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Netflix - irukandji - 04-28-2022
I've been hearing a lot about Netflix lately, and it has not been good news. They are claiming they've lost as many as 200,000 subscribers so far and expect to lost another 2,000,000 more in the next three months.
Netflix has a sharing policy in place. I first heard of it years ago from my sister. She was out visiting my brother in Oregon. He had Netflix and put it on an ipad he bought for her. He told her Netflix allows sharing. They do, and apparently have advertised as much.
I currently have cable television, which has been drastically increasing in price over the last five years. I've called the cable company and removed some programming in an attempt to bring the price down, but it still continues to increase every year. Two years ago we actually visited them in person to see what we could do to get the bill to manageable levels. We were put on a two year contract, and if we bought a phone through them, the bill would be cut by something like $50.00 a month. That was a waste as we never used the phone, which was $20.00 a month. Once this contract ended (supposedly it would cost hundreds if we cancelled BEFORE the contract ended), we switched our internet to a new internet carrier and left the television programming in place in an effort to cut the bill. We will be looking into paring the cable service down.
We had purchased a wi-fi capable television about five years ago and our daughter turned our attention to Netflix one day, by putting it on our television. We have watched it ever since. Netflix had some great programming back then, and I still enjoy watching their programs to this day. However, it's not like it was when we first started watching it. And, Netflix is going through changes which may curtail this practice. They've already cut sharing in some South American countries, and are threatening to do so globally.
Among the changes, Netflix is going to continue to allow sharing, but will be charging the subscriber for it. I think the proposal was something like $2.50 for each user up to 2 users. I'm not sure what the rest of the users would do, and it's unclear what happens if the fee isn't paid.
I know my daughter got socked with a rate increase, and has already stated she's dropping the service if they start charging user fees.
Thoughts?
RE: Netflix - FaceInTheCrowd - 04-28-2022
We occasionally look into cord cutting, but so far the cable company (Comcast) manages to keep their pricing for the TV/internet/home phone/wireless phone package we have just slightly below what it would cost to shop these separately from other providers. So for the time being, cable is still hanging onto us as customers.
For streaming, it's a very different proposition. Netflix used to be the best alternative to premium cable, originally DVDs by mail, then DVDs+streaming, and finally original programming. But first they started charging more for what used to be their basic product, and then competitors rose up, many of them owned by the studios Netflix was licensing its content from, and Netflix started losing licensing agreements. But with different content producers (Paramount, Disney, etc.) running their own streaming services with their own exclusive content, there is now no single service that provides access to the range of content that Netflix used to offer - including Netflix itself. So unless someone manages to come up with something like a cafeteria streamer that enables customers to buy access to content from multiple producers, I think we are headed toward not having any streaming services at all - or getting into a pattern in which we are waiting for interesting series to end their runs, subscribing to whatever service they're on just long enough to binge watch the series and then cancelling. I can see us having accounts with Netflix, Hulu, Paramount+, etc., none of which are used for more than a month or two each year.
RE: Netflix - Hell Rell - 04-28-2022
Netflix used to be the biggest game in town by far when it came to a major streaming service. As of a few years ago thhe only other ones that I could think of off the top of my head were Amazon Prime and Hulu.
The great thing about Netflix is that it pretty much had 85-90% of what a random person could want to watch. That changed once all of these other services popped up, most notably Disney+ and HBO Max. And then you have networks like CBS and NBC that have their own services like Paramount+ and Peacock.
It's no secret that this took a massive hit to Netflix. Disney+ results in a lot of the Disney and Marvel content being removed while HBO Max takes the DC side of things plus various cartoons, sitcoms, and dramas as well. Therefore, Netflix now cost more while providing less content and if they're planning on really cracking down on sharing then I can see a lot of subscribers dropping it. That's the only reason I have it for now.
Usually, I would say it's great to have more options but all of these streaming services are starting to cause a decrease in the benefit of having them which was it costing less than cable. The programming being so spread out is making it just as much of a hassle to have as cable and dropping them might become just as prevalent as cord-cutting someday.
RE: Netflix - irukandji - 04-28-2022
I do think Netflix is going to shoot itself in the foot with this charge per user format. I know the other providers, such as Disney, Hulu, etc., are watching Netflix closely to see what happens. Speculation on the news is that this user limit will be completed about a year from now. I do recall Netflix threatening something like this in the past and it never happened.
I have noticed that Netflix does have a propensity to cancel some of its series two years into production. The OA was a series I watched where this happened. The other, Another Life, was apparently in limbo almost until the last minute. Netflix did cancel the series, which hurried up and filled in all of the answers, I suppose, in anticipation of being cancelled.
I have a preference for the British mysteries, and so I subscribed for a free trial of Acorn. The problem I had with Acorn is that it would time out on some of the series. At first I thought it was my television, but it was such a strange thing, (I could watch the first two episodes of a series, and then the third episode would time out). After a time, I gave up and cancelled the subscription. It wasn't hard, but I had to cancel at the website itself and then had to go into my television and cancel it there.
That is one thing I like about these services. They can be cancelled at any time and reinstated without charge. My cable company wants hundreds of dollars just to flick a switch. I honestly don't know how people can afford cable. We didn't have everything and our bill ran $300 a month. Netflix, and the like don't run anywhere near that.
RE: Netflix - FaceInTheCrowd - 04-28-2022
When there was only cable, we never subscribed to HBO, Showtime, etc., because even then the studios had exclusive licensing with providers and to us it was not worth the $10-$12 per month it cost for each premium channel that only had some of the content we might want to watch. The current multiple provider streaming landscape is just more of the same. That business model just seems more and more like an ad for piracy to me.
If we end up eventually dropping Netflix (and Amazon, I forgot to mention that we get Prime Video with our account there because there's hardly ever anything on it we want to watch), we'll probably be getting most of our content from the free streamers that insert commercials the way broadcast TV used to when the networks ran movies. We seldom see anything new that's so interesting to us that we can't wait until it gets old enough to show up on those, especially now that "old enough" seems to be measured in months rather than the years we used to have to wait until movies showed up on broadcast TV.
Lately, we've been binge watching British antiques programs on Pluto TV.
RE: Netflix - irukandji - 04-29-2022
We dropped Showtime and Cinemax years ago in an effort to pare down the bill. We had HBO free for a while, but my daughter has subscribed to HBO/MAX so we watch that instead.
I also watch some of the free services, Tubi and Pluto. The television came with a free service as well, but I rarely watch it. I have noticed that Tubi and Pluto contain many of the same movies and some of the same series. Sometimes, I can pick something up on Tubi that costs additional on Prime. There was a sci-fi series on Prime called Andromeda, from the 80s. It lasted five years. I got seasons 1-4 on Prime. Just by accident, I found out that Tubi carried all of the seasons.
RE: Netflix - FaceInTheCrowd - 04-29-2022
The free streamers (Pluto, Tubi, Roku Channel, etc.) are all running content whose owners consider "past its prime." They've already made all their premium profit from it, so they're probably happy to license it to anyone and everyone who's willing to pay for it. Presumably, lack of exclusivity is the trade-off for cheaper fees.
RE: Netflix - irukandji - 04-29-2022
I would have thought that would have been the case. The series, Andromeda, was from the 80s. Prime was charging for the last season. It was free on Tubi. I have noticed that there have been documentaries on Netflix that were also on Tubi. It's true, the provider does have a lot of old (and campy) movies. Sometimes, they're showing the same things as the providers who charge.
RE: Netflix - FaceInTheCrowd - 04-29-2022
I suspect that the studios are licensing their content in bundles. The better titles all come with a bunch of lesser ones, and the services create a campy sort of channel to drop the lesser ones in and then write some advertising about how they have "thousands of titles" available, without mentioning that hardly anyone ever watches a lot of them. On my Pluto, these channels tend to have a lot of commercials for local businesses that look as if someone shot them on a 1990s VHS camcorder. The price of ad slots must be pretty low if plumbers and auto body shops are able to afford them.
RE: Netflix - Hell Rell - 04-30-2022
I watch Tubi and Pluto too. I would say the two other biggest ones are Sony Crackle and Plex. In particular, Plex is really good to have since I noticed it seems to be Pluto and Tubi combined with a bit of Crackle. I usually just search there first for any show or movie I can watch on the other 3.