So much for the great exodus that was predicted.
Savvy tech users consistently underestimate how much hostile corporate behavior the general population is willing to put up with.
I thought that Netflix would be caught out by the number of people turning to piracy, but I guess there’s also a lot of older people who have to setup their own account now that they can’t use a relative’s. Or just get the add on for the relative’s existing sub.
I cancelled my Netflix subscription, but it looks like I might need to set one up for my mum and my nan instead :/
Older people are an obvious demographic that won’t jump ship, but don’t turn a blind eye to the younger generation. It isn’t boomers who throw $70+ at video games on a constant basis. The threshold for a convenience/value ratio seems very low for a lot of people.
As an unrelated and statistically insignificant anecdote, the two biggest pirates I know are both actual literal boomers.
That’s true about young people tolerating it.
I’ve got a Sonarr/Plex setup that works really well for me, but it was a pain to get it all set up initially and I think even computer literate people would struggle.
But then I couldn't watch Netflix!!
When was the last time you actually did watch Netflix, and even then how often have you watched it?
.....but I need to watch Netflix
Soo…what about reddit?
We wait and see. My guess is the company looked at the number of 3rd party users verse official client and desktop users and decided: "Yep, we can lose them". It will all depend on how much of a dive the site takes. Similar to all the leave campaigns on FB, Twitter, Digg, etc.. it won't shutdown by this protest.
I look at it that the best users will be the ones to leave.
IMO lurkers that just browse Reddit just for getting answers to something they were searching on Google will obviously continue using the app. For them this won’t matter, and they constitute the majority of the Reddit user-base.
I guess most of the Third Party App users are somewhat tech savvy and understand that their official app is a total piece of shit. But as you said, Reddit is okay with losing these somewhat small amount of users.
I think this is right, but there is a bit of a confounding factor in that mods and power users of reddit are disproportionately likely to jump ship IMO. So while the masses might still show up to reddit, it's entirely possible that the quality of the content will take a nosedive anyway. I'm not really sure how much of a difference that makes. I suspect not enough of one to kill reddit off completely, but I do think there's a good chance that it's enough to get Lemmy off the ground and viable. I think we probably only need to see 1% or maybe even fewer users migrate here from reddit to make Lemmy active enough that I never have any reason to go back to reddit again.
So while the masses might still show up to reddit, it’s entirely possible that the quality of the content will take a nosedive anyway.
This. This is highly likely and if this happens, Reddit will be soon reduced to something like Quora. Still will be Google’s favourite, but won’t have the quality content and/or the community it needs to become what it once was.
Reddit has a different problem: most of the moderation and most of the content came from power users who are now jumping ship en masse, and Reddit, Inc doesn't have anywhere near enough personnel to replace them. They're a minority on Reddit as they are on Netflix, but whereas Netflix can live without them, Reddit cannot. With them gone, it'll soon become a wasteland of spam and trolls like Usenet. This kills the platform.
I've looked into it and the data is for 2 days. It might be an outlier...
The general consumer is an idiot. It’s basic psychology. Rewarding behavior increases it’s likelihood. Soon other streaming services will follow.
Which is too bad. I never went back and never plan to.
The sad reality most of us who comment on social media and forums forget is we are just a vocal minority, majority of consumers don't care for these outrages unfortunately. If the end product works good enough for most people then they will keep it/use it.
majority of consumers don’t care for these outrages unfortunately
See also: Preordering video games
Preordering online video games is such a rip off.
Yep, already seeing in the family, people having to pay for their own sub now that netflix is cracking on password sharing
They knew they'd face backlash with this decision, but the average person just want to turn on the TV and watch something, so they'd keep paying for that instead of suddenly learning how to pirate things, or move on to other streaming services
It's a short term measure. Long term is: will it have enough exclusive content that makes it worth it?
Bear in mind that Antenna (the source of this info) has no access to internal Netflix metrics, only to opt-in consumer information. We won't really know what's going on with Netflix's numbers until their next quarterly report.
This is a super important piece of the puzzle that no one seems to be talking about. It's surface level at best
I'm about to the point where I'm just going to go back to pirating. The value of streaming services was in their convenience. I was willing to pay money for that, but the more fragmented and complicated all of it gets, when I can just pay for 1 VPN and go to a site and click a few links...
Piracy can be pretty convenient too. There are some services that are a kind of a hassle to set up, but work really well once everything is configured. You can have one docker container running qbittorrent and set up so it's only able to access the Internet through VPN, other containers running sonarr/radarr etc to automate the downloading, and one runing plex to organize and stream all the content.
I subscribe to several streaming services because the people who work on and create this content deserve to be paid, but often will watch something on my plex server rather than through the streaming site because it's just more convenient. Also it's nice to have local copies of that media in case it ever gets removed from the streamer in the future.
The recent loss of Rarbg has been pretty bad for Piracy community. Big shuffles on the internet lately.
Yeah, not surprising tbh. They tested the change in smaller countries like NZ first, which allowed them to determine if it was worth doing the same elsewhere.
Password sharing is really common, but I don't think enough people realise - if they give a shit about what they use and where it comes from, they're the minority. That goes for almost any service, not just streaming. The people willing to change their habits to protest are always going to be less than the entrenched people who can be pushed, inch by inch.
Most Netflix users just want something to watch with minimal effort and without having to try or think about it. So if the password doesn't work, they shrug, they accept it, they make their own account, and their routines stay the same. In fact I'm willing to be that of the new Netflix users, a majority of them are probably also subscribed to at least one other streaming service, too.
Convenience is a commodity, and users have different price points.
I'm honestly sort of suspicious of this report. I wouldn't be surprised if the information is misrepresented or outright fabricated.
A spike in subscribers for a period doesn't necessarily mean they're making more money than before, even if the number of new signups offsets the cancellations.
I used to pay for the Premium plan, sharing with my parents, but downgraded to the Basic plan. My parents ended up getting their own Basic plan. So a single account essentially split into two, but the sum of both payments is now less than what it used to be for the single account. So Netflix gained an extra subscriber, but is now making less money from that pool of users.
It's totally possible that some number of these new signups consist of people who did the same thing. It could even be that some number of these new signups are people who joined because others who were sharing with them closed their own accounts.
Basically, seeing a spike in new signups isn't itself a measure of success.
I'm skeptical. If this is indeed true, I believe it will be short lived. The simple reason is that the content is not worth the cost. It worked better when people shared their passwords maybe? I gave up my subscription long before they announced these changes because the content, IMO, mostly sucks.
The other streaming services will undoubtly follow this trend now that Netflix has shown it works.
While I don't watch enough Netflix that this decision will affect me directly, this is awful news, because now I expect more streaming services to see this as a viable option and it will likely be repeated.
My family is paying nearly $30/month for Netflix now, on top of paying for cable TV, Max, and Amazon. I currently pay for Hulu and Disney+ and share it with the family, but I really hope password crackdowns are not the norm.
If they are, I'm gonna have a good talk with them about other options. Just throwing money away because "Well what if I want to watch something on that platform one night and I don't have it" is precisely how these vampires want people to feel - the fear of lack of access.
If you don't vote with your wallet on the Netflix one, crackdowns will become the norm
No idea how accurate this report is. Either way people online tend to be a vocal minority. The vast majority of people using Netflix either aren't on Reddit or other discussion forums, or are simply lurkers who never comment. I find that people that do comment tend to be doom and gloom when it comes to these sort of things. That applies to me too, as I certainly won't buy Netflix due to their content.
But Netflix is large enough that it will probably be fine for quite some time. Even so I do think streaming is declining rapidly due to too many services and studies have shown that people do pirate more when accessing content becomes tedious. It's all a matter of comfort.
It's a little buried in the account settings, but Netflix does allow account sharing for an additional fee (~$7?). I know families that went with this option so they could continue sharing their account with elderly parents, and college aged children.
I imagine that if a group of friends agreed to split the cost of an account + fees, they would end up paying less than having individual accounts.
I actually had no issues with Netflix enforcing their ToS but people can of course cancel their subscriptions if they want. I have no issues with paying for a good service.
The problem I had was I was basically paying so my parents could use it - and they are mostly using my other sibling's HBO account. I barely watch TV and would only really put it on to have something to fall asleep to, so at least in my case, they've lost minimal my account's minimal usage + whatever I was paying them.
In Brazil too sadly
The problem is, the answer to "how I watch x show otherwise" is pirate, which is an activity many people simply don't know how to or has many loops in order to make it work.
I mean it's literally just a "stream XYZ free" google search away for a lot of things.
Canceled the service myself when they annouced this. Whats the point of a 4 screen subscription in a 2 person household. Would downgrade but video quality and screens are linked. Either way the content on Netflix has been going downhill IMO so it was just another nail in the coffin for me
Makes sense. Everyone was outraged that they were going to be punished for violating the T&Cs, if just because Netflix never really enforced it, but they’re not actually willing to go without.
Hot take but I think ultimately this will work out for them. Nobody is going to cancel their sub over this, because whoever is paying isn't losing anything.
The people who lose access to the account might not sign up, but it doesn't exactly hurt Netflix if they don't, they weren't paying anyway.
I think there will be an initial spike of signups, but over the long term the cancellations may outweigh the signups and subscriptions could decrease. Especially if they don't have another hit show like Stranger Things or Squid Game etc.
I only use Netflix currently, as it comes with my phone plan. The convenience factor is nice, but I find the content library a bit lacking. I must explore Plex at some point.
Check out Jellyfin when you're looking at your options for something like Plex. I love it.
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