Netflix Raises Prices As Password Boost Fades (bbc.com) 20
Netflix has begun raising prices in several countries, including Japan, parts of Europe, and Africa, as it seeks to sustain growth following its crackdown on password sharing. While its recent financial results show strong revenue growth, the company faces challenges in finding new subscribers and aims to boost future growth through advertising and fresh content. The BBC reports: In its latest results, Netflix announced that it had added 5.1 million subscribers between July and September - ahead of forecasts but the smallest gain in more than a year. The company is under pressure to show investors what will power growth in the years ahead, as its already massive reach makes finding new subscribers more difficult. The last time Netflix saw signs of slowdown, in 2022, it launched measures to stop password sharing and said it would offer a new streaming option with advertisements.
The crackdown unleashed a new wave of growth. The firm has added more than 45 million new members since last year and has 282 million subscribers globally. Analysts also expect advertisements to eventually become big business for Netflix. For now, however, Netflix has said it remains "early days" and warned it did not expect it to start driving growth until next year, despite many subscribers opting for the ad-supported plan. The plan, which is the company's least expensive option, accounted for 50% of new sign-ups in the places where it is offered in the most recent quarter, Netflix said. Even without a boost from advertising, Netflix said revenue in the July-September period was up 15% compared with the same period last year, to more than $9.8 billion. Profit also rose from $1.6 billion in the same period last year to $2.3 billion.
The crackdown unleashed a new wave of growth. The firm has added more than 45 million new members since last year and has 282 million subscribers globally. Analysts also expect advertisements to eventually become big business for Netflix. For now, however, Netflix has said it remains "early days" and warned it did not expect it to start driving growth until next year, despite many subscribers opting for the ad-supported plan. The plan, which is the company's least expensive option, accounted for 50% of new sign-ups in the places where it is offered in the most recent quarter, Netflix said. Even without a boost from advertising, Netflix said revenue in the July-September period was up 15% compared with the same period last year, to more than $9.8 billion. Profit also rose from $1.6 billion in the same period last year to $2.3 billion.
They no longer are pricing on 12 months per user (Score:4, Interesting)
They are pricing for the "steamer hopping" crowd.
Maybe they expect a subscriber for six months out of a year. Or three.
There isn't an expectation of a constant subscription any longer, and the efforts to be unsubscribing easier will only contribute to this.
Sports is what will tie people to a service (for part of the year). Sports is actually what drove me to use an over-the-air antenna for live TV (which took me back to the 1980s, having to fiddle with the antenna, no pause or recording, not even a VCR!).
Prime is a completely different beast (their channel subscription is the envy of the industry no doubt, even Apple just "subscribed" to that). PlutoTV is the long tail (an idea I had a while back but no ability to realize).
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The real problem is that there isn't enough new quality content every month to warrant keeping a subscription running year long.
I haven't had a Netflix subscription for well over a year now, and I'd imagine that I could probably catch up on the shows I was interested in after just a week of binge watching.
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The real problem is that there isn't enough new quality content every month to warrant keeping a subscription running year long.
Ding ding ding! Winner winner chicken dinner!
We kept Netflix around, year-round, for quite a few years. But they kept losing (intentionally or not) much of their worthwhile third-party content, and their own "Originals" were mostly uninteresting lowest-common-denominator pablum. AND their prices kept going up! So now they're just part of the churn - subscribe for a couple months, watch the new episodes of what few things they carry and we care about, then unsubscribe again.
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The real problem is that there isn't enough new quality content every month to warrant keeping a subscription running year long.
I haven't had a Netflix subscription for well over a year now, and I'd imagine that I could probably catch up on the shows I was interested in after just a week of binge watching.
A market analyst at Citi stated on Yahoo Finance (on 18-Oct-2024 during a YF morning show) that Netflix has at least 4 issues that bother the larger investment community:
- Large investment fund analysts see Netflix as a 2nd tier ("it sucks less than the rest of it's sector") alternative to the top tier Mag-7 stocks in the markets, yet Netflix financials ("the fundamentals") don't back up their stock performance.
- Some "market makers" are now spouting price & earnings targets for Netflix that are way out
Psst. You can only grow to saturation. (Score:5, Interesting)
Once you hit that point, there is no more growth. You can do things that look like growth, such as buying another company, but that's still not real growth. You have reached maturity. Your growth phase is complete. Adjusting prices to maintain acceptable profitability is the way forward. I mean, I guess they could do things to encourage population growth, but that's a long term strategy and not something that's a good fit for quarterly jackpot-oriented investors.
In the alternative... (Score:2)
Burn Netflix to the ground and sell the assets to three or four new startups that can actually grow for a few years, merge and consolidate, and then end up with one single The New AT&T, err Netflix. Wash, rinse, repeat in perpetuity.
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When there are several separate streaming providers, they all have different content, so it is a big hassle of account-hopping to find what you want.
When there is one big streaming provider, the price is way too high and the content providers get way too little of that money, as it all goes into the administration of the big streamer.
If we want an actually good system, we are going to need a different model. Something where the available content is all the same regardless of what provider you use, so they
You did not stop them the first time (Score:5, Insightful)
You did not stop them when they broke their own promises for more profit, so now they will continue to squeeze until they have found the absolute breaking point. Until then it will just keep getting worse and worse.
Just like Google cracking down on Adblock. The internet is slowly but surely becoming hostile towards the users and the platforms are throwing their weight around ruthlessly.
Infinite growth (Score:3)
They didn't really crack down on password sharing (Score:2)
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Basic math (Score:2)
2 months of binge watching a show equals to buying one season of the same show on a physical media you can watch anytime and nobody can take it away from you.
Except nobody releases their shows on media any longer, for fears of piracy and loss of revenue, keeping audience hostage of their streaming services.
Yes, mankind has become both lazy and stupid.
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Except nobody releases their shows on media any longer, for fears of piracy and loss of revenue...
Nobody is avoiding physical media releases due to "fears of piracy". Shows can already be pirated off the original streaming platform, arguably easier since they are coming down in a codec and bitrate friendly to streaming devices and users with slower Internet connections compared to ripping a blu-ray disc. Not releasing on home video probably increases piracy. When you can't buy it to own people will do things to "insure" against them losing access if the original streaming platform ever decides to stop c
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You are not hostage. You have the choice to dump it.
Growth (Score:3)
The problem is the constant need to show growth.
Not every business can grow indefinitely. Not every business needs to.
Can't we just have stable businesses that make a nice profit?
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Go ahead, keep raising prices (Score:3)
It costs me nothing to cancel. . . .