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Netflix’s Prices Are Rising Faster Than Cable

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Re: Netflix’s Prices Are Rising Faster Than Cable

#331

Post by noahtallen »

Semaphor wrote: post #186
jitix wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Netflix's product is not software but content. I understand what you're referring to but if Prime Video's UX is any indication, content trumps software product quality in this market segment. If I were Netflix I'd probably divest the technology side of the business (which is arguably the best in the market) and sell that "software product" as a white label streaming platform to the myriad of media houses acro…

> I understand what you're referring to but if Prime Video's UX is any indication, content trumps software product quality in this market segment. Netflix consistently made their UX worse, they started far beyond Prime Video, nowadays, it’s a tossup. I canceled Netflix for that reason alone.

That’s pretty surprising to me. Prime’s video playback UX is very bad on Roku TV, iOS, and the web. Netflix isn’t just faster to use, it also looks better, doesn't have shockingly pixelated elements on 4k displays, and is easier to control.

Re: Netflix’s Prices Are Rising Faster Than Cable

#332

Post by dartharva »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #272
dartharva wrote: post #30

Huh, interesting. Netflix recently slashed its prices in India, that too by a considerable margin.

Isn't it still pretty expensive compared to what an average Indian can afford, though? They're presumably hoping to be able to get much wider adoption by lowering prices. In the US on the other hand, there wouldn't be much room for growth among people who can't afford their current prices. Netflix's lowest plan in India is about $2 USD/month while the per capita GDP is about $1,900. A year of Netflix costs about 1.2%…

Well, it's still wayy cheaper than cable/DTH TV ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You won't get far trying to measure Indian consumers' purchasing power from the country's per capita GDP; it has never been a good measure for that. India's is the hottest market in the world after the US and China for most digital services and probably has the largest population of netizens globally (if you were to discount those behind the Chinese Great Firewall). The per-capita GDP gets brought down by a large segment of population living in abject poverty, but this segment generally does not get counted into measuring the prospective marketable population for most companies. If you were to exclude this population, Indians still are a formidable bunch of consumers.

Re: Netflix’s Prices Are Rising Faster Than Cable

#333

Post by andrew_ »

tomjen3 wrote: post #329
bilater wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, this is a lazy take. If you even slightly dig into the numbers the price increase makes complete sense. Netflix spent 17 billion dollars on content last year. They are outspending competitors 2 to 1 if not more. Their catalog is thriving - you have big names like DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot, The Rock etc signing on for movies. You have shows like Squid Game attracting ridiculou…

The benefit of Netflix was that you could binge 7 seasons of a show you didn't get to see back when it was new, for whatever reason. They have to heavily promote their own content and often there are only one or two "seasons", where a season is only about 10 episodes. In short they may be spending a ton on content, but so does all the others and while I do pay for Netflix, I continually wonder if I should just cancel…

That and they used to have an excellent catalog of movies. I haven't watched a full length feature film on Netflix in almost year, because all of it is such garbage. Prime Video has a better movie catalog than Netflix now. My kids very occasionally watch something on Netflix Kids, but that's not even compelling these days. It's a running joke in the household that my spouse will spend an hour trying to find something decent to watch, only to hand the remote to someone else, who immediately exits Netflix. And their original content is so bad often enough that we have to look at online reviews just to try to avoid wasting 30 minutes on something that'd make a B movie look good.

Honestly I don't know why I'm still paying.

Re: Netflix’s Prices Are Rising Faster Than Cable

#334

Post by ejstronge »

mgkimsal wrote: post #137
rchaud wrote: post #116

The golden age of Netflix was when it had a full library of other networks' shows. It was completely unsustainable at $8.99/mo or whatever it was back in 2013-15. The price of the brick went up each time renewal discussions happened, and the rights holders were planning to set up their own networks anyway. What I didn't anticipate was how fast Netflix would dump AAA content and replace it with a deluge of B and C gra…

> The halo effect that "Netflix Original" used to have thanks to shows like House of Cards... It wasn't even 'original' in that it was a UK series years earlier. I understand they made changes, and, IIRC, milked it for a lot more than the UK series. But that wasn't... "original". Good original series though. There's likely more good UK stuff Netflix could mine.

> It wasn't even 'original' in that it was a UK series years earlier. I understand they made changes, and, IIRC, milked it for a lot more than the UK series.

I hear you, but the first season of the US House of Cards comprised the action of all three series of the UK version. It's hard to say that the Netflix version was not original considering it went on considerably longer.

Re: Netflix’s Prices Are Rising Faster Than Cable

#335

Post by kroltan »

babyshake wrote: post #256
samwillis wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I don't entirely agree with you I do think the price of Netflix is getting a little higher than the value we personally get out of it. Our personal breakdown this year (in the UK): Adults in the house, we are quite picky but if we love it then we will keep watching: Netflix @£9.99: 2 tv shows, 4-5 films Apple TV+ @£4.99: 3 tv shows, 2 films Disney Plus @£7.99: 1 tv show, Loads of movies Amazon Prime @£7.99: 3 t…

Is there any decent way of creating a custom kids profile, ideally one that cuts across multiple services? For example, I would like my child to be able to watch 5 shows on Disney+, 4 movies on Netflix, etc.

Download the content and put it on a device to watch offline. You'll have complete control of what content is available.

Re: Netflix’s Prices Are Rising Faster Than Cable

#336

Post by Semaphor »

noahtallen wrote: post #331
Semaphor wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I understand what you're referring to but if Prime Video's UX is any indication, content trumps software product quality in this market segment. Netflix consistently made their UX worse, they started far beyond Prime Video, nowadays, it’s a tossup. I canceled Netflix for that reason alone.

That’s pretty surprising to me. Prime’s video playback UX is very bad on Roku TV, iOS, and the web. Netflix isn’t just faster to use, it also looks better, doesn't have shockingly pixelated elements on 4k displays, and is easier to control.

Netflix keeps randomizing things: Thumbnails, order of categories, order of shows within. In addition, they keep stuff I don’t want to watch in "keep watching" forever, and keep asking me to rewatch shows I already watched.

They are probably still a bit better than prime (showing shows both in keep watching and other categories, but in the other categories it’s specific seasons ignoring your last watched status; sometimes shuffling subtitle state or language for fun), but all those issues were not a thing a few years ago.

Re: Netflix’s Prices Are Rising Faster Than Cable

#337

Post by newaccount2021 »

pnathan wrote: post #270
samwillis wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I don't entirely agree with you I do think the price of Netflix is getting a little higher than the value we personally get out of it. Our personal breakdown this year (in the UK): Adults in the house, we are quite picky but if we love it then we will keep watching: Netflix @£9.99: 2 tv shows, 4-5 films Apple TV+ @£4.99: 3 tv shows, 2 films Disney Plus @£7.99: 1 tv show, Loads of movies Amazon Prime @£7.99: 3 t…

After having sampled Disney+, HBOMax, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime a fair bit in the past year, my take is that Netflix has the UX nailed. I can, for instance, "thumbs down" a recommendation. Some offerings I never want to see. Their catalog tends to the darker themes, and I'm not fond of that. Hulu and Amazon Prime are mostly irrelevant to me. I'll probably axe the Hulu sub. HBO has a few things I like. Disney+ t…

No post body was provided.

Re: Netflix’s Prices Are Rising Faster Than Cable

#338

Post by tomjen3 »

shellfishgene wrote: post #18
nikanj wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the competitors can lean on a decades long backlog of hits that attract people. Netflix needs to build everything from scratch, and the cost of creating TV series is ridiculously high nowadays

I wonder what the percentage of old shows is in total watched minutes. I almost never watch shows or movies older than ~2 years or so. I'm sure that's different for kid's movies, but I think I'm not too much of an exception.

That would indeed be very interesting, but back when I joined Netflix that was almost all they had, and I watched a lot of content. From time to time the special effects are bad enough that it breaks immersion (TOS), but for the most part if the movie/show was any good when it was written it is good today. So why not watch it?

I didn't get to see Buffy until it was on Netflix and I enjoyed it as much as I would have when it was new, I think. Granted the computers and cellphones are obviously dated (but if you think of it as a period show, it is fine) and it is a bit grating how everybody is always fully covered during/after sex, but the stories are as great as they were back then.

Re: Netflix’s Prices Are Rising Faster Than Cable

#339

Post by aphexairlines »

tptacek wrote: post #144
OskarS wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As far as I can tell they've succeeded at becoming HBO. Have they? Have they really? As far as I can tell, nothing that Netflix has ever done in-house has ever come close to the best of the cable channels. Like, The Witcher is fine, but Game of Thrones it is not, neither in quality nor buzz/cultural significance. House of Cards is no Succession and Ozark is no Breaking Bad. Nothing they have could even come close t…

Discussing only on the merits of their content, and stipulating that this is neither here nor there with respect to Netflix's long-term prospects vs. HBO: Breaking Bad isn't an HBO show. So I assume we're just asking, "has Netflix produced any world-class content". The answer to that is yes. The jewel in their crown, their "Game of Thrones", is clearly Stranger Things. It's undeniably successful, each new season a cu…

Netflix also won a pile of awards with The Crown, Orange is the New Black, Narcos, The Queen's Gambit, and others.

Re: Netflix’s Prices Are Rising Faster Than Cable

#340

Post by tomjen3 »

ghaff wrote: post #128
nirvdrum wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two years is about the length of time required for me to consider a show on Netflix. They kill a lot of shows after two seasons. I don't want to invest the time in a storyline that Netflix is going to axe without a natural conclusion.

That may be true but network TV regularly killed TV shows early in their run too--often in the first season even.

And that is where we learned not to trust TV shows in the beginning, but at least TV stations can only carry so many shows.

Firefly fan forever.

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