Netflix hints at password sharing crackdown as subscribers fall • Hacker News Board

Re: Netflix hints at password sharing crackdown as subscribers fall

#101

Post by rhino369 » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 5:41 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #43

uxcolumbo wrote: post #6

For me, Netflix needs higher quality content. More creative risky shows like the OA, Altered Carbon, Love, Death & Robots, Black Mirror and more old HBO style content… quality vs factory cookie cutter produced stuff trying to satisfy the lowest common denominator, because then you will satisfy no one. Maybe they have good shows I just don't know about. Their recommendation system seems to be crap. I browse for 20 min…

It used to be that if you wanted to watch a movie, you opened up Netflix. Nowadays you can't find what you want to watch on there, so people go to the places that do; Amazon Prime allows you to watch pretty much any movie (although often at a rental fee, which is a different discussion altogether), and the Disney empire has bought up tons of movie publishers and is putting all of them onto their streaming platforms.…

>It used to be that if you wanted to watch a movie, you opened up Netflix.

I don't recall Netflix ever having a good movie catalog for streaming. It's TV catalog used to be amazing though, but that was because they were essentially the only person paying for rerun rights to shows that weren't popular enough for syndication.

Re: Netflix hints at password sharing crackdown as subscribers fall

#102

Post by soneil » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 5:52 PM UTC

Freak_NL wrote: post #47

BaculumMeumEst wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand how you think this is an "industry self-own", or why you find it hilarious. Presumably, these companies are taking this approach because they realized they stand to make more money by creating their own streaming service and leveraging their catalogs than outsourcing them. Those that stay in business are presumably making quite a lot of money. The only people getting "owned" here are consume…

It's clever too. There are some more tech-minded and risk-aware folk who can turn to copyright infringement via torrents, but those are a negligible minority. The days of widespread 'piracy' practices by every next household are long gone. There are some who can manage cleverly hopping from subscription to subscription to get varying content (three months Netflix, then three months Disney+, etc.), but those too are t…

I'm not sure I agree on the piracy front. Everyone I know who's young enough to have been college aged since about 1998, knows exactly how and where to turn. This is an age bracket running into early-40s now.

I think what's stopped more and more people from piracy has been all-you-can-eat subscriptions. Not that they can't, or won't, but that spotify + netflix took care of a huge portion of consumption.

From this perspective, taking more and more things off the menu has a huge potential to turn the tide. This show's only on Disney, that show's only on HBO - and HBO isn't available here. This season's on netflix but next season's on prime ..

Re: Netflix hints at password sharing crackdown as subscribers fall

#103

Post by colburnmh » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 6:03 PM UTC

This isn't going to result in a huge increase in Netflix subscribers. The reason that people share passwords is because somebody wants access but doesn't want to pay. Eliminate the password sharing is a reasonable business action from Netflix so that they are not providing additional infrastructure demands to support non-paying customers. But I would suspect that only 10-20% of those people sharing passwords will result in new subscriptions if they find ways to accurately block them. The rest will just abandon the platform, because it was never something that they were willing to pay for in the first place.

Re: Netflix hints at password sharing crackdown as subscribers fall

#104

Post by lemoncookiechip » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 6:19 PM UTC

lemoncookiechip wrote: post #24

They're losing subscribers, because of multiple reasons, most of which are their own fault: - Subscription prices keep rising, and they were already very high. - Libraries decreasing as they lose the licensing to other streaming services. - Originals are hit and miss, mostly miss, and get cancelled constantly after 1 season. - Crackdown on VPN and password sharing. - COVID lockdowns are mostly over in Europe, US and…

Seems like they're introducing an ad-supported plan now https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31090319

Re: Netflix hints at password sharing crackdown as subscribers fall

#105

Post by mrguyorama » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 6:27 PM UTC

cupofpython wrote: post #82

RHSeeger wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We pay for 2 or 4 simultaneous streams on Netflix I was under the impression that you're paying for "household access", up to a limited number of simultaneous streams; where household means the people that live with you. Does the agreement wording you accept when you sign up say otherwise?

my household is in the metaverse, we share a common chatroom

Convert to Judaism and then your "private space" can be all of manhatten

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruv

Re: Netflix hints at password sharing crackdown as subscribers fall

#106

Post by colburnmh » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 6:30 PM UTC

scarab92 wrote: post #94

AnssiH wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this Q1, they lost 700k subscribers in Russia. Without that they would have had positive growth. From shareholder letter PDF: https://s22.q4cdn.com/959853165/files/doc_financials/2022/q1... > The suspension of our service in Russia and winding-down of all Russian paid memberships resulted in a -0.7m impact on paid net adds; excluding this impact, paid net additions totaled +0.5m.

Yes, but they forecast growth of 2.5m and analysts were expecting 2.7m - 3.0m, so 200k is still a big miss, albeit only a single data point at this stage.

True, but it's an enormous miss. If they missed the projections by a few hundred thousand, there wouldn't be as much of a panic. But they only got 8%-11% of the subscriber growth they projected, depending on whether you account for the Russian business wind-down--that's not a trivial miss.

And as others have pointed out, part of the problem that companies like Netflix are going to encounter is the result of the long-running erosion of worker pay (while corporations have had years of record profits), coupled with sudden and rapidly rising inflation. This is going to cause a serious lack of available cash for households to spend on anything that isn't critical--like 37 different streaming services.

The first part, Netflix can't do anything about other than ensure that they pay their workers fairly. But streaming has been an area of increasing specialization, rather than service consolidation. And that causes problems for Netflix as they continue to lose portions of their catalogue to others like Disney, Hulu, Apple, etc., as they start their own services.

Users are either going to just cancel, or will start "service hopping" (where they pay for one service for a month, cancel/suspend that service, then go to another) to be able to watch the shows they want. And that will represent a significant revenue loss to the entire segment, and ultimately force contraction.

Re: Netflix hints at password sharing crackdown as subscribers fall

#107

Post by smileybarry » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 6:38 PM UTC

lemoncookiechip wrote: post #24

They're losing subscribers, because of multiple reasons, most of which are their own fault: - Subscription prices keep rising, and they were already very high. - Libraries decreasing as they lose the licensing to other streaming services. - Originals are hit and miss, mostly miss, and get cancelled constantly after 1 season. - Crackdown on VPN and password sharing. - COVID lockdowns are mostly over in Europe, US and…

> -Libraries outside the US are a fraction of the size of the US library, some legitimately have less than 10% of its content, while asking for the same amount of money.

I already suspected this but I just checked and you're absolutely right. US Netflix is between 6000-7000 titles, while Israel Netflix is around 1000. And yet subscriptions cost even slightly more -- $19.99 for 4K vs ₪69.90 ($21.17).

It's almost entirely Netflix originals here, with some other network shows here and there, and a few cult favorite shows & movies. There's a few outliers in "stuff available here but not in US Netflix" like Friends but that's probably because there's no HBO Max here, I suspect they'll take Friends back once they launch.

Re: Netflix hints at password sharing crackdown as subscribers fall

#108

Post by smileybarry » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 6:50 PM UTC

gpmcadam wrote: post #36

uxcolumbo wrote: post #6

For me, Netflix needs higher quality content. More creative risky shows like the OA, Altered Carbon, Love, Death & Robots, Black Mirror and more old HBO style content… quality vs factory cookie cutter produced stuff trying to satisfy the lowest common denominator, because then you will satisfy no one. Maybe they have good shows I just don't know about. Their recommendation system seems to be crap. I browse for 20 min…

I'm assuming by 'Dark Mirror' you mean 'Black Mirror', and not 'Dark'? Well, Black Mirror was actually created by Charlie Brooker and his production company Endemol for Channel 4 in the UK and simply bought by Netflix once it was already a hit. Part of the issue is that many of what Netflix calls "Originals" are the opposite of that and I think it can be confusing for viewers when you throw them into the same bucket…

Yeah, I see these rebrands in Netflix Israel too. Snowpiercer is a "Netflix Original" despite being a TNT show. Then there's "DC's Titans" (DC/HBO Max), "Crashing" & "Derry Girls" (Channel 4), "Champions" (NBC cancelled show), etc.

Re: Netflix hints at password sharing crackdown as subscribers fall

#109

Post by smileybarry » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 6:53 PM UTC

parkingrift wrote: post #23

Streaming companies just can’t help themselves. There’s Disney+, Netflix, HBO Max, Paramount+, Hulu, ESPN+, Apple TV+, Prime Video, and I think Peacock (for now?). The industry self-own is hilarious. It’s easier to just pirate or rent than deal with this many random services. And Netflix just keeps dumping out algorithmically generated focus grouped content. There is plenty of good content on Netflix but not enough t…

And their obsession with "streaming exclusivity" means they launch in maybe 8 countries around the world and refuse to sell broadcast rights to the rest. Only way I could watch The Flight Attendant (HBO Max) a year ago was pirate it.

Re: Netflix hints at password sharing crackdown as subscribers fall

#110

Post by smileybarry » Wed, Apr 20, 2022, 6:54 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #45

parkingrift wrote: post #23

Streaming companies just can’t help themselves. There’s Disney+, Netflix, HBO Max, Paramount+, Hulu, ESPN+, Apple TV+, Prime Video, and I think Peacock (for now?). The industry self-own is hilarious. It’s easier to just pirate or rent than deal with this many random services. And Netflix just keeps dumping out algorithmically generated focus grouped content. There is plenty of good content on Netflix but not enough t…

I imagine pirating is going to see a massive resurgence in the next 3 years. The software around pirating has gotten so good, it's nearly as good as apps like Netflix & HBO Max now.

You also have some seedbox services that locally cache frequently downloaded torrents on a file level, so if you "download" them to your box/account, they just instantly appear. Essentially a Netflix-style service powered by piracy.