Netflix Sends Emails to Subscribers They No Longer Want

[Jeremy]

Theatre releases get to charge PER VIEWING and then again upon commercial release - that is not the Netflix business model. How would those theatres/studios do under a Netflix model where a "user" is allowed unlimited viewings for the price of a single ticket per month? A household is allowed to attend at the same price point for the same duration?

Also, interesting you say 50% were "good" yet in the first 7 pages of this thread not a single user posted a comment along the lines of "I signed up for Netflix to watch X movie" from said list (or any list for that matter) - Netflix attracts subscribers for their series, not their films. People watch/pay for Netflix because they want HOURS of entertainment, not 90-minutes. Why does HBOMax seem to have such success despite no "exclusive" $100M - $200M budget movies in their catalog? Have you rewatched any of the 50% hit rate movies? Re-upped your sub for a new release movie?

Netflix execs/leadership appear to me to have strayed away from what actually made them successful - i.e. "pull" demand for their series; and instead tried to "push" movie content to the customers. My guess is to stroke their ego and "prove streamers belong".

Last point. You say they've announced "cost cutting $250M" (i.e. lazily reducing headcount) - if they'd have only made the decent 50% of movies on the list I provided they'd have saved twice the amount without "cutting" a single headcount. Alternatively, if the budgets for those movies were reigned in 10% that's 50% of their announced savings - again without "slashing headcount".

My entire point is there is a widespread lack of leadership at these corporations who don't want to admit when they strayed from the path which brought them success, because in their minds "they can do no wrong". This same mindset is what led Kodak to refuse to release the digital camera for over a decade because "they make money on film processing" - how'd that work out for Kodak? Pride clouded their vision for what the consumer wanted and they continued to "push" what they thought was best on the consumer.

Maybe Netflix pivots and survives, or maybe this is the beginning of the end. Will be a fascinating business case to follow either way.

That's a lot of words to say in some sentences you're arguing for quality and in other sentences you're arguing for quantity.

The 250M they announced actually involved no layoffs, it was all in big movie budget dollars - exactly what I think you're arguing for.

You seem to forget that there are various reasons people subscribe to a service and not all conform to why or how you make your decisions.

I've found hundreds, if not thousands of hours worth of content on Netflix that I would never have found elsewhere and am happy to pay for it. Is all of it good or great? Nope. But the hit rate on Netflix (FOR ME) is many times greater than what I get on all of the other services I subscribe to combined (Hulu, Prime, Apple+, HBO/MAX, Discovery+, Paramount, and Peacock).

 

[FOREVERTRUE]

Or building a library full of unfinished shows because they cancel everything after just a couple seasons without letting them have a proper conclusion

This is exactly why we gave up our subscription. There were multiple shows we got caught up watching and they said viewership was good and there would be another season then nothing. Just terribly frustrating.

 

[jcf817]

Stop ******** about something you got for free or shared with someone. Sack up and pay or drop them. F#cking first world problems. People ******** they are going to get charged while basically using it free for years. #sand

Who the **** are you?! What part of IT WAS THEIR BUSINESS MODEL FOR A DECADE do you not understand.

 

[bos]

This is exactly why we gave up our subscription. There were multiple shows we got caught up watching and they said viewership was good and there would be another season then nothing. Just terribly frustrating.

I had this with cable tv too though.

 

[I@ST1]

Who the **** are you?! What part of IT WAS THEIR BUSINESS MODEL FOR A DECADE do you not understand.

I’d HATE to see how upset you were about the changes to Dollar Tree, McDonalds’s $1 menu, etc.. Ouch!

 

[FOREVERTRUE]

I had this with cable tv too though.

Very true but when the only reason I was continuing to subscribe to a service (3 shows did this all at once) does this it was frustrating and was the reason I canceled the sub.

 

[FOREVERTRUE]

I’d HATE to see how upset you were about the changes to Dollar Tree, McDonalds’s $1 menu, etc.. Ouch!

Well the McDonalds $1 menu thing actually helped me. I stopped eating there and now eat a healthier diet, so that's a plus.

 

[CyCoug]

TV and movies haven't learned what music learned over a decade ago: Make it easier to pay for music at a reasonable price than to pirate it.

I can have basically the entire history of music in my pocket. We pay $15 a month for family plan. So why would we even try spend the time to pirate it and deal with sub-par, legally dubious experience?

With TV and movies, we are dropping Netflix because specifically because of this policy. We rarely watch it, but a while ago my wife paid extra for more streams so her parents and siblings could watch things on it. Her POV is we are paying for the streams, so why should they care where the streams are physically being used?

I'd love to live in a world where for, say $30 a month, we get access to shows from any major studio, just like Spotify can deliver. We'd even pay more, if we could increase the number of streams and have a family plan that didn't geo-restrict us.

As it is, I always feel slightly taken advantage of. And this just adds to it. We pay for the basic tier of DisneyPlus and Hulu, and still get bombarded with ads despite being paying subscribers.

Theses services are all going to experience a constant churn of subscribers until they learn to make their services consumer-friendly and frictionless.

 

[CycloneSpinning]

TV and movies haven't learned what music learned over a decade ago: Make it easier to pay for music at a reasonable price than to pirate it.

I can have basically the entire history of music in my pocket. We pay $15 a month for family plan. So why would we even try spend the time to pirate it and deal with sub-par, legally dubious experience?

With TV and movies, we are dropping Netflix because specifically because of this policy. We rarely watch it, but a while ago my wife paid extra for more streams so her parents and siblings could watch things on it. Her POV is we are paying for the streams, so why should they care where the streams are physically being used?

I'd love to live in a world where for, say $30 a month, we get access to shows from any major studio, just like Spotify can deliver. We'd even pay more, if we could increase the number of streams and have a family plan that didn't geo-restrict us.

As it is, I always feel slightly taken advantage of. And this just adds to it. We pay for the basic tier of DisneyPlus and Hulu, and still get bombarded with ads despite being paying subscribers.

Theses services are all going to experience a constant churn of subscribers until they learn to make their services consumer-friendly and frictionless.

The problem with Netflix is it’s overvalued as a company…and I think it knows it. They’re hunting for ways to add value/revenue, and this is a desperate attempt to do just that.

Netflix is a curator and creator of content…that’s it. Their market cap is somewhere in the neighborhood of $160 billion, which is ridiculous when you consider that is essentially the same as Disney and Nike…and Dish network is less than $4 billion.

Consider where we would be if Netflix simply went away? There are far too many reasonable alternatives that provide very similar options. Again, their being one of the top 50 US companies (from a market cap standpoint) is simply not justified.

 

[mkadl]

Between Youtube, $7.99 amonth Hulu, Amazon Prime and Roku I dont need anything else for the summer months. The instant stop and start of services is awesome.

 

[VeloClone]

Ohhh……..hey baby, got a surprise, a big surprise, for you when you check your DMs.

"big"

 

[BryceC]

When I'm chillin on the couch on a Friday night, I don't want to use my brain a ton when watching a movie. Give me an action, thriller, adventure, or horror flick that entertains. While not at the level of most movies I'd pay for, they did enough to entertain at a huge discount to a night at the theatre.

We pay to go see a LOT of movies - probably 20 per year - and I don't expect to get the same level of production on a $20/mo subscription as I do a $100 per family film.

Mitchells vs. the Machines is as good of a movie as you're going to see anywhere.

My main issue is time. I don't see as many movies as I would like to, and if I watch one I think is bad then I am kind of bummed. When they are long and bad, like the Grey Man, well now you've really annoyed me.

 

[CyCrazy]

Lots of butthurt in here. I love it.

 

[jcf817]

A person who lives alone and want the best quality video from Netflix is getting ripped off, being required to buy the premium plan with 4 simultaneous screens. I assure you, most people only watch one screen at a time. I dropped them over a year ago after a price hike. It simply wasn't worth the money and is becoming less so over time.

 

[jcf817]

I’d HATE to see how upset you were about the changes to Dollar Tree, McDonalds’s $1 menu, etc.. Ouch!

One place I've literally never spent a dollar, and one place I haven't spent a dollar at in probably 5 years.

 

[CyCrazy]

Who the **** are you?! What part of IT WAS THEIR BUSINESS MODEL FOR A DECADE do you not understand.

So your wetting your pants because a company changed their business model? Interesting, are you the bubble boy from Seinfeld? ITS MOORS, NOT MOOPS!

 

[CyCoug]

Lots of butthurt in here. I love it.

I always get a kick out of people who defend crappy business decisions. It's like they are siding with a corporation that's ultimate goal is to extract as much money from as many consumers as possible.

Instead of the customers who are being vocal about how much they dislike the corporation's policies. In the case of Big Media, it's especially acute. They (rightly or wrongly) think that making consumer-unfriendly policies and restrictions is the path to maximizing profits.

I think that's shortsighted. But at least the same system which allows businesses pretty wide latitude to make decisions that are unpopular with customers, also allows the customers to both express their displeasure and vote with their wallets.

 

[Clonehomer]

I always get a kick out of people who defend crappy business decisions. It's like they are siding with a corporation that's ultimate goal is to extract as much money from as many consumers as possible.

Instead of the customers who are being vocal about how much they dislike the corporation's policies. In the case of Big Media, it's especially acute. They (rightly or wrongly) think that making consumer-unfriendly policies and restrictions is the path to maximizing profits.

I think that's shortsighted. But at least the same system which allows businesses pretty wide latitude to make decisions that are unpopular with customers, also allows the customers to both express their displeasure and vote with their wallets.

There's a difference between calling it a bad business decision and getting pissed off because you can't freeload anymore. I would agree that this probably won't end well for Netflix, but that doesn't mean I'm going to get angry about it. If the product isn't worth my $15 a month, I'll move on to a different provider. But I'm not going to get angry at a company selling a product.

For example, buying a 12 pack of soda has gone from $3 to $8 over the past 3 years. Yes that sucks, but I'm not going to freak out on Coca Cola for it. I just decided this was a good time to cut out soda and drink something else.

 

[CycloneSpinning]

There's a difference between calling it a bad business decision and getting pissed off because you can't freeload anymore. I would agree that this probably won't end well for Netflix, but that doesn't mean I'm going to get angry about it. If the product isn't worth my $15 a month, I'll move on to a different provider. But I'm not going to get angry at a company selling a product.

For example, buying a 12 pack of soda has gone from $3 to $8 over the past 3 years. Yes that sucks, but I'm not going to freak out on Coca Cola for it. I just decided this was a good time to cut out soda and drink something else.

I actually think the frustration is justified in this instance. This isn’t like Napster, where you kind of knew it was illegal all along…or even worse like running cable from your neighbor’s house or tapping into your neighbor’s Wi-Fi. They literally promoted sharing your password and then flipped.

This is more akin to having kids eat free, and the restaurant has always welcomed you with open arms, and then one week you show up and they not only don’t apologize when they share the new policy, but they rub your nose in it by telling you the restaurant is only for people who pay for everyone.

I’d find a new spot, but I’d be pretty mad in the moment that handled it the way they did.

 

[Big Daddy Kang]

This is exactly why we gave up our subscription. There were multiple shows we got caught up watching and they said viewership was good and there would be another season then nothing. Just terribly frustrating.

Alpha House!