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Netflix confirms it is increasing subscription prices, again, after adding 8.8 million customers

https://www.techspot.com/news/100547-netflix-confirms-increasing-subscription-prices-again-after-adding.html

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal wrote that Netflix was planning to raise its prices once again. The streamer implemented its last hike in January 2022,...

Netflix confirms it is increasing subscription prices, again, after adding 8.8 million customers::undefined

94 comments

friend_of_satan

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Who cares though, right? We all unsubscribed from that useless streaming service, right?

TheYear2525

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I mean yeah I suspect most people on Lemmy have. But we’re outliers.

FordBeeblebrox

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I still get it as part of my phone plan, and hardly ever use it. They’ve conditioned me to not ever get interested in a Netflix show until there’s at least 4 seasons.

Alchemy

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I get it through my phone plan for free (t-mobile) and I still cancelled my account with Netflix.

Cornelius_Wangenheim

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Yeah, it's quite ballsy of them to do this when they haven't released anything good in several years.

friend_of_satan

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Even if they don't release anything, wtf. There is a huge back catalogue of movies I want to rewatch and stuff I've never seen. I can't remember a single time I searched for a classic movie I wanted to watch and found it on Netflix streaming. Those movies were often available through Netflix DVD though! Enshitification indeed.

Radicaldog

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I use Justwatch to figure out where films and shows are, and even then it's grim how many aren't available to stream, or even buy legally.

online

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even then it’s grim how many aren’t available to stream, or even buy legally.

At that point you should honestly just pirate it so that a copy continues to exist.

Radicaldog

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I've done that for my Jellyfin server, but some things are too rare and niche to be sure of results unfortunately.

briongloid

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Given the decline in service quality and the increase of 8.8 million subs in a quarter, they can continue being worse for more and the general public will support it.

The only thing I care about is quality shows being made from good networks, still getting their funding, but streamers are turning into trash TV from the 2000's.

Raptor_007

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Sure did. They still email me about shit to watch. Dunno why I thought that would stop on its own.

Asafum

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Yeah, I thought I did. I can't even log into Netflix as they say I don't have an account, and yet my PayPal history is showing I've been paying them continuously...

How the fuck can they charge me for an account that doesn't exist!? I just cancelled it today through PayPal, hopefully that stops it. It's absolutely absurd.

gogosempai

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Currently costs peanuts in India (have some good friends over there 🥸) and there's no password sharing crackdown yet. Comes down to $2 per person on the highest plan. As long as this continues, I'll stay subbed to Netflix.

Noodle07

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It's like the only one that works natively on my mom's TV so that's all she watches 🤷

Touching_Grass

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Tell all your friends and family what a steaming pile of shit it is. Share memes that tell people its a waste of money. Lots of stuff do to

friend_of_satan

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Sure, you could do that. But it's better to be pro-alternative than anti-whatever. Personally I'd share jellyfin or Plex with my friends and family and ask them to do the same with whatever movies they have. It's the modern equivalent of lending somebody a DVD and a list of your DVD collection.

Touching_Grass

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Im not sure if your pro/anti point is true. Its the whole reason ads are a billion dollar industry. To counteract it there should be anti marketing movement.

friend_of_satan

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Great point. I'm skeptical though. If you are anti-thing-1 then there could always be thing-2. Being anti-marketing is better framed as pro-person or pro-volition or something similar. I suspect if advertising companies could not exist, media companies would force you to buy something you did not like instead of watching an ad, or in Netflix's case they would force you to watch an episode of something you didn't care about. This wouldn't be advertising but would cause the ratio of watches of whatever their sponsors show was to go up. This would be similar to how Apple automatically added that U2 album to everybody's account. It inflates that thing and causes you to digest it into your subconscious. It's better to be pro-I-choose-what-I-watch.

givesomefucks

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The prices of Netflix's $6.99 ad-supported plan and the $15.49 Standard tier remain unchanged.

I wouldn't be surprised if they crunched the numbers and realized adverters are desperate for a new place to show ads now that cable is basically dead.

They'll keep raising the prices of ad free hoping people move to the ad supported tier.

If you're ad free, Netflix makes the most profit when you never open it, and may even lose money if you're always streaming something.

On ad plans, they'll keep making money the more people watch. There's no "tipping point" where profits go down the more someone watches.

ZeroCool

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Spot on. I expect within five or six years most streaming services will have priced ad-free plans out of the average person's budget and then they'll drop them entirely, citing a lack of consumer demand. There's way more money to be made through cablefication.

foggy

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🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

TropicalDingdong

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There’s way more money to be made through cablefication.

I mean. Supposedly.

But then again, cable is dead for a reason.

ZeroCool

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I mean. Supposedly.

But then again, cable is dead for a reason.

Yes, and the reason cable is dead is specifically because streaming offered a more affordable, convenient, and ad-free option. Now that it's pretty much the only legal game in town and every greedy fuck out there is trying to start their own streaming service the cablefication is well underway. You think the c-suite types give a single fuck about the long-term viability of their services? lol no. They're here for short term profits. They'll be carried off into the sunset by their golden parachute while you're paying $45/mo to watch commericals on Netflix.

TropicalDingdong

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You think the c-suite types give a single fuck about the long-term viability of their services? lol no

This is the madness. It really speaks to the emptiness that underlies whatever we call the philosophy that results in this kind of decision making. Modern MBA cult? Neo-liberalism?

Christ, stop buying businesses just to break them people.

Touching_Grass

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Why don't people bother to fight back though.

givesomefucks

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You can.

Buy stock for a company that prioritizes steady sustainable growth instead of chasing an ever increasing profit margin.
Plan to keep that stock for decades.
Buy more stock as time goes on, never stop buying that stock.
Pray that a giant conglomerate doesn't decide to buy it.
If a conglomerate buys it, dump stock immediately while everyone else is buying. Then reinvest it all into a new company.

Repeat as needed.

It'll help good companies, and if enough do it, conglomerates might eventually not seeing gobbling every other company up as profitable.

SCB

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Neo-liberalism?

The internet decreed like a decade ago that "Anything You Don't Like Is Neoliberalism," so why not?

TropicalDingdong

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I'm open to other words, but I don't know what else to call it.

Its whatever killed Sears, a company that was built on the idea of distributing a catalogue and people buying shit from it, and them having it show up at their house. Jesus christ that sounds familiar where the fuck have I heard that before?

Its this idea that making money by taking a functional business and breaking its ability to function is some how "good business".

Its Horowitz and the take over of Pacific Lumber Company.

Again, I dont know if I can call it neo-liberalism because I dont really know what that means (as in, I'm not sure there is a 'there' there).

Whatever it is, its fucking idiotic.

givesomefucks

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Whatever it is, its fucking idiotic

Never trust a political movement that renames itself constantly.

They likely know they can't defend their policies, so instead they steer the argument towards what their name is.

If that wasn't the case, they'd tell you what label they want to be called

SCB

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Neoliberalism (narrowly defined under economic terms) is the idea that minimizing government impact in markets is a good thing, and that government regulation should be designed to efficiently address externalities with as little market distortion as possible.

Neoliberals, for instance, were among the first advocates for single-payer healthcare in the US, as they saw the insurance market as generally one large externality ripe with perverse incentives.

Historically, neoliberals have ranged from Reagan/Thatcher to Bush 1/Clinton, to HRC and Obama. Republicans kind of lost the plot on neoliberalism around 1996.

The internet started shitting on neoliberalism right about the time Hillary Clinton trounced Bernie Sanders, which they also blamed on neoliberalism. Before then, their criticisms were mostly Reagan/thatcher specific. As neoliberalism evolved, so did the internet, because leftists need something to hate and they were the loudest people online at the time.

doggle

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Not my money. Piracy is easier at this point anyway. Or God forbid I get a hobby or go outside.

I'd seriously rather watch paint dry than watch commercials.

twistedtxb

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If you have more than two streaming services it now cost more than cable.

We've come full circle, guys!

die444die

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I’m not sure which streaming services you mean but cable back when I had it YEARS ago was over $120 a month. That was just the tv part, not including internet.

I can’t think of 3 streaming services that come near that price.

Touching_Grass

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We're getting there. At one time TV was $40/month

nowwhatnapster

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And now my basic Internet connection from the only provider in the area (who is also the TV provider) is $100/mo

stealthnerd

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Yea you could really pay a lot depending on how many channels you subscribed to and especially if you had premium channels like HBO or Starz.

I'm sure we'll get there though.

SCB

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Still way better than cable

residentmarchant

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At least for now we don't have to watch ads....

JJROKCZ

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Only if you’re counting YouTubeTV as one of those and even still, I remember my dad arguing with dish or direct about the $150 bill all the time over a decade ago. We switched cable providers every other year to keep the price in the low $100 range and as soon as the honeymoon period was over they would double it.

Even YouTubeTV+Netflix+Disney+w/e is less than cable for now

online

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The cost of cable where I can choose what I want to watch when I want to watch it. Whereas before I had to hope that the programming directors for the different channels picked something somewhere worth watching when I turned on the tube.

SomethingBurger

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Now, you only have to hope whatever show you want to watch is on any of the services you are subscribed to, and won't be pulled before you finish it.

online

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Yes that's true too. It's still better than cable. I had access to even less content back then compared to now.

I use this to find what I want to watch when I have something specific that I'm looking for: https://www.justwatch.com/

I also think people should be pirates.

But streaming, at the same cost as cable, is much better than the decades of cable I remember before streaming actually became a real competitor.

Tom_bishop

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Die a hero, or live long enough to become the villain

Gingerlegs

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At this point, I don’t think I’ll ever subscribe again. 🏴‍☠️

TropicalDingdong

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Oh god no. Its the high seas or no see's for mee's

Fisk400

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I am not that concerned about prices because I only ever have one subscription going at once but cancelling it Inside Job was the last drop for me. I'm not going to pay them to NOT make the shows I like.

Excrubulent

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Once you've used Stremio + a debrid service, you realise how much better everything could be. Just... the entire catalogue of shows ever made available all the time. I don't think I can go back.

makyo

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Does Stremio work similarly to Plex? I've not heard of it or debrid, going to look into it!

Excrubulent

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I don't really know plex, I tried some media players like it ages ago, but Stremio just recently.

Basically it has plugins that link it to databases of shows and their torrents, then the debrid service links those torrents to cached versions that can be downloaded from the debrid servers at high speed so you don't have to actually wait for a torrent. I also do it behind a VPN because that can get you in trouble if you end up using a torrent.

The only issue I've had is occasionally shows will get hit with copyright strikes that the debrid services will honour in order to stay in business. Usually another torrent will take their place but then you have to search for it in the list. Still better than Netflix just saying "no results" or "here are similar shows". No, Netflix, I do not want something similar to the show I was halfway through, I want that show specifically. They may be fungible to your algorithm, but not to my heart. Fuck you, Netflix.

DrGunjah

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I unsubscribed when they killed account sharing and planned to subscribe just for one or two months per year to binge every show I like... but I may not subscribe again for a long time now, considering that these guys take their villain role very seriously, I mean it's really hard to not dislike them right now. They're like the Cersei Lannister of streaming services

nanoUFO

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There is nothing on netflix that I would even want to watch and they canceled both the dark crystal and 1899. Also altered carbon was a disaster and black mirror is not what it used to be. Maybe 3 body problem will be the single good scifi series they made since the dark, maybe not.

Marruk

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altered carbon was a disaster

Personally, I loved it. I just wish they'd make a second season.

CosmicCleric

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altered carbon was a disaster

Personally, I loved it. I just wish they’d make a second season.

I might be confusing with another show, but I thought they did make a second season, but not a third?

They had a major lead actor change between the two seasons, if it's the right show that I'm thinking about.

Marruk

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I was being a bit sarcastic, because season 1 was fantastic, but season 2 was (IMHO) absolutely terrible. I couldn't finish it.

CosmicCleric

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Fair enough. I got through the second season, and I found it okay, but yeah definitely not as good as the first.

wizardbeard

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If I remember right, the first season was good, and the second season was... not. Think that's the joke.

CosmicCleric

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Think that’s the joke.

Ah okay, I missed that it was a snarky opinion joke type of comment.

Syndic

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Maybe 3 body problem will be the single good scifi series they made since the dark, maybe not.

I just started the series and while I like it I don't see how it will make for good TV due to it's heavily philosophical nature. At least not without drastic change to the source material.

nanoUFO

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The Chinese version pretty much stuck to the novel word for word and looks pretty decent except for the low budget and average acting. Still better than watching the minecraft version.

samus12345

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I was so confused when I saw the most recent Black Mirror season. Joan is Awful was really good (and tech related), but then there was a bunch of so-so Twilight Zone wannabe episodes with little to nothing to do with technology.

RadButNotAChad

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Man. So glad NAS is in my computer toy budget next year

TheWildTangler

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Same I'm finally looking to build one in January or February

anon_8675309

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Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

ExcursionInversion

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lmao hivemind with their finger on the pulse again. 8.8 million users added following the "mass exodus"

TheDarkKnight

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Eh, it makes sense. Folks here are thinking about it a few steps ahead, if I don’t unsub then all the other services will do the same over time and raise prices, which negatively impacts me in the long term. Your average folks aren’t thinking that at all.

KeefChief13

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Its so boring rn tho

Abhijeet

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Another reason for piracy

henfredemars

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Juice it! 🍋

Bonesince1997

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Pump it! ⛽

RoseRose56

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Milk the cows 🐄

skymtf

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I feel what streaming services did was repeat cable, like we cut the cord just to bring it back.

egeres

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When did netflix become a FAANG company? What do they have that is so valuable? To me it seems like they don't develop any particularly incredible tech besides streaming and storage

somethingp

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I mean FAANG stands for Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google. So they've always been one.

egeres

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I know that the N stands for netflix, but like, why did people considered it important enough to be in the name? It sounds to me like microsoft deserved that spot

somethingp

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That's a good point. I'm not sure why Microsoft doesn't get a spot there. I think when the acronym was made these were the tech stocks that were growing like there's no tomorrow, whereas Microsoft just always has steady growth, and isn't as sexy.

EvacuateSoul

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Nah they bumped Netscape out

somethingp

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Netscape must've stuck around much longer than I imagined lol

Yearly1845

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egeres

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I know that, but why not microsoft?

It's not like I want to endorse them, but to me it seems like they deserved the spot (?) I don't know, back then satya hadn't taken the seat (he was CEO in 2014) and microsoft still was a bit crusty and not so close to open source

CmdrShepard

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I'll bet they didn't want to create the acronym without the N so they just found a fifth company to throw in there.

Syndic

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To me it seems like they don’t develop any particularly incredible tech besides streaming and storage

Well they pretty much single-handedly started the whole streaming on demand service for movies and series and rapidly grew accordingly. This success even allowed them to get into the production side of the movie and series industry. They also destroyed the DVD market and stagnated the Blueray market on their own.

Now they face more and more competitions after the other companies saw that there's a lot of money in this. The lose of that monopoly of course impacts their success and they seem to struggle with it. But they still are a giant in that market segment. So it's not surprising that they still are counted as a FAANG company.

gohixo9650

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and they seem to struggle with it.

they never struggled. The just cannot adhere to the "eternal growth" which is different than "struggle". They were making millions. The "problem" was that they wanted each quarter to make more millions that the previous quarter. CEOs believe that there is an infinite amount of potential subscribers or even if they manage to make everyone on earth subscribe then they will eternally increase their prices every quarter. Or I don't know, maybe their system has some flaws

egeres

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I get that at the time, but even back then Netflix didn't have that much valuation compared with the top of the tech companies. Sure, they are very relevant even with the rise in streaming platforms, but as far as I know they only have 1 good product, no hardware or other diversification. I don't really align ideologically with the following companies, but Nvidia, Tesla, Adobe or Microsoft could have taken that spot, they much more valuation according to https://companiesmarketcap.com/, and as I see it, they do more technological innovation

I feel like people just sticked with FAANG because it's kinda catchy, but I think if you take into account world impact/tech development/valuation/size I don't think it makes much sense that Netflix is there

dlrht

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They don't develop any particularly incredible tech aside from the one their whole product is based around and enabled them to be an industry leader 🙈

egeres

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Yeah but, it's just one product, the rest of FAANG have multiple gooses that lay down golden eggs

spudwart

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Except Netflix uses AWS. Which makes it Amazon's achievement.

Literally all Netflix did was get streaming rights before streaming was mainstream, grow because of it, have everyone drive off into the sunset with said rights and make it all shittier.

All Netflix offers these days is 2 season shows that end on a cliffhanger, concerning controversies that make the industry worse as a whole, and Sony movies because Sony doesn't have their own streaming service for some reason.

dlrht

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Most of the internet uses AWS. Facebook uses AWS. Apple uses AWS. Should they not be a FAANGs then? What are you even getting at? Let's not act like Netflix has no engineers and that it's actually all completely Amazon's engineering work. Like if you're seriously insinuating Netflix doesn't have any technical achievements idk what to say

CmdrShepard

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Why not list even a single one of these incredible achievements?

dlrht

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Oh you know, there's that one, and that one, and that other one

spudwart

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The main point the original comment made was that their "groundbreaking achievement" was their storage and streaming... which isn't really their achievement.

Netflix's technical achievement of DRM is Microsoft's god awful silverlight bs.

Their achievement was being first and showing what streaming could have been. Now that all the big companies have divided off into their own direction, Netflix had to rely on their own content. And Netflix's original content has become hollow, hype-bait, and frustrating.

Toribor

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The tech innovations are all a decade old at this point anyway. They are a media company now plain and simple. They produce and license movies and shows.