Netflix stops charging customers who never watch • Hacker News Board

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#441

Post by xmprt » Sat, May 23, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #382

fedups wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Planet money had a story where a similar superficially good idea ended up with Etrade selling a man's Amazon stock and deactivating his account after he didn't log in for a certain period of time. He was able to reclaim about $8000 for stock that would be worth ~$100k today. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/799345159

This is mildly infuriating because the whole point of long term investing is to buy a stock, and well, do nothing -- besides hold it for decades. The stock should continue being held whether a user logs in or not.

Sounds like a lot of this could be fixed if the policy was to not sell the stock.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#442

Post by dkdk8283 » Sat, May 23, 2020, 5:51 PM UTC

dylan62 wrote: post #177

Netflix impressed me recently with how easy they made it for me to cancel my subscription. It means I will have no hesitation to re-subscribe in future, should I feel the urge. I just wonder how long it will last. It sometimes feels like all the big successful consumer companies become accountancy-driven scumbags sooner or later. Fingers crossed Netflix can buck the trend and stay a nice company to deal with.

I wish more companies followed this pattern. In order to cancel my gym membership I had to write a letter. They didn’t respond to my first one, so I had to send a second via certified mail and then it was done.

Sirius is also pretty scummy about cancelling, although they keep luring me in.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#443

Post by hombre_fatal » Sat, May 23, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

flurdy wrote: post #297

goodside wrote: post #55

Years ago, I heard of a dating site doing the opposite of this. They normally sent periodic digests and newsletters to their users to try to increase engagement, but if a user went a certain number of months without logging into their account, but still allowed monthly fees to be charged, they were labeled as a “sleeping giant” in the database. Once in this state, they would not be contacted by the site for any reaso…

Yeah, sleepers make up a large if not a majority of many recurring revenues. I once worked at a very popular online service where I was in charge of the payments team. We had many ways to subscribe or upgrade, but to cancel it online was possible but very difficult. The cancel option was hidden under many clicks and dropdowns. That was mandated from C-level management even though we kept imploring to allow us to make…

Just makes you realize how catastrophically bad our system serves us.

It's beyond insane how, in the USA at least, you give someone a string of numbers and they basically get pull access to your money for what might as well be perpetuity. And that you have to use to a specific bank, Paypal, Apple Pay, etc. to have a system as simple as a list of entities authorized to bill you in the future. And the ability to terminate those permissions.

Just think how well most people would be served financially if everyone was receiving phone notifications when they were recur-rebilled. "$15 to 24-Hour Fitness" popups up on their homescreen. And they could cancel the permission. Or at least just think "hmm, what's that for? Ah, right, I do want to continue being billed."

It takes a lot of mental gymnastics and charity to imagine how this system wasn't expressly designed by and for the enrichment of grifters.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#444

Post by watwut » Sat, May 23, 2020, 6:06 PM UTC

hackissimo123 wrote: post #210

saluki wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm amazed how many SaaS users are zOmBiE uSeRs, this is from working on client SaaS apps. One had about 20% of the users paying and not even logging in for months or even a year. Props to Netflix for unsubscribing users who don't use the service.

I think the wider point is that it's amazing how lax and careless so many people are with their personal finances. They think nothing of wasting hundreds (thousands?) of $$$ a year on unnecessary purchases, including things that they don't even use (like old software subscriptions.) Then they complain that they're broke. When I hear sob stories about how #{big_number}% of people can't afford an unexpected $500 bill,…

The assumption that people who don't use their subscriptions and those who can't afford emergency is unfounded.

With economic gap between poor and richer, it is quite easy for one segment not to worry about subscriptions and for another to not have money.

Anecdotally, programmers and other well paid people I know areally waaay more likely to buy subscriptions then people I know who don't have money.

The people who buy new phone every year are also incredibly rate among those I know - not even rich people do it.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#445

Post by drusepth » Sat, May 23, 2020, 6:06 PM UTC

jackson1442 wrote: post #72

sillysaurusx wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is giving you their money, how do you know they don't want to use your service? Many people give money to ensure that a service is available when they need it.

> Many people give money to ensure that a service is available when they need it. Netflix, as a service, takes ~10 minutes to set up. This might be the case for a software suite like CC, where you might need to download a massive amount of data, or other software where you pay annually or enter into some kind of contract, but Netflix is strictly monthly and easy to sign up for by design.

Netflix also has use-cases where it's much more difficult to sign up. For example, someone who watches Netflix on a game console (Xbox, Switch, etc) might only occasionally watch it, and also have a much longer sign-up process (not only the flow, but also dealing with console keyboard, not having a password manager, etc). Ditto for people who use other hardware like Chromecasts and such and may not have a dedicated "computer" where it's quick to just sign up from when they find they've been downgraded.

I also run a business designed to be used in the moment when an author is struck with inspiration. It takes less than a minute to upgrade or downgrade (and some users choose to only upgrade for hours at a time each month with no penalty, aka a month of subscription time sometimes lasts a full year), but when I experimented with automatic downgrades to those who hadn't signed in all month I got complaints that they "weren't able to just log in and use the service they paid for".

Could just be a notice thing (improving messaging to more reliably let users know they've been downgraded), an option (letting users opt-in/out of automatic downgrading), or have other solutions (maybe refunding instead of downgrading?), but it does seem that at least some users like to feel like they're paying for something to be "at their fingertips" when they need it.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#446

Post by s1artibartfast » Sat, May 23, 2020, 6:17 PM UTC

sfj wrote: post #218

jaakl wrote: post #130

It is not just ”altruistic”. The idea is clever: they loose <0.1% inactive users but will win new ones blocked now behind worry ”what if I will not really use it”. Their bet is that the second group could be larger than first, and by order of magnitude. And if not, then it is still not so expensive marketing. I wish ’use only if you really use’ would become norm.

> I wish ’use only if you really use’ would become norm. I wouldn't look at them as an shining beacon. They only cancel if you haven't watched it for a year, and none of your money is refunded, so it's not that great of safety net.

It is still pretty great. A lot of people would happily exchange one year of fees for having to unsubscribe. Think of the application for the deceased or incapacitated. Running down every subscription a deceased parent could have had is a huge pain.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#447

Post by dehrmann » Sat, May 23, 2020, 6:20 PM UTC

kchr wrote: post #406

bcrosby95 wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife has an old gym membership for 24 hour fitness. She pays $120/year. Never uses it. Figures it's good "whoops, you're homeless" insurance - it's a place you can get dressed and take a shower.

Wow, that's one use of the gym card I never considered. Genious.

If you've ever been to a 24 Hour Fitness, you quickly learn lots of people consider this use.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#448

Post by efitz » Sat, May 23, 2020, 6:20 PM UTC

mywacaday wrote: post #168

sytelus wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm getting charged by rhapsody.com every quarter for no apparent reason. I used their service like may be 8 years ago. They have a phone number in their merchant line which is invalid. When I filed request to void the charge to American Express, initially they declined! Then I filed appeal with angry comments and they finally voided it. It took over two months for the process. I just saw new Rhapsody charge again. T…

Companies that make it difficult to unsubscribe should be penalised, I live in Europe and got the New York Times on a 12 month trial for €4 a month. Trial just ended and it's now €8 a month, only way to cance is to ring them, have tried once so far and was on hold for 20 mins before I hung up. There should be a law that if you can sign up online you can cancel online.

We need a law that requires it to be no more difficult to unsubscribe from anything then it is to subscribe to that thing. If you can subscribe with one click on the website then you must be able to unsubscribe with one click on the website. The law should make it individually actionable in small claims court for each subscriber that is inconvenienced to recover damages and not allow arbitration clauses to override that right.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#449

Post by dehrmann » Sat, May 23, 2020, 6:22 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #438

kchr wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's one use of the gym card I never considered. Genious.

I got one of those free personal trainer sessions at the gym once. In chatting with my personal trainer, I discovered that he lives in an RV outside the gym, and uses the gym to shower every morning and uses their bathroom so he doesn't have to spend money emptying/filling his tanks on his RV. A solar panel on the roof covered his electricity. Basically by being employed by the gym and living in an RV he had no recur…

Are you in the Bay Area? Mountain View has a lot of people living in RVs, and I've seen RVs in the Walmart parking lot by the 24 Hour Fitness, there.

Re: Netflix stops charging customers who never watch

#450

Post by dehrmann » Sat, May 23, 2020, 6:24 PM UTC

raiyu wrote: post #12

I always wonder when a company does this if it is completely altruistic or if something else is going on behind the scenes. Maybe notifying customers gets them to reactivate, maybe if they resubscribe later they can charge more, maybe it’s better for financial reporting and projecting subscriber counts. On the other hand it could just be a rare moment of a company doing right by the customer.

> On the other hand it could just be a rare moment of a company doing right by the customer.

Arguably, doing right by the customer is selfish because it looks out for you business in the long term.