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Netflix loses 800,000 subscribers (stock drops 28%)

money.cnn.com

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Re: Netflix loses 800,000 subscribers (stock drops 28%)

#51

Post by georgemcbay »

AJ007 wrote: post #48
georgemcbay wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I think long and hard before signing up for new web services isn't even the cost 99% of the time, but the uncertainty in how difficult it is going to be to cancel should I decide I do not want to continue. I've had it UP TO HERE with services that allow me to subscribe with one click and then make me go through a half-day long ordeal of phone calls to outsourced customer service people (who earn bonuses ba…

Cancelling a recurring service is generally no more difficult than saying, "please cancel my subscription quick so I don't have to charge this back."

IME what you said is true, but only once you're talking to the manager of the manager of the person you originally waited on hold 25 minutes to talk to. And this is your second call because the first one got dropped randomly after 20 minutes on hold.

Re: Netflix loses 800,000 subscribers (stock drops 28%)

#52

Post by AJ007 »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #12

So, they lost 3 to 4% of their customers - that is not good. That said, my wife and I each have our own streaming accounts and I also have blu-ray delivery on my account, and Netflix is not losing our business: we really like the service. Also, with their price increases, I don't understand why the stock took such a big hit.

Curiously while this news is bad for Netflix it is really really bad for someone else: cable & satellite TV providers. Customers now expect to be able to watch whatever the heck they want for about $10 a month.

While I don't fit in that category, I do expect to watch whatever the heck I want. I no longer have any tolerance for television commercials or waiting until next week for a new tv episode (might as well wait until its over and watch the whole season.)

Re: Netflix loses 800,000 subscribers (stock drops 28%)

#53

Post by HaloZero »

sage_joch wrote: post #46
HaloZero wrote: post #26

I have friends who were outraged at Netflix price increase. And I mean serious outrage. I did notice that the ones who were really outraged are running tight on money. One of them works and goes to school full time so an extra $8/month after tuition, rent, even though it's marginal seems like a LOT and for no additional benefit.

Outrage seems like a funny response to a price increase for a no-lock-in, non-essential entertainment service.

Yeah, that's what I said. People take stuff for granted sometimes.

Re: Netflix loses 800,000 subscribers (stock drops 28%)

#54

Post by cookiecaper »

gkoberger wrote: post #3

I feel bad for Netflix. They're between a rock and a hard place. The content providers want more money and eventually want to cut out the middleman. The users balk when the price is raised, even though unlimited streaming and DVDs for a month still cost less than a decent meal. And every decision they make (like Qwikster, which was likely done so they didn't have to pay content providers a fee for users who weren't s…

The best potential outcome of this would be accelerating potential copyright/IP reform. Netflix is destined to die unless they can find a way to diversify; as you said, the rights holders want to cut out the middle man. The overhead requisite in old-world rental chains like Blockbuster is sufficiently prohibitive that the media companies did not have an interest in supplanting that market, but now that Netflix has proven the viability of online delivery, apparently media companies don't think it prohibitive to set up some servers and stream reruns.

Netflix perhaps should consider transitioning from a consumer-facing service to a white-label technology provider, developing things like the recommendation engine, rental and streaming platform, etc. and licensing to media companies as the basis for their several services. Unfortunately, I think the unified collection in services like Netflix is going to go away as media companies' greed drives them to try to take their own slice of the pie, probably resulting in fewer subscribers all the way around and potentially a resurgence of brick-and-mortar video rental, where, it appears, media companies still are not interested.

All that said, $300 was grossly overpriced for a company whose entire existence depends on the benevolence of a handful of major media producers.

Re: Netflix loses 800,000 subscribers (stock drops 28%)

#55

Post by goodweeds »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #22
goodweeds wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm willing to bet that a lot of those users, like myself, said "I've had these same 2 dvds for the past year. The streaming selection pretty much sucks and I end up watching B-movies when I'm bored because nothing I want to watch, and haven't seen before, is in their library. I should send these 2 dvds back and cancel". I've long switched to itunes or Amazon when I want to watch movies because they tend to have the…

Of course, you don't really 'own' the movies through iTunes or Amazon either. And Netflix's stream servers have plenty of bandwidth to serve up. I use it daily without issue and HD programs, so it's not the servers. More likely, it you're internet connection or their overburdened peer connection to Netflix's peer. Either way, not something really in their control. As most internet service is getting more unreliable (…

I thought of that, and pretty thoroughly ruled it out both by testing on my super-spiffy badass link (100mbps synchronous over microwave ala webpass.com) and my girlfriend's spiffy 8mbps adsl2+ link through Sonic, neither of whom have a reputation packet-mangling like comcast.

Being a network-geek, and having been really bored one weekend, I took my macbook pro, and my girlfriend's macbook air (both of which have this problem) to a cage at equinix that I'd built out for a customer a few years ago. That network is equipped with a pair of cisco 6509's with sup2-msfc2s (old gear, but perfectly adequate for the task at hand). Each router has 3x 1gb uplinks to different providers (internap, time warner, and level3) running BGP. All of three ISP's peer directly with Netflix's AS. The problems persisted whether I was behind my routing, or statically routing by grabbing an IP on the /29 stub network each provider gives me to establish the bgp connection).

I tested both from behind my routing, and for fun, from my testing subnets (the stub networks) which statically route through their respective uplinks. Plenty of bandwidth, no mid-level ISP to insert QoS wankery. Same problems.

As for owning the movie, did that even come up in my previous comment? If so, then forgive me, it's not something I care about. In the rare instance (3-4x per month) where I want to watch a movie, I just want it to work. I don't want it to pause every few minutes to see a "buffering" screen. That's three steps backwards.

The commonality between both laptops is that they run os x( one on snow leopard, one on lion). I suspect silverlight is the real culprit, but I don't care. The solution would be to allow customers to buffer large chunks of the movie (20-30%) or download the whole movie before playing. Instead Netflix (probably due to being hamstrung by their agreements with content providers) tries to be too clever with variable bit-rate encoding and ruins the viewing experience. (even one pause is unacceptable in my book, let alone the 5-10 I often had per movie).

Whenever I discuss this with others, some people have similar quality problems, some people claim it works perfectly making me wonder if it's platform specific. Out of curiosity, are you running Mac, Windows, or Linux?

Also, the silverlight client has ridiculously bad volume control, I never quite understood why that is.

Re: Netflix loses 800,000 subscribers (stock drops 28%)

#57

Post by Joakal »

AJ007 wrote: post #48
georgemcbay wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I think long and hard before signing up for new web services isn't even the cost 99% of the time, but the uncertainty in how difficult it is going to be to cancel should I decide I do not want to continue. I've had it UP TO HERE with services that allow me to subscribe with one click and then make me go through a half-day long ordeal of phone calls to outsourced customer service people (who earn bonuses ba…

Cancelling a recurring service is generally no more difficult than saying, "please cancel my subscription quick so I don't have to charge this back."

Companies will find ways to delay you as long possible: http://i.imgur.com/G0qlu.jpg

Re: Netflix loses 800,000 subscribers (stock drops 28%)

#58

Post by larrys »

badclient wrote: post #11
gkoberger wrote: post #3

I feel bad for Netflix. They're between a rock and a hard place. The content providers want more money and eventually want to cut out the middleman. The users balk when the price is raised, even though unlimited streaming and DVDs for a month still cost less than a decent meal. And every decision they make (like Qwikster, which was likely done so they didn't have to pay content providers a fee for users who weren't s…

still cost less than a decent meal So many great things on the web cost less than a single cup of Starbucks. Yet, I myself am so hesitant to pay for them. On my landing pages I design at work, I'm increasingly trying to communicate this via comparisons("less than a morning Starbucks trip"). Another one is showing a dollar bill to communicate that for less than a dollar a day, they will get _____. For a service that w…

"less than a morning Starbucks trip"

I wouldn't think that a comparison like that would work.

For one thing there are many people who feel they are pissing away money on Starbucks, or feel some guilt (I myself spend about $4.00 per day and sometimes twice that. That's at least $1500 per year. I don't want to be reminded of that, especially when business is off.)

(So you are making a comparison to a potential sore spot. You want a positive association. Comparing to Starbucks but without mentioning price might be an example but that wouldn't make sense for your product, right?)

Now, to sell it's product, Starbucks (or any premium brand) doesn't make comparisons to what other things costs. They make you feel special in some way by the product or by the experience or create some value that justifies the price.

Making comparisons is good though if you are saving people money.

Have you tried raising the price and offering an unconditional money back guarantee?

"Cancel at any time and owe nothing".

That seems to work with many things I've seen that cause people to be fence sitters as long as the price is high enough.

Seo book does that (p1 for seo and search engine optimization)

http://www.seobook.com/

Re: Netflix loses 800,000 subscribers (stock drops 28%)

#59

Post by goodweeds »

georgemcbay wrote: post #43
badclient wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

still cost less than a decent meal So many great things on the web cost less than a single cup of Starbucks. Yet, I myself am so hesitant to pay for them. On my landing pages I design at work, I'm increasingly trying to communicate this via comparisons("less than a morning Starbucks trip"). Another one is showing a dollar bill to communicate that for less than a dollar a day, they will get _____. For a service that w…

The reason I think long and hard before signing up for new web services isn't even the cost 99% of the time, but the uncertainty in how difficult it is going to be to cancel should I decide I do not want to continue. I've had it UP TO HERE with services that allow me to subscribe with one click and then make me go through a half-day long ordeal of phone calls to outsourced customer service people (who earn bonuses ba…

It's gotten better, but I used to call up my bank and ask for a new debit card once or twice per year rather than having to deal with the hell of canceling various services.

It was fun to that the same companies who made cancel-ling impossible would call me up to tell me that billing had failed.

Re: Netflix loses 800,000 subscribers (stock drops 28%)

#60

Post by zzzeek »

martythemaniak wrote: post #8

Honestly curious, where did those users go? Back to $40 shitcable? Torrenting?

they can download from itunes, amazon and blockbuster via their tivo, etc. netflix never had a decent selection of titles available for download, somehow AMZN does much better.
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