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Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

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Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#151

Post by dbspin »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #117
pjc50 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an old movie kind of guy: I don't get why nobody wants me to have a big economical catalogue of all the movies. If you want to watch stuff from before about 1990 your best bet is pirating it off Youtube, oddly. Or hoping it's part of the 20th Century Fox that ended up on Disney+. The most generous film studio is .. Mosfilm. I suppose it's fitting that the Communist movies are available for free. (Criterion looks p…

Mubi ( https://mubi.com/ ) is nice. You don’t get a huge catalogue but they cycle it very regularly with varying thematic focus and showcase a mix of old movies and new art releases. It feels a bit like a cinema club. I recommend. Sadly people focus as definitely shifted toward serial shows rather than films so movie streaming is not really an interesting market to address. I’m really confused by that because the fee…

Mubi's catalogue is tiny, and I find their marketing and interface (which strongly imply all the shows that have ever been been on the platform are currently on the platform, misleading). Criterion Channel (https://www.criterionchannel.com/) is a similar art film / critically acclaimed film network, which an enormously larger and more diverse catalogue. Officially it's only available in the US but if you sign up through a VPN it works everywhere.

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#152

Post by rerx »

Jenk wrote: post #79

Netflix have really dissapointed me. I've been a subscriber since before streaming, and have even been content paying the subscription fee during the "breaks" of not using their service for up to months at a time because I so badly want(ed) them to succeed. I also understood the difficult situation they were facing when the producers of content were makkng ridiculous demands on their distribution, or worse, just pull…

Compared to competitors, Apple TV+ currently appear to put much more emphasis on quality over quantity in their original content. I really enjoyed some shows like Severance, For All Mankind, Trying, Acapulco, Foundation. It reminds me of the time when Netflix Originals stood for content to be excited about. What they don't have is a back catalog of licensed films and shows included with the flat rate offering (they all cost an extra fee).

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#153

Post by m000 »

baq wrote: post #115
pjc50 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an old movie kind of guy: I don't get why nobody wants me to have a big economical catalogue of all the movies. If you want to watch stuff from before about 1990 your best bet is pirating it off Youtube, oddly. Or hoping it's part of the 20th Century Fox that ended up on Disney+. The most generous film studio is .. Mosfilm. I suppose it's fitting that the Communist movies are available for free. (Criterion looks p…

That's the paradox: everybody wants to build and operate that since it's obvious everyone would subscribe to such a service, it'd be a cash cow, a golden goose, etc. But nobody wants to share their slice of the copyright and licensing pie with anybody else for revenue reasons, brand reasons, whatever, so we're slowly moving back toward the cable model with 200 subscriptions and nothing to watch. Torrents will be back…

This is essentially the ridiculous copyright laws backfiring.

The entertainment market is stagnating (if not quantity, at least quality-wise) because the copyright laws stiffle innovation instead of fostering it. Early-comers (Hollywood & co) are comfortably sitting on their stash of content, content with rehashing the same franchises. New-comers are forced to low-risk - low-quality content, sprinkled with anything they can get their hands on from other sources.

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#154

Post by ThatPlayer »

Varqu wrote: post #65
MadSudaca wrote: post #42

It's funny. Right now I have access to around 5 streaming services while I only pay for 2. My girlfriend's friend has access to Netflix, my sis HBO. I provide access to Disney+ and Prime to my family. I used to get YT premium from my sis's boyfriend, but they detected I'm not in the family household and they kicked me out. If it wasn't because other people use my accounts (and I use theirs), I wouldn't be paying for…

It's interesting to see that free market competition actually worsened the customer offering when it comes to streaming services. Back in the days, Netflix was a one-to-see-all service and that was also one of the reasons why it took people from torrenting to paying for movies. Nowadays, if you want to watch a particular movie, you have maybe a 10% chance that it is available on the streaming service that you are cur…

That's only if you consider streaming services a separate market than cable television. With the decline in cable subscriptions, that's clearly not the case. Netflix was just the hot new innovator in the entertainment delivery market, and now everyone else has caught up. The same market Blockbuster was in.

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#155

Post by pallas_athena »

throwaway290 wrote: post #125
m000 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they close the door to account sharing, maybe the subscriptions will start falling like domino pieces. If people turn out to not watch that much content to warrant 3-4 subscriptions per (strict) household, I wonder if this could lead to a Highlander-like streaming showdown: There can be only one. The thing there is that Netflix should try to avoid the showdown, not push towards it, because they are the least equ…

Apple owns and produces AAA content. Foundation, Severance spring to mind.

Also Prime Video ("The Rings of Power" is -or rather will be, after five seasons-the most expensive television series ever made).

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#156

Post by dumpsterdiver »

finnish-food wrote: post #68
dmix wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I used to get YT premium from my sis's boyfriend, but they detected I'm not in the family household and they kicked me out. I'm surprised you achieved that at all. Google accounts are locked down hardcore... As it should be My gf wanted me to share my ChatGPT plus account but I signed up via Gmail and it was impossible. All of these sites can easily lock it down but choose not to. We're probably living in the Golde…

“ living in the Golden era.” If you actually lived in a Golden Era entertainment would be free, quality, and meant to enrich the people instead of advertise and moralize to them. I really don’t understand how a DVD collection is an “essential service” either. Or why you would effectively choose not to look at your watching statistics and then simply buy the media you watch the most. https://www.ebay.ca/itm/1345034685…

> If you actually lived in a Golden Era entertainment would be free

Who would foot the bill to produce this content? You suggest that content would be "free"... but free to who? The consumer, right? It certainly isn't possible to produce high quality films for free. People pour their blood, sweat and tears into these productions. Why should the fruits of their labors be given away for free? Would you wake up early every day and proceed to work eight hours for free?

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#157

Post by [deleted] »

aflorez wrote: post #72
juanse wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely agree. I also had a family account that kept instead not watching anything anymore. In the end I felt like paying for watching propaganda that I could see for free in national television. This came at the perfect time as an excuse.

What kind of agenda/propaganda is it? Which values are promoted?

[deleted]

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#158

Post by GordonS »

Rufbdbskrufb473 wrote: post #67
GordonS wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got this with Amazon Prime in Thailand recently too. Incredibly annoying - what does it matter where I stream from?!

I imagine they're trying to prevent the reverse, purchasing a cheap subscription in a developing country to use when you actually live in a more expensive country.

They know I live in the UK though, I have a UK-based history with Amazon going back 10+ years.

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#159

Post by pdimitar »

hurril wrote: post #146
pdimitar wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the value proposition under the new conditions for many users is simply not there? Paying $X per month and allowing family and friends to watch is both convenient and cheap enough so it doesn't bother you. It's like paying for electricity in a family house. But when you are forced to be the only user of your paid account you evaluate if the cost for using a service 5-10 hours a month is truly justified. Degrading…

I understand this and will grant you that. But I'd bet a fair chunk of cash on this password sharing being something other than spouses sharing or running a de facto family account. I mean: fine, Netflix sux, etc, tt's not worth $X. All fine. But what's happening here is not that and you all know it. It's easy and cheap to just share passwords. When you do that, you're saying that I should pick up the bill for you. A…

Fair, both sides should act in their best interest.

What I think is happening is that people realized they aren't getting much value from Netflix and this also served as a wake-up call for them to cancel. If you look at other comments you'll see several stating exactly that: they no longer think Netflix is worth paying for even if they have no trouble at all paying for it only for their own usage (and I'd think 99% of the users of HN can afford it easily).

It's also very possible this will end positively for Netflix i.e. they might want to get rid of the "leeches" and end up only with the paying users that obey their rules. If there are enough such people out there to cover their expenses AND turn a decent profit AND if they are loyal then Netflix will find themselves in a businessman's dream scenario.

In the end time will tell, as it happens with everything. I am mostly just offering you explanations for the current reactions to the news.

Re: Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

#160

Post by dspillett »

nsteel wrote: post #31
dspillett wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With energy prices shooting up, that scanned server cost is more significant now than it used to be, and per-user bandwidth costs don't drop forever due to economies of scale, so there may be more cost efficient promotion methods than 700,000 non-paying users. There was a study a while back (can't find it ATM, I'll have another look later) that suggested those using other people's accounts were more likely to be heav…

> per-user bandwidth costs don't drop forever due to economies of scale, Can you explain why? I'd have thought they absolutely do and on top of this their caching strategy becomes even more effective.

> Can you explain why?

Bandwidth isn't an infinite resource. It effectively is up to a certain scale and with a few caveats (the costs are not consistent globally) but I'm sure Netflix is beyond the scale where it can be assumed to be and at that point they will be bidding against other big users for peering priority.

With a dedicate server I have some stuff on I can upgrade to 10gbit unmetered for a lot less than 10x the cost the current 1gbit unmetered link (in my case neither dedicated, but 1-shared-to-10-shared will likely scale in cost similarly to 1-dedicated-to-10-dedicated). With another where I have a total bandwidth cap not a speed cap I could likely extend that cap relatively cheaply. At the scales required by a small company, even one running SaaS services, the same is usually true. But at Netflix's scale a small percent increase in any particular locality is still a huge amount of extra to ask for, and it might not really be available (it could be allowed to eat into slack for a short time, this is one of the reasons why networks are provisioned for more than 100% of expected use, but if the extra is needed permanently then infrastructure upgrades may be needed). They can get around lack of cheap bandwidth by instead temporarily increasing compression rates (this will in fact happen automatically, as dropping overall bit-rate is supported to deal with congestion at the level of a user's connection and that will kick in due to congestion elsewhere too) but this will be easily detectable by some users (particularly those with huge screens and great eyesight) who will compare the quality with other streaming content providers and talk about the difference which may affect future sales.

> on top of this their caching strategy becomes even more effective

Caching in terms of keeping data geographically spread will reduce international bandwidth needs, and ISP-level caching through their local boxes will help considerably again (and get more effective as more users join from the same ISP), but there will always be an amount of traffic that needs to travel costly routes (the ISP level caches will only be large enough to support the best caching candidates, like new high-profile shows, a small proportion of the whole catalogue, and many ISPs do not have that facility at all).

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