Amid price hikes, ads, & crackdowns, Netflix finally cuts subscribers a break
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There's a similar deal with why Hulu ad-free and Netflix don't offer annual plans... the data they get from the programming binged prior to cancelling is very valuable to them. Evidently, more so than locking us in for one whole year at a time (albeit at a 16% discount)
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The best streaming experience, bar none, is not to stream. Check the DVDs out of the library. It is free (well, other than transportation costs), the DVDs have special features which are never available on the streaming services, and there are no ads (unless you count the trailers, which you can usually skip.)
There are some downsides:
There are some downsides:
- It does require a little planning ahead.
- The selection may be limited if the library is small.
- Damaged DVDs will be encountered.
- It might be necessary to wait for some popular titles.
- Some titles on streaming services are not yet on DVD (but Disnay seems to be relenting in this regard).
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There are hardly ever incentives given to ad-free tiers (if at all), since "ad-filled" tiers make so much money.
One situation I heard was that between Hulu w-ads at $2/mo, vs. Hulu ad-free at $13/mo, the former makes them far more $$ (and the former is "sorta practically" free). Granted, this was years back when those rates were available (Hulu w-ads may still be available as we approach Black Friday/Thanksgiving week), but I can't imagine this paradigm shifted with much deviation.
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Be honest: You're just bitter that Netflix cancelled you. But five seasons is a healthy run!
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(434x584:436x586):format(webp)/fuller-house-7380f4015ec14605b6f3eeaa77b14444.jpg)
But you've got to admit, I look absolutely fabulous in that yellow sweater!
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Netflix definitely has a habit of canceling shows but Altered Carbon was a textbook case NOT of that. The show was handled like any other network show prior to streaming. I'm saying this as a fan - If anything they should have killed it sooner. That was the first show I watched where it was comically obvious the budget for the season had been reduced. Just from the sheer amount of times they go back to the same places in season 2 to reuse sets makes it obvious.
"In 2018, TV ratings company Nielsen revealed that according to their calculations, the first season of Altered Carbon was watched by around 2.5 million people in its first week. However, this number dropped off significantly, with only a reported 1 million of those viewers making it to the end of Season 1." newsweek
There's no way you can keep a show around with that level of quality (let alone maintain that production value on a sci-fi show) with such low numbers. The amount of spotlight Netflix gave the show and the decent reception critics gave it is likely the only reason we got a season 2. Even if it was clearly a lower budget.
Adjusting the budget of a show to its viewership numbers is hardly unreasonable and inline with what normal networks do. Even canceling "pretty well received" shows after a season or two if the numbers don't pick up. There's a number of notable ones every year. Some random ones that come to mind this year are The Great & Perry Mason.
Netflix had to drop most of the old famous shows as the original prices were not sustainable because rights holders undervalued their stuff since (before streaming) it was not near as valued in the decades prior. Then all these shows got more expensive once networks started making their own streaming services and pulled out their own shows basically regardless of price jacking up the price of the few that remained even more.
I note this because while I’m a little salty about Altered Carbon too, it's one of few times I’ve seen Netflix take a “fair and balanced” approach rather than outright canceling it. It's important to at least get the example right for a grievance.
"they did it to themselves" don’t forget dropping all the shows at once was what everyone wanted them to do including the ARS comments :/
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I'm so very glad that every thing can get worse and worse so that companies can always make more money than they did last year. I know it makes total sense for companies to make even more money when they make things worse for their customers. We've fine-tuned extractive capitalism to such a degree that providing a decent service is actually detrimental to the goals of just making as much money as possible. What an awesome system. Nothing at all should be changed.
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Perhaps if they limited what you could watch to cheap (probably old) material and limited how much you could watch a month?
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Feel free to move to a better one. If they’ll let you in.
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It will be interesting to see what impact the new WGA contract might have on streaming advertising, since the actual viewership numbers were always a black box. Now, there will be actual hard numbers available to people outside the streaming companies about how popular shows really were.
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Interesting that the ad tier is generating more revenue per user than the paid tiers. Weren't we told for years how little money there is in advertising and that's why every service wanted to move to subscriptions?
In any event, I got the email listing my price hike today so I will be cancelling shortly. Enough is enough.
In any event, I got the email listing my price hike today so I will be cancelling shortly. Enough is enough.
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First season, I think it was a few weeks after release. Then two years later I had completely forgotten about the show, and didn't even realize the second season had been released until I saw news it had been cancelled. I didn't even bother watching it.
Fair point. I wasn't aware of the major drop in viewers within the first season. But my point was: two years later, what did they expect? Ten episodes won't hold viewer interest for that long (well, unless it's Firefly). It will probably be very popular on the Twitter trends for a couple weeks, maybe get some new subscribers for a month or two, but it's just a blip.
So even if it's a fantastic show that does everything right, after two years of nothing it's got an uphill battle just trying to get people to remember it exists.
/shrug. I don't enjoy binge watching. To each their own. But I don't think it's sustainable if they want to keep people interested in new shows.
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This is most likely because Netflix hasn't sold enough ads, so they're selling this as a customer benefit rather than admitting they don't have the paid ad supply to include ads after 3 consecutive episodes.
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araczynski
Ars Scholae Palatinae
half hoping they raise my StandardHD rate ($15.50) so I can finally just dump the whole thing.
sure AF I'm not paying for fracking ads, and there's less and less worthy content as the years roll on...
sure AF I'm not paying for fracking ads, and there's less and less worthy content as the years roll on...
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I'm sharing my account with my sister in Oregon. Unless she reboots her TV, Netflix will never send a text asking if it's me. I installed a UPS for her modem, WiFi router & TV. I told her if the power goes out when she is home, turn off the TV so the battery won't be depleted. And Netflix costs me $5.32 a month because T-Mobile is paying $10.62.
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Getting close to the end of the week so I guess we'll see how it goes over the next couple days.
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I forgot about it already. I read the article yesterday but didn't get to the comments until today.
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One thing that concerns me about the push for advertising is that it will change the kinds of movies and shows that get made. Content that is not advertiser-friendly will be a hard sell.
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I guess that you're not used as a commodity in the increasingly invasive surveillance capitalism system Netflix was talking about.
The introduction of ads into the decision making process at Netflix is only going to lead to increasing enshittification, seperare and apart from the market dynamics of siloed content etc.
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So you liked the show a lot and you're salty enough to write about the show 5 years later yet you did not even bother to watch any of the 2nd season. Honestly, it sounds like you're just salty. (which is fine and your right - I just don’t see that justifying your points here)
So like I said in hindsight they should have made a decision sooner and canceled the series. Rather than avoiding making a “rash” decision and delaying the decision to keep the door open.
I mean my point was they were unsure of doing the show for a second season. Any delays in making this decision push back a second season. This is again fairly normal. Shows on the fence often go longer than a year and that’s without the production hurdles of shows of this type. (Of course, it's still far from ideal.)
Plus when it gets to this point there is often something else going on behind the scenes. Causing more delays that are not indicative of the larger companies decision making. So you can't really even draw the conclusions you're trying to make without specific research on the events surrounding the 2nd season.
From someone who watched all of season 2- I would think not much. Which could be "fine" with the lower budget if it was at least decent which it was not
That’s your impression and as noted not reality. If the show's viewership did not drop off so much your premise would be valid imo.
ok? the issue is with your tone and criticism. Most of the people following the space and industry after years of testing seem to have come to the similar conclusion about 1 to 2 years ago.
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@Skeaptical I don’t get what’s salty about it, or where you’re having an issue with my tone.
I liked the show but two years later I’d completely forgotten about it. I had other things to do than remember ten episodes of a show I’d watched one time.
I’m sorry you think it’s a bad example, but since you’ve said you agree with my premise, could you go find someone else to nitpick?
I liked the show but two years later I’d completely forgotten about it. I had other things to do than remember ten episodes of a show I’d watched one time.
I’m sorry you think it’s a bad example, but since you’ve said you agree with my premise, could you go find someone else to nitpick?
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I just don't understand why they charge to fully utilize 4K HDR tvs. It's ridiculous the price they charge for higher quality video just because you decided to buy a nicer television.
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The 4K video is a higher bitrate than the HD video, so they're sending you more data, and utilizing more of their overall bandwidth to do so.
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306
Granted, if the 4K content averages a bitrate 3x higher, and that costs Netflix about 3x more to deliver, the server and bandwidth costs are really only a fraction of your monthly subscription fee. It's not costing them an extra $4.50/month, the difference between Standard and Premium, to send you 4K content instead of HD content. But then Premium has other additional features as well.
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/24926
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Missed opportunity there to call it Chili - because it's hot & spicy.
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Well for $25 a month you tube will let you add up to 5 other phones and or tv's. What about that. No ads?!!
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