Technology

Bear in mind that Antenna (the source of this info) has no access to internal Netflix metrics, only to opt-in consumer information. We won't really know what's going on with Netflix's numbers until their next quarterly report.

I'm about to the point where I'm just going to go back to pirating. The value of streaming services was in their convenience. I was willing to pay money for that, but the more fragmented and complicated all of it gets, when I can just pay for 1 VPN and go to a site and click a few links...

I'm honestly sort of suspicious of this report. I wouldn't be surprised if the information is misrepresented or outright fabricated.

Plex + Sonarr/Radarr and you won't need Netflix anymore ;)

The other streaming services will undoubtly follow this trend now that Netflix has shown it works.

Hot take but I think ultimately this will work out for them. Nobody is going to cancel their sub over this, because whoever is paying isn't losing anything.

The people who lose access to the account might not sign up, but it doesn't exactly hurt Netflix if they don't, they weren't paying anyway.

No idea how accurate this report is. Either way people online tend to be a vocal minority. The vast majority of people using Netflix either aren't on Reddit or other discussion forums, or are simply lurkers who never comment. I find that people that do comment tend to be doom and gloom when it comes to these sort of things. That applies to me too, as I certainly won't buy Netflix due to their content.

But Netflix is large enough that it will probably be fine for quite some time. Even so I do think streaming is declining rapidly due to too many services and studies have shown that people do pirate more when accessing content becomes tedious. It's all a matter of comfort.

My family is paying nearly $30/month for Netflix now, on top of paying for cable TV, Max, and Amazon. I currently pay for Hulu and Disney+ and share it with the family, but I really hope password crackdowns are not the norm.

If they are, I'm gonna have a good talk with them about other options. Just throwing money away because "Well what if I want to watch something on that platform one night and I don't have it" is precisely how these vampires want people to feel - the fear of lack of access.

Yeah, not surprising tbh. They tested the change in smaller countries like NZ first, which allowed them to determine if it was worth doing the same elsewhere.

Password sharing is really common, but I don't think enough people realise - if they give a shit about what they use and where it comes from, they're the minority. That goes for almost any service, not just streaming. The people willing to change their habits to protest are always going to be less than the entrenched people who can be pushed, inch by inch.

Most Netflix users just want something to watch with minimal effort and without having to try or think about it. So if the password doesn't work, they shrug, they accept it, they make their own account, and their routines stay the same. In fact I'm willing to be that of the new Netflix users, a majority of them are probably also subscribed to at least one other streaming service, too.

Convenience is a commodity, and users have different price points.

I think there will be an initial spike of signups, but over the long term the cancellations may outweigh the signups and subscriptions could decrease. Especially if they don't have another hit show like Stranger Things or Squid Game etc.

The sad reality most of us who comment on social media and forums forget is we are just a vocal minority, majority of consumers don't care for these outrages unfortunately. If the end product works good enough for most people then they will keep it/use it.

The general consumer is an idiot. It’s basic psychology. Rewarding behavior increases it’s likelihood. Soon other streaming services will follow.

I only use Netflix currently, as it comes with my phone plan. The convenience factor is nice, but I find the content library a bit lacking. I must explore Plex at some point.

I only consume content the way God intended : Torrent

So much for the great exodus that was predicted.

hardly use Netflix, will of a movie we wanna watch is available on it (rare) and it's my parents' anyways so we're gonna get locked out sooner or later. Glad I just decided to build a NAS to make the whole torrenting > media server pipeline easier and with plenty of space

I'm skeptical. If this is indeed true, I believe it will be short lived. The simple reason is that the content is not worth the cost. It worked better when people shared their passwords maybe? I gave up my subscription long before they announced these changes because the content, IMO, mostly sucks.

It is frankly insane how much attention those three paragraphs from a random outlet have garnered. The data they release is sparse, with little context, and largely obscure. It reads like the abstract of a term paper that used questionable statistics to validate a preconceived point. I would not be surprised to find out that they had incentive to publish something that makes Netflix's decision look successful to investors. But even if you trust their numbers, all they are saying is that Netflix had more signups than usual on two days. It doesn't mean anything.

A spike in subscribers for a period doesn't necessarily mean they're making more money than before, even if the number of new signups offsets the cancellations.

I used to pay for the Premium plan, sharing with my parents, but downgraded to the Basic plan. My parents ended up getting their own Basic plan. So a single account essentially split into two, but the sum of both payments is now less than what it used to be for the single account. So Netflix gained an extra subscriber, but is now making less money from that pool of users.

It's totally possible that some number of these new signups consist of people who did the same thing.

Basically, seeing a spike in new signups isn't itself a measure of success. What matters is how much money they're bringing in monthly going forward compared to previously.