Netflix, hungry for more growth, signals more price hikes
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Just wait. Once all of this settles down a little, they will start injecting "offers" and "third-party offers" into the ad-free tiers. They aren't ads per se, and they are only offered on the home screen, and at the beginning of shows. And if you stop, and come back later to resume watching. But they are definitely not ads.
Welcome to the frog boil, fellow frogs.
Welcome to the frog boil, fellow frogs.
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WWE wrestling is less a sport and more of a live stunt show done by highly trained stunt performers.
If anything it might be more demanding than many sports. Stunt work is no joke.
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That would seem to imply to me that consumers are saying that the non-ad supported tiers do not offer sufficient value, no? People value the time wasted viewing ads as less than the price difference between the ad and non-ad tier.
Whether this speaks to customers being financially constrained or the higher tiers not offering enough to customers, I think it would behoove Netflix to ask themselves why customers didn't buy upwards when the basic ad-free plan was removed.
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It's bundled with my phone service. We dropped Netflix years ago and then they added it to our cell plan. We watch it occasionally but honestly it's the least used service we have.
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I splurged on 7 books for the Christmas break for about $80. If you're going to do books at cheaper than Netflix you're going to be reading either older books that are free online, rereading books you already own, grabbing cheap second hand ones, or heading to the library. And if you're heading to the library or getting second hand ones, you can just as easily get some free or cheap DVDs or Blurays (if you still have a player).
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Or perhaps, and hear me out, maybe the execs could take a bit of a pay cut. I mean, I know it's expensive to live in California, but perhaps they could eke out a living on a seven figure salary.
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Paying wrestlers a ton of money to perform violent acts that are completely made up, and announcing a price hike to pay for the privledge of broadcasting that garbage is not labor friendly.
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Also you can check if your library subscribes to either Hoopla or Kanopy.
Kanopy especially is a hidden gem of a streaming service if you're into classic or indie films.
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How about no?
I don't watch the Bollywood and K-drama content, I don't watch WWE, I don't watch reality shows and I don't play their mobile games.
Much of Netflix's increased costs is from content that offers no value to me, so I have no reason to pay for them.
Since I don't pirate, Netflix is joining the list of "join once a year to catch up" services for me.
I don't watch the Bollywood and K-drama content, I don't watch WWE, I don't watch reality shows and I don't play their mobile games.
Much of Netflix's increased costs is from content that offers no value to me, so I have no reason to pay for them.
Since I don't pirate, Netflix is joining the list of "join once a year to catch up" services for me.
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The big bucks pay the stars (and to be fair the huge crews), not the scale actors or writers. While I do care about gender parity in what stars are getting paid, I don't particularly care if they're getting $100k per episode or $5k.
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If you mainly use Netflix for movies, check if your local library has Kanopy or a similar streaming service. Tons of good films on there, mostly older or smaller but some of the big new ones too
Plus Kanopy has some more niche content that often isn't available for free, ad-free streaming anywhere else, such as Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains or Acción Mutante. Not for everyone for sure but some of the gems are infinitely more fun IMO than what Netflix's algorithm is cranking out these days
Plus Kanopy has some more niche content that often isn't available for free, ad-free streaming anywhere else, such as Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains or Acción Mutante. Not for everyone for sure but some of the gems are infinitely more fun IMO than what Netflix's algorithm is cranking out these days
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I liked netflix as a DVD and later as a streaming video company because it got me away from paying to subside over priced sports / "sports entertainment" stuff I'm not intersted in on cable. Now Netflix is becoming more like cable and cable pricing and less like the company that allowed me to select just what I wanted at a low price. :-/
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Thanks for the information about Kanopy! I had never heard about it before now. I'll be checking my local library for it - and they have a very large collection of media that's available for check-out.
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I quit after the last price hike. Our current calendar indicates that Netflix will be our "streaming service of the month" in May. Congrats on going from getting my money every month to getting it once a year, dipshits.
ZERO interest in overpriced nostalgia plays like Seinfield or Friends, or sports stuff.
ZERO interest in overpriced nostalgia plays like Seinfield or Friends, or sports stuff.
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I don't think they're not physically demanding. The demanding part is listening to grownups talk about it with the same enthusiasm I heard in elementary school when fifth-graders were wondering who would win in a fight between Batman and Hulk Hogan.
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This needs to be made illegal. Non-transferable apps were already an end-run around the First Sale doctrine, and now they've made it so you have to keep on 'purchasing' the same non-consumable over and over again.
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I might be willing to pay more, but they need to get the foreign produced shows, which are great as far as I'm concerned, to match up the closed caption with the actual words they say. Drives me batty.
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Cancelled after the first hike and just download anything that seems interesting to me.
The enshitification of Netflix is well underway and I will not be a rube paying them money for stuff I don't use/need.
The enshitification of Netflix is well underway and I will not be a rube paying them money for stuff I don't use/need.
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Netflix's business strategy is clear: to gather together all the passive consumers in the world. Don't care about the quality of what they watch, don't mind ads, won't churn, won't cancel in a huff if they get jerked around. There are at least 260M of them in the world and I bet there are lots more.
I'm the opposite but I can tell that Netflix doesn't want me. They'd go broke catering to people like me. They can run their business as they see fit and I'll see fit to mainly ignore them.
I'm the opposite but I can tell that Netflix doesn't want me. They'd go broke catering to people like me. They can run their business as they see fit and I'll see fit to mainly ignore them.
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I pay for the streaming services in our house, based on a consensus of what we want to watch. Netflix has been "sacred" to the rest of the family, so it's an "always keep" service in the rotation. I'd have removed that special designation years ago, because most of what it has I don't find at all appealing.
Call it me getting picky in my old age.
But if they start showing ads at my current price plan (which currently has no ads), I'll cut them out like I did Prime (and make my wife or roommate pay for it).
Then I can add another service that the family wants to watch - ALL of the family, with me included. With Netflix, for the most part, I find something worth watching about once every three or four months, which would fit in nicely with our rotations. It would not break my heart to add a new slot so I have options I want to watch more often.
Call it me getting picky in my old age.
But if they start showing ads at my current price plan (which currently has no ads), I'll cut them out like I did Prime (and make my wife or roommate pay for it).
Then I can add another service that the family wants to watch - ALL of the family, with me included. With Netflix, for the most part, I find something worth watching about once every three or four months, which would fit in nicely with our rotations. It would not break my heart to add a new slot so I have options I want to watch more often.
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I've had Netflix for ~13 years and it currently has the least relevant content it's ever had. I'm ready to cut the streaming subscription cord because I've since moved on to a single app where I can watch anything on demand across all my devices for a low, low price. 
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It kind of reminds me of cable packages where they add a few channels to a package and then raise the price due to "offering more" even if you don't care about said channels. It would be nice if things like WWE were accessed via add-on packages for Netflix. When it comes down to it, I can definitely see people being very into the addition of Pro Wrestling to Netflix, but on the flip side, it isn't great to see in tandem with proposed price hikes when it doesn't interest you. Even if Netflix still has content that you enjoy, you start to feel like it isn't really "for you" anymore.
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It's not a sport. It is indeed an opera and ballet (which are also very physically demanding - see below). But that's fine. Both sports and opera/ballets are designed and sold for the purpose of entertainment. And according to its fans, WWE does a good job at entertaining them.
View: https://youtu.be/BMaI83hdPJA?t=54
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I have had enough. Just canceled them. I would cancel Amazon Prime also due to commercials, but want the free shipping and to be honest, don't watch enough videos to bother.
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I have been done since they told me I can't actually use the 4 screens I paid for without jumping through hoops. Vote with your wallets, it's the only metric that matters.
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They've grown through every previous price change, but maybe this one is the charm.
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Kanopy and Hoopla are both getting recent interesting movies now, like The Whale and Beau is Afraid.
And don't ignore documentaries. Man on a Wire, Kubrick on Kubrick, Kedi, and Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy.
My recent undiscovered gem on Kanopy - Going Clear about Scientology. Whoof, I knew it was bad but not that bad.
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Most of their growth is now overseas. 13M new subscribers, 10M outside North America. That will just continue. Their subscribers are people who don't know Ars exist and wouldn't post here if they did.
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Shut up and take my money!
*Not actually going to subscribe to netflix and never did get into WWE when my collage roommate was a superfan, but that description hardly seems like a negative.
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Does it not count as growth if they're icky foreigners or something?
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If you really want it heavy on the homoeroticism, GCW puts on a regular series of events called Effy's Big Gay Brunch, with an all-LGBTQ+ roster. They're not porny or anything, but they are very, very queer and lots of fun.
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The problem with that option with Netflix in particular is finding something they have that's worth the effort to pirate.
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Is streaming just slowly turning back into cable, but for more money? I put my breaking point just a few dollars above what I already pay them. I've already bailed on others for price hikes and commercial injection without offering me better content. Now that I think on it, this last 6 months i've been buying more and more 4k and blu-ray because they look so good on these OLED tv's (which I just got this year) compared to even a 4k stream from Netflix, which easily provides the best stream quality (MAX is possibly the worst). So, maybe i'll just go back to living like it's 2004 again.
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I am already paying $24.37 with the tax for Netflix's 4k plan. Then on top of that $77.37 for YoutubeTV for my Cable. Next time Netflix raises the top tier price again it won't be worth it to me anymore and I will just stick with YoutubeTV for Cable TV Shows and Movies which is plenty to watch.
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