arrow in the corner. Yes, when they digitized the broadcast tapes they didn't do much quality control at all. This one would be easy to catch programmatically - with the whole screen going to basically a solid primary color.

      • Netflix just makes a lot of shows, but all of them, all of them, are shit.

        Yet there are millions around the world who would disagree with you. That's millions of normal people, reviewers, critics, and industry analysts would disagree with you.

        Then you lose. But you sound proud of it.

        The only way to truly lose is to make an absolutist statement about a deeply personal topic such as whether or not you think a show is good. Out of the top 10 most highly rated shows of 2022, 5 of them are Netflix productions. You may not like them, but it's self evident that other people do.

    • by xwin ( 848234 )
      Subscriber count means something. We have Prime and Netflix (which we will be cancelling shortly). I watch Prime every day and never watch Netflix. All of the Netflix shows are garbage, literally nothing interesting. Prime has enough videos to keep me occupied and they rotate videos and tv shows. If you want a latest movie you can get that too by renting it.
      Netflix original content is mostly junk. We get it occasionally for our kid who wants to watch this or that show. But she finishes within a few weeks
    • Very true. I had a prime membership years before I had internet access fast enough to actually stream any useful video from them.
  • by iamacat ( 583406 ) on Saturday December 03, 2022 @03:28AM (#63098618)

    I literally just notice basics running short at home and place a free shipping order in less than a minute. Plus during pandemic Amazon quite possibly literally saved my life by letting me minimize my infection risk until severity reducing vaccines were available and dominant variants became less deadly. So on top of that, I get lots of things to watch for grand total of $139/year. Video only service has a very high bar to compete.

  • Seeing as Prime Video is bundled in whether people use it or not, the actual number of people streaming shows from it is obviously less than the theoretical maximum.
  • This news once again confirms the growing importance of video content. Now simple and boring videos will not be of interest to anyone and everyone will have to work hard to create cool videos. I am sure that the information from this weblink [wave.video] will be useful in this, because creating a video worthy of attention is simple only at first glance.
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