Netflix shares sink 10% as subscriber take-up slows | Hacker News Reader

Netflix shares sink 10% as subscriber take-up slows

bbc.co.uk

102 pointsosrec161 comments

As someone who recently cancelled my Netflix subscription after idly flipping through it and realising nothing here holds my interest anymore, I feel like many of the reasons people pirated TV/Film content in the past (and Netflix helped to reduce by many-fold) have now returned with a vengeance.

I'm on Australian Netflix, and the selection of titles has steadily diminished from an already reduced catalogue to the sad state it is now. There isn't much to hold my interest anymore.

Piracy for me, since becoming an adult and being able to pay my way through life, is mostly a question of convenience and availability. Netflix made it convenient and reasonably available.

But now, with the steadily more and more fragmented state of streaming services, to watch the things I want to watch I have to either sign up for 3-4 different services.

This makes the piracy route become more and more attractive again - and I don't like that this is the case. I want to pay people for their content.

But ultimately, it's ended up just pushing me away from tv/film content altogether. I can easily get a wide selection of books on my kindle, a game from gog or steam (that I don't need a subscription for) or just watch youtube.

For the stuff I really want to watch, I look around, see if there it is worth the dosh/hassle for the legal version (it rarely is) and usually just give up (and in rare cases, pirate).

I have largely the same issue. As opposed to a year or two ago when I regularly used both Netflix and Prime Video, these days I have subscriptions to those as well as the Foxtel and Stan offerings just to keep the same sort of depth of library. I’ve drawn the line at 4 services, with a total spend very close to what I was spending previously on cable, such that if a new show airs on something I’m not subscribed to, I’ll either cancel one or just skip it. Competition only works when all players have the same content, if everything is an island of exclusive offerings then I’d suggest thats something entirely different, and probably not something that’s sustainable since customers have only a finite monthly budget for entertainment.

Since streaming services keep shows in their library for quite a while, and with binge watching being popular, it may be a good strategy to cycle through the services periodically. The problem is that they don't have a way for you to just "pause" a service, and if you have multiple family members in the household you have to get buy in from everyone.

Same here. I find that I've turned to Youtube to satisfy any content cravings. It's not perfect, suggestions sometimes never have anything to do with what I've been watching the past 12 hours, Youtube's algorithms have a clear bias against certain content and sometimes I can't bother to wade through pages and pages of slosh to find what I know fits my tastes, but at this point I have a good idea of the search terms to use when I want something to watch, and if all else fails I can always just rewatch an ancient creator's old content.

Meanwhile on Netflix, it is nearly impossible to find what interests me by just turning it on and flipping through the initial feed. It also feels like there is never enough of the content I want to watch. I found 'Kingdom', 'Love,Death and Robots' and 'Sex Education' completely by accident, and on ending each series and falling in love with their concepts, I get exhausted when I see there is no season 2, because it means it will probably be a while until I hit the jackpot again. Even one of my favorites - 'Black Mirror', seems to be dropping in quality.

I haven't opened Netflix in 2 months and probably will cancel my sub soon because the wait it just not worth the price.

I find it annoying how content is so easily discoverable in YouTube but with Netflix, it's almost like the site is actively trying to stop you from discovering new content in there. For example, I share a Netflix account with a relative who has somewhat different tastes from me and I find shows/movies on her account's front page I find interesting that I would never have found on my account except if I search for that specific show.

I think you might be underestimating the brilliance of YouTube's algorithm. There's no other video service that comes close. I have the same complaints about Netflix's discovery UI, but it's way better than Amazon's recommendations.

You're likely right about Youtube's recommendation algorithm being much better than Netflix's. But I was thinking more in terms of how Youtube's UI allows for much easier exploration compared to Netflix. For example, when I click on a video, Youtube gives you a huge list of related videos but Netflix gives you a small list and only for some movies/shows.

Australian Netflix user here as well, very similar story with a couple of exceptions:

1. Kids, one in particular loves a number of shows on Netflix and is happy to re-watch them. They do plenty of other non-screen activities, so Netflix remains a decent 'downtime' option

2. Kids. I just don't have the kind of time to watch movies and TV shows the way I used to. I just finished the two seasons of Psycho-Pass, which took me a couple of months to get through. And that's still with most episodes requiring multi-mid-episode pauses for reasons of 'parenting' (be it parental intervention or prevention of kids viewing disturbing scenes).

As a result, I churn through less content, slower, and therefore Netflix probably has a greater use to me longer term. My budget refuses to stretch to multi-streaming-platform subscriptions, mostly actually due to ideological reasons.

(I'm paying for the top Netflix option with a view to convincing a couple of relatives to get off their expensive Foxtel subs - with minor success).

The average netflix experience, for films:

- look through the first category, feel disappointed

- look through other categories, see the same films in multiple categories

- waste 20 minutes before either turning off or in refusing to totally dump the sunk cost, choose a film you don't really want

It's like the inverted set of the Criterion Collection.

I share your feelings. I have the impression their catalogue shrunk so much there's almost no interesting content at all. They shove up their bland "original creations" everywhere, but it's not what I want. I understand they will be more profitable if I watch their creations, but they simply don't appeal to me, not even one of them.

They could provide a more positive user experience if they overhauled their terrible user interface. They focus too much on making you believe there are thousands of choices, when it’s probably closer to 10-20.

This is clearly evident in how they keep items you’ve already watched in the same list of things you haven’t watched. Why would any sane person do this?

No, the poor catalogue is the root cause of my antipathy.

Or just sign up for one service one month and a different one the next month. No one’s forcing you to keep all four subscriptions active.

Services sometimes have terms like "Once you cancel, you can't rejoin us for six months". At least, I remember that in MoviePass' T&C. I was confused, though, since I assumed they'd want me to convert again, since they should want my money.

I'm not signing up for a service for 1 month, and then going through the back catalogue in that 1 month. I want to watch media when I want to, not when it wants me to. Think of it like TV, I tune in when I want something to watch and change the channel until I find something.

Simply needing to switch between services and time my subscriptions is enough for me to not bother. TV/Film is burntime for me, not a dedicated hobby. If I need to stuff around figuring out which service has which shows that I might enjoy, you've lost me and I'll go watch something on youtube.

Netflix originally had all the varieties of shows I needed. It doesn't anymore. If someone shows me another service that is accessible to Australians that has a better catalogue, I'd probably switch to it permanently.

That's less convenient in many ways than piracy, you have to keep track of which one you're currently subscribed too, which shows are on which subscriptions, can only watch shows from the current subscription. I'm not paying for less convenience.

My biggest issue with netflix is that their entire discovery tool is built around their subscription based model, which means they've deliberately avoided features that users would strongly prefer for a better search experience.

Would be nice if there was single point of being able to buy movies & tv shows episodes at very reasonable costs. Perhaps duration based - 10 cents per 10 minutes. A 2 hour movie would be $1.20 etc.

I think that's a really cool idea but at the same time I think about the mobile carriers and how it used to be the case that you could only pay-per-minute or pay-per-text or pay-per-GB and overall unlimited plans seem to have won out. I wonder if that trend would apply with entertainment too.

We plan to start rotating. Subscribe to Netflix for a few months, then switch to Hulu and watch what they have, then switch to BritBox, then HBO, then VRV, then whatever else or back to the start. They all make it pretty easy to stop/start your subscription and I think they all/most retain all your account info between times as well. This becomes even more attractive as other new services start up. Seems like it should scale well as the longer the rotation the more new shows are there each time through.

> This makes the piracy route become more and more attractive again - and I don't like that this is the case. I want to pay people for their content.

People like to say this, but, no offense, it just doesn't seem true. It sounds like a justification. (And I'm not judging, I'm just not convinced by this reasoning).

Signing up for 3-4 streaming services is pretty easy. If you use something like an apple tv or fire tv you can even use a global search that links you into the app where the content you searched for lives. If you're willing to pay per episode or movie to rent or buy everything you watch on itunes or amazon, it's even easier and you can get almost anything instantly.

I do agree that in general, the more different streaming services are released the more that people's incentives are starting to tip back towards pirating. But I don't think there's much other reason beyond just cost.

I mean I can subscribe to 5 different streaming services and pay $50-60/mo, and how far away are we from having a service that provides a collection of streaming services (i.e. cable TV).

The problem that's happening lately is that streaming services were a way to get away from the expensiveness of cable, but now we're returning the the exact same problem we had then.

To be clear, I don't pirate and haven't except for niche stuff that I can't get my hands on otherwise.

If money was tight and I didn't have other hobbies I might consider it. But at the moment selling me 3-4 streaming services for $80 a month when I can just watch youtube instead, or pick up a good 4 year old game for $10 is a tough sell to me.

There's excellent Plex servers for <$10/month, which give access to tens of thousands of shows and movies, with the guarantee that anything remotely popular is part of that offering. Versus the more legal option of paying hundreds of dollars a month to access content spread between 5-10 different apps, with stupid limitations such as "no offline viewing" or "check in home every n days", not to mention the incompatibilities due to DRM etc.

Piracy is definitely more convenient nowadays.

> As someone who recently cancelled my Netflix subscription after idly flipping through it and realising nothing here holds my interest anymore

Can't disagree with this. I cancelled Netflix not too long ago because it felt like it was another version of Facebook for me. Somewhere to scroll aimlessly and endlessly with nothing interesting enough to commit to, but interesting enough to keep me scrolling. Almost like the next swipe of my thumb would finally locate something to watch. Once I was able to buy the entire series of The Office (US), my reason to keep Netflix was gone. Once Disney+ launches I am wondering how Netflix will fare.

(Full Disclosure: My Facebook was deleted several years ago)

If you can't find anything on netflix you will be disappointed in Disney+

yeah the Australian Netflix at least has a very fragmented selection nowadays. The only things that keep my interest are really their originals.

I think Stan has most of the more well known shows these days, and I think it's better value for money than Netflix

I've also started watching Youtube more. Totally agree re fragmentation. I'm not interested in dealing with their greed and stupidity. Same with sports. Different deals for different regions etc. I like watching sports but I'll just not watch it if it's not easily available. Usually it's only on in the background anyways as I do something else like my accounts etc.

The reason I like Netflix less and less is their atrocious browsing interface:

No customizability. I want "continue watching" always at the top and have an easy way to remove shows from there. I never want to see "Watch it again" anywhere. I don't want any movies on the Index. And I want a clear sign which shows are dubbed. (Well, and I'd like Japanese shows to have English subs, but that's not a UI problem)

Over the years their interface got worse and worse that it's now at a point I need to use third party sites. So as they make discovery as hard as possible for me, I might as well cancel it whenever there isn't a release I want to watch.

The final nail in their UX coffin, for me, was autoplaying previews in the browsing interface and playing trailers (AKA ads) for Netflix-produced shows. I finally got fed up with that recently, re-evaluated Hulu, and decided I was now a Hulu customer.

You know what would save Neflix?

A table view with columns Custom play lists Reviews and star rating. Boolean search.

They can build and roll these out in a month.

I really think their toxic UI is damaging them.

My hunch is, they can't roll these out because they don't want people noticing how little content there is on Netflix.

They had reviews and star ratings before. Now they don't have reviews and only like/dislike ratings.

Or show a flick under "continue watching" that you deliberately stopped watching because you didn't like it. Even disliking doesn't help - it's still wasting a tile - just greyed out.

Also, why do they always show you items you’ve already watched alongside things you haven’t? How many people are watching the same movie or tv series multiple times each month?

The UI is definitely a big reason I cancelled.

> "Much of our domestic, and eventually global, Disney catalogue, as well as Friends, The Office, and some other licensed content will wind down over the coming years, freeing up budget for more original content," the company said in its statement.

That's got to win the award for "spin of the year."

I think they're in a world of hurt once Disney+ gets rolling. It's great to have a lot of original content but they just can't seem to come up with original content that has the kind of cultural cachet (established over years or in many cases decades) that these sitcoms, Disney movies, etc. have.

I doubt this is the average person's experience but the Netflix interface is so geared toward user engagement that it is actually not productive or convenient to use. Its merely designed to keep you searching and stumbling. Rather than performing the function that I pay for which is simple convenience. Its an inconvenience and an absolute burden. I make it usable with a few firefox plugins but theres no way to get it to a no-nonsense state where you can just select the show you want to watch and watch it. They seem to have an imperrative which is to distract and misdirect you and it is pivotal to the platform, given they cannot magically show you more content. They rehash the existing content to fool and entice you.

I suspect they will also get hit by people subscribing for a month to see something specific, then unsubscribing until something new worth watching appears. Now that good content is so fragmented across services, it will likely be common to cancel often. I paid for a month of HBO mostly to watch Chernobyl, then cancelled.

In a meeting room somewhere, a young PM rubs hand sanitizer on his palms and loads up his latest deck: Okay guys, what we have here is something we’re calling Loyalty Seasons. Our recommendation is to make season 4 of Stranger Things, as well as the new Will Smith movie, available only to customers who have been subscribed for 3 or more months.

This would in turn cause a different group of PMs (portfolio managers, in this case) to borrow Netflix stock and sell short. Paying up-front production costs on an asset being provided only to users whose revenues the company has already captured is a suboptimal use of equity capital -- to put it gently.

This is what I do now and I enjoy the services a lot more now because I don’t browse. I just make lists of things I want to watch and subscribe accordingly.

Once I realized that VLC on my phone does chromecast to my TV without issue, and that I can torrent directly to my phone, I began downloading old TV shows again.

I would pay $15/mo for ONE service that has a ton of old content.

Also nothing is more irritating than a show with only a few seasons. Don't even bother, Netflix.

>I would pay $15/mo for ONE service that has a ton of old content.

Exactly, this is why I love Spotify and am worried that players like Apple will use their cash to break of the market and buy songs exclusive to them.

Jay-Z tried it by only releasing his new album on Tidal, Apple bought exlusive rights to a song named 'Freedom' (lol).

I really hope we don't import this exclusivity to the music streaming business.

Pretty much all of Netflix's interfaces that I use, I find awful to use, and they seem to only get worse over time. I actually can't wait for another company to eat their lunch.

I've not cancelled Netflix yet, but I'm looking to pare down my streaming services, and Netflix is the top of the list to go. Amazon and Hulu seem to be getting better for non-original content than Netflix. Rising prices and and a shrinking library aren't a good combo for me and while some shows are okay, the original content isn't worth it at older prices, but less the recent price hikes.

The biggest thing about all these content owners making their own me too streaming service is that I'm more likely to subscribe to a few services and I'll go back to torrents for the rest.

I like many others struggle to find something of interest on Netflix. I also don't want to subscribe just for one movie/show. With all the other services popping up, I really think this market is starting to become too fragmented.

Netflix is fast on its way to becoming HBO, when other companies pull their content they'll use the money to pay for more original content. I wouldn't be too worried about their financials at the moment, but rather a year down the road when other subscription services are established.

Given Netflix's propensity to burn money in an attempt to solve the problem, they're in for a world of hurt if things don't change. They fund and cancel so many projects it feels like throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. They have a few hits, but this won't save them from the content behemoths.

I think Netflix should begin lobbying for a greatly retracted copyright period. Studios always need to produce, so this doesn't impact their bottom line. Streaming companies are needed to facilitate interchange. The one thing this does is handicap players with lots of IP and forces them to invest in new content. I think it would be a win for consumers and competition.

Lawmakers should take a serious look at Disney, too. They own a large and important swath of American culture, and they can effectively muscle out non-Disney content from both distribution and attention.

After a couple of cancellations of shows I was liking, I'm not generally that enthused about starting a new show. Especially given the trend of not resolving anything at the end of the first season, where you get no payoff at all. I don't mind cliffhangers, but resolve the season's main problem first! (ref: The Expanse)

The Expanse has 3 seasons, a 4th coming. Not sure if Netflix has the rights to air those, though.

S4 of Expanse was actually picked up by Amazon, not Netflix.

Yeah, but Netflix didn't cancel the show or discontinue seasons, given that it's not a Netflix series. So the complaint is fine in the context of "Netflix is losing content I like" but not when it comes to Netflix's (mis)treatment of their own shows.

Expanse is continuing though!

But their original content is racing towards terrible, which I actually find far more annoying than the ever reducing amount of content. I'm right on the brink of cancelling. There's no way in hell I'm going to subscribe to multiple services.

Even where they start strong they rapidly pivot and either completely and irretrievably ruin it, cancel before it got half a chance, or simply start stretching content way, way beyond breaking point. Entire seasons can feel like they started as two episodes. So just the same unique selling point as everyone else then. Why aren't those large budgets showing in script writing?

So I end up skipping far more of later seasons than I watch, and soon stop entirely...

Wild. I think some of the best tv of the past couple of years is on Netflix. Dark, Haunting of Hill House, Glitch, American Vandal, Sex Education, just off the top of my head as top shows in recent history. Solid shows like Now You See Me just having come out. Solid movies like Always Be My Maybe just come out. Then guilty pleasure shows that are good too like Sabrina. And shows on networks that likely aren’t going to pull content for their own service like BBC shows with top notch content like The Fall are on Netflix too.

If I was stuck with one companies original new content. I don’t see how I wouldn’t pick Netflix for now.

There's too much content making it feel nothing special.

Disney+ will have original shows from legacy IP (star war shows, marvel shows, pixar, etc) and HBO Max if WarnerMedia is smart will create live DC character TV shows or fold the DC Universe into HBO Max, along with Friends and all their 100 or more year old legacy content they can pull from. Though so far HBO Max the shows announced looks Warner isn't following Disney+ playbook which seems dumb.

Personally Netflix can nor will ever compare or have that type of strong legacy content needed to compete against Disney+. I only use friends or family accounts and again when i do there is so much content Ive never heard of with popular actors that i just sign out/do not even use it for free. Clips on Youtube suffice(mac mini connected to TV) and it's forever playing things I like works for me.

Market saturation, advent of many streaming services, etc. I'd say it was to be expected.

The content selection has changed. Less variety overall, simple original movie plots. They spend too much for a few A listers.. [100 million for three specials is crazy] and less on shows produced by other networks.

They should buy some older networks like turner.

Earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20463467

I cancelled my subscription, not because of the price increase, but because the auto-play interface made me stop using the app.

FWIW, you can turn off auto play in the settings.

Where? I can only find auto-play next episode (which is usually what I want).

I think this is a splendid demonstration of what follows when a service goes from good defaults to bad defaults, and leaves you the user to check the box to change it back. FWIW.

With the focus on series and binge-watching, I don't think it's a bad feature.

Previews that auto play on hover (with SOUND!) = rage inducing

Auto playing the next episode = Good

Yep - the ONLY feature I want in a streaming service, beyond decent content, is for it to not play things I didn’t ask it to play. Netflix used to be that, but it no longer is.

I absolutely hate this feature. Can I not even browse quietly in the middle of the night while everyone asleep.

Is there a way to do that for the Netflix app on the fire stick? I can't seem to find it.

Unless this has changed recently you may be confusing turning off autoplay (Of the next episode) with autoplay of the trailers for shows as you move around the home screen.

The second is the annoying one without an off switch that I could find within the xbox app

Ah ok, yeah I thought the parent post was referring to autoplay the next episode.

Maybe he means like autoplaying trailers when hovering over a title on the Apple TV? It's impossible to turn off and will autoplay if you don't actively move to a new title pithing seconds. If I can't find something to watch right off the bat then I leave the app and try something else because I can't stand it.

I also only use the Apple TV remote, which doesn't have a mute button and adds to the frustration. If I really want to watch something on Netflix, I'll turn the volume all the way down before going to browse for stuff.

If you canceled because a feature that can easily be disabled, they never had you anyway.

EDIT: If you disagree, care to elaborate?

There are straws that overly encumber camels.

Auto playing trailers can’t be disabled on the Android TV Netflix app

Ever consider you are being downvoted because you are wrong?

Because that's what has happened here. Come equipped with sources and references before making claims.

Citation needed you mean? First hit for "netfix disable autoplay" on Google: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/2102

It's even worse when you bring incorrect material to the table.

- Most apps / platforms / and others listed through this thread do not support disabling the UI preview while browsing through.

- You're missing the point, the compliant is the auto play in the UI

I'm not touching this any further.

Sure, downvote based on emotions.

You are literally factually wrong here. “Autoplay” in Netflix’s settings (and help page you linked) refers to playing the next episode when one ends.

The “autoplay” that people are angry about is when you are hovering over a show in the browser and it starts playing the show’s trailer automatically. This “autoplay” cannot be turned off, except by DOM-manipulation in browsers. In particular, I don’t know of any set-top box app that allows you to turn it off.

Would you please stop posting comments with personal swipes in them? We've had to ask you this multiple times in the past, and you've continued to do it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

EDIT: disregard.

Where is that setting?

I'm about to cancel my subscription because their content selection is weak overall. They have a few native shows that are worth watching. Beyond that, their movie selection is horrible (they've obviously navigated away from that for many years now).

The perpetual price increases are getting annoying. They're trying to relatively gouge the large US market to offset the fact that they're bleeding to death (on a cash generation basis they're losing extreme amounts of money, with no end in sight).

Their balance sheet - net tangible assets specifically - tells the future: -$2b 2015, -$4.5b 2016, -$6.7b 2017, -$9.7b 2018, -$15b as of 1Q19

Quarterly debt interest costs have soared from ~$35m in 2016, to $135m+ now. Meanwhile they bury themselves persistently under ever greater debt to fund production that they can't actually afford. It's going to end badly, if they could generate a real profit they would have done so by now (and competition is going to get worse, rather than lighter).

I cancelled but I sign up like once a quarter now, if that, to catch things I want to see like Stranger Things. But the quality of 90% of the content is pretty weak and seems to be getting worse. For that same price I’d rather rent two movies per month from iTunes (and they often have 99 cent rental deals).

Netflix is focusing too much on television series that are 10x too long to trick people into feeling they received value. I’d like to see more original movies.

The UX decisions are also very anti-user. No user reviews, just a worthless “percentage match” that seems to be randomly generated. Auto playing videos, changing movie covers randomly to trick you into thinking more new content is there than it actually is, etc.

Serious questions:

Could Netflix actually go out of business? If so, who buys their IP?

Who will be the major players in the streaming entertainment space in 5 years? How will this impact film and tv production/distribution? (Less variety in theaters?)

Is consolidation in the media industry something lawmakers would take interest in breaking up? Can we lobby to decrease copyright duration?

Can an aggregation service charge a flat fee and provide a single interface to all of the various streaming platforms? Can we fight this somehow? The situation is becoming worse (and more expensive) than cable.

Apple will bail them out

Anyone can go out of business. Netflix going out of business right now is highly unlikely. Your comment is asking this in response to some specific stats with no comparison to how competition is doing. If those stats and numbers are making you question Netflix then you should be questioning most if not all media companies much more.

As an understatement of epic proportions, those figures don't look sustainable to someone un-trained in large-scale financial accounting. The fact that it's been allowed to increase to those levels, year-on-year, would indicate that there's some likelihood of being able to either pay-back loans or show some amount of return-on-investment at some point in the relatively near future.

Where is the money coming from? Why does it keep coming if their balance sheet looks that scary?

Compare that debt to the debt of Disney or Comcast or AT&T. It’s nothing.

What about the debt loads of their three Main competitors? Disney, Comcast, AT&T? Their debts are insane. Of course they all are much more diverse companies, but their debts are also many multiples higher than Netflix. It’ll be some time before Netflix debt reaches Disney’s. At that point, the point could be much stronger. But at that point the status of Disney’s streaming service figures and Netflix’s figures would matter just as much.

Same. With such a focus on UX, you'd think they wouldn't force that kind of crap as a default.

But then engineer X can't claim the watchtime gains and get promoted.

I think you mean PM X

For everyone telling them you can turn that feature off, for the Xbox app at least, I assure you that you cannot.

I might be wrong, but I think those replies are confusing "autoplay next episode" with "autoplay show from the main menu". Above comment seems to be complaining about the latter, only the former can be turned off.

Unless the Roku app changed, it can't be disabled either. Every time I open Netflix it feels like a battle with the autoplay "feature" and I just close it off. I think I might cancel it in favor of Prime.

Depends on the Roku app. I have a roku and it never autoplays for Netflix but does autoplay for prime.

Roku will autoplay for most shows but they increased the delay before it begins. It's a nice preview now without having to navigate into the show's page.

But metrics show that autoplay engages the average Netflix subscriber to leverage the service more and watch more Netflix-branded content.

Autoplay enRages me, to the point I re-evaluated my long-standing aversion to Hulu and switched. I went to Netflix years ago for the simple reason that it only played what I asked it to play. Ads are only one of the annoyances I was avoiding, and Netflix has been advertising its own shows at me for a while anyway, so they have really completely abandoned that one massive feature of the experience.

I had a subscription early on but cancelled. Mostly a matter of taste. I like older movies so the criterion channel is useful. I can't stand series. I use that time/money towards audible instead.

No option to disable auto-playing trailers was also my primary reason for cancelling.

There is just enough content to make it worth the basic subscription, but such user-hostile design choices are like nails on a chalkboard.

I'm not short Netflix because of subscriber count. I'm short Netflix because of their accounting. Capitalizing Stranger things season 1? Sure, makes sense, why not. But Stranger things season 3 is a lot closer to COGS. Their real income statement at this point in their growth curve (full saturation in the US) should be a lot closer to their cash flow statement, which is horrendous.

Get outta here with your old-fashioned fundamental analysis.

But seriously, 10+ years of central bank intervention has dumped so much liquidity into the market that the old saying "“The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent" might as well be "The market can stay irrational."

What's COGS?

Cost of goods sold

The best part about Netflix was their recommendation engine at least in the beginning. Now they have their own shows which they want to force down our throats match or no match. I think their USP at least to me was their great recommendations which is totally lost now because of their ulterior motives.

Coincidentally I too am going to cancel my subscription this month.

I am staying subscribed; I don't have the spare time to watch all of their shows; so getting bored of it; is not a problem; I like that they don't have adverts; and you can just play what you choose when you do have the time.

This morning I got a letter from the BBC thanking me for paying my mandatory license fee; for owning a `colour television`.

Netflix is good value; because I actually watch it; and the fact that people can legally cancel the subscription should keep them on their toes.

Not that long ago there were only one or two channels of government propaganda to watch; that displayed a commercial test card transmission through most of the day. Life is good.

I’ve realized in the last few months that I basically watch nothing on Netflix anymore. I’ve been considering canceling.

The writing is on the wall. Netflix isn't doomed to fail, but it might be doomed to comparative (i.e. not a third of US internet traffic) irrelevancy. Every rightsholder has realized that it can make more money than Netflix will/can pay, either by making its own service or by licensing it to someone who will pay more (perhaps Hulu?). The content will continue to trickle out of Netflix until it's left with just some TV shows, B-movies, and of course their original content (which judging by other comments and my own experience is very hit-or-miss). The question is whether people will stay subscribed just for the original content (inertia is a powerful thing!) which is, as far as I can tell, a toss-up (which is why I wrote might).

I'd not touch Netflix shares with a barge pole.

They're a great tech company but their original content, on the whole, doesn't do it for me to keep the subscription any more. I think I'll be subscribing again in the winter and watching everything at once then cancelling again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_dist...

Out of the 22 drama shows on that list that are still on-going I'm definitely interested in 4 of them and probably will watch 2 others. That would probably take 2 weekends and the weeknights to watch all of it.

Netflix content these days feels like Madlibs. Take actor X in setting Y with the problem Z.

I'm noticing that my child doesn't even like or watch anything on Netflix kids. Youtube actually has a more appealing kid contents. I think what Netflix is missing is the daytime talk show/news reporting/ sports. They don't have good movie selections. And their sofware/app is terrible. You cannot find anything anymore. They keep on changing the order of my list and they also put different poster for the same title/content. This gets confusing, when you start watching something, only realizing you already did, a couple of months ago. Just the poster of the show/movie has changed!

Additionally, one of the reasons for signing up for Netflix in India was that they were not into the silly government censorship rules. But then they folded like a cheap lawn chair when government made some noises, so why bother with them when the good international series make no sense or have important bits chopped out? https://www.businessinsider.in/As-it-seeks-to-grow-in-India-...

Not surprising, on demand video services became the same thing as cable TV. Dozens of services, each having their own content... I wouldn’t be surprised if they started bundling them in the future; something like an internet provider offering Netflix + Disney + Mubi for slightly cheaper than getting the 3 separately. That would mean we went full circle and a new cycle can start.

My uneducated prediction:

The next recession is triggered by a number of major Silicon Valley business models failing (e.g. Netflix, Uber, etc).

But the models haven't failed. If anything, they've proven success. Netflix's success has spawned what, 8 or so competitors now? Uber, 4 or so. I may be off, just what I'm thinking of in my head.

So, it may be fair to say that SV businesses will fail, but definitely not their business models.

The SV business model is to take investors money to grow big fast, lose billions a year in the hope that you either dominate and become profitable our get bought out before you go bankrupt. That's what is under threat.

I don’t think anyone has proven the Uber/Lyft business models can be profitable. I don’t know enough about Netflix to make that claim.

My thought is if we see major SV business models fail, you’ll see capital pretty quickly dry up, the stock market take a hit, which will cause more capital to pull out, lower confidence in the economy, etc.

> "From what we've seen in the past when we drop strong catalogue content... our members shift over to enjoying our other great content."

Or just give up on you, as they're doing right now. When I see "Netflix Original", my expectations drop in an instant.

I am not surprised. I am still a subscriber because I like some series like Mad Men and Dark. But their catalogue is shrinking and new content is mostly bad(with few exceptions like Death, Love and Robots).

It’ll be interesting to see if other streaming services also lose subscribers. Might be an early sign of recession as consumers cut costs.

I remember when Netflix started automatically playing trailers (or their own version of one) whenever you rested on a title for longer than a few seconds. And I remember looking up how to disable this feature but you can't. I'm sure there will be "well actually"'s for this but when I checked, you couldn't and I don't bother every day checking to see if it's there.

I noticed the Netflix app on some older smart televisions don't have this feature which I can only speculate why but it's like an upgrade watching on those old versions.

I think it's clever, it gets the content they paid for playing on television sets sooner. Trailers can draw people in to watch something they might not have the same way the beginning of a book can suck you in sometimes. And for users that don't like this feature, it keeps them scrolling. Cause every time you scroll over to the next title, the trailer stops and you reliably get about 2 seconds before the next trailer starts playing.

So I started scrolling faster. I think what happened next was that I realized there was nothing interesting to watch much sooner than I would if I wasn't scrolling as fast to avoid the automatically playing trailers.

Their original content comes out so fast and different people in my social circles are so excited about completely different ones and recommending them to me all the time that they just all seem the "same". Something about not having months of hype and advertisements, big reveals, franchises, etc. makes the Netflix originals feel like the product of an assembly line than legitimate inspiration. Like they're doing sprints for creative work. There was a thread a while back on HN about "Bright" when it came out. I remember there was a comment suggesting that the plot/setting/actors/world seems like it was generated with neural nets or something. That's how they all feel to me.

Also the recommendation algorithm gets some things right about me. Most things probably. But it's noticeably more exciting to use when scrolling through someone else's profile. Because it's all new stuff. It's completely tailored for someone else. You're likely to find titles you wouldn't bother to search for specifically (typing in the title) but you're surprised it's on their and you want to watch it immediately. I like The Incredibles but I don't want to watch the Emoji Movie.

So I think they're getting eaten from a couple of angles. original programming is soylent green, other media companies are taking their balls home, the interface is designed in a way that reveals the lack of interesting stuff quicker, their price went up.

I also cancelled lately when I realized some data may be shared. I watched "back to the future" on Netflix and YouTube started suggesting related content immediately.

Yo ho ho, a pirates life for me

Netflix has yet to find a property that can go the distance and really hook people long term.

This whole “cancel a show after 3 seasons” is not what users who grew up with 6,7...10 year runs of shows connect to.

They need some content with long legs to keep the sort used to Frasier like life spans.

That’s who was tuning in during their growth period, for those old shows they can’t hang onto now.

Agreed although Disney pulled all the Marvel ones I am sure. They didnt come out and say it but all the odd excuses and the fact they all went at once is obvious. The shows were really popular with everyone I know.

Hmm I don’t think this is true. Most of netflix’s Content is story driven whereas never dying sitcoms were just kind of whatever. I’m sure people watched the sitcoms, some even on loop, but I doubt it was the luring factor. Maybe that’s just my personal misconception.

Anecdote; I’ve had family and friends cancel Netflix when their old favorites got pulled.

People that are center of the road politically, and very nostalgia/tradition driven. It seems reasonable to me that type of person makes up a pretty large portion of the population (I grew up in the Midwest and feel that basically describes the region pretty well, accepting it’s just my gut sense.)

Our brains like routine. That routine can be chasing novel experience or sitting still clinging to nostalgia. Seems pretty clear from the news the majority fall into the latter group.

Forgetting any particular political whatever, it seems odd to define someone who favors tradition / nostalgia as anything but conservative. Although perhaps current conservatives have kind of co-opted the term to mean something very different.

The idea of preferring shows you have already seen is unthinkable to me.

I'm a fan of well thought out and fleshed out story-lines with planned endings. I don't need a 10 year show, but I neither enjoy being strung along(Lost) or having a show just suddenly pulled.

Most people I talk to don’t want to dedicate 70 hours of their life to a mediocre show that is clearly manufactured to last 70 hours.

Frasier was from a different time, when there weren’t many choices, so committing to one show for 10 years made more sense. I think people lose attention easier now and there are so many other things to occupy your time in the entertainment space.

Stranger Things seems to be a massive hit. Shelf life is unclear though. House of Cards was a hit and now it’s completely irrelevant it seems for comparison.

Stranger Things is done after 5 seasons. Not that long.

House of Cards had to be emergency-landed due to the whole Kevin Spacey thing though, so it's not a good anecdote here.

10% is nothing for netflix

Seriously. Wake me up when it hits $250 a share again.

it is way over valued... since we know that the list of available content keeps getting smaller.

The content was too liberal leaning and alienated way too many of middle America.

What content was too biased for you?

A lot of their stand up comedy specials are very political. You start to hear the crowd cheering a lot more than they're laughing. My wife and I watched the first episode of their new sitcom where Gabriel Iglesias is a teacher, and within the first couple of minutes it has a student saying that American history is just slavery and mistreating minorities, and the teacher makes a joke about our current president being covered in cheeto dust. My wife and I aren't Trump supporters, but it gets old seeing shows rely on political pandering for views instead of good writing. Here's a quote from Rob Schneider about it:

"Much late night comedy is less about being funny and more about Indoctrination by comedic disposition," Schneider continued on Twitter. "People aren't really laughing at it as much as cheering on the rhetoric. It no longer resembles a comedy show, it's more like some kind of liberal Klan meeting."

The political comedy stuff is both topical and easy to write which makes it easy to see the appeal. You don't need some deep understanding or keen observation to mock cynical politicians. It's definitely lowest common denominator type stuff though.

The Rob Schneider quote is a bit much. His quote is political nonsense from the right instead of the left. He should be talking about the lack of effort or insight in those types of bits instead of harping about liberal indoctrination. But he can't go that route because he's a hack whose entire claim to fame is that he's good friends with Adam Sandler.

I don’t think Rob Schneider is a particularly useful opinion to share. But the observation isn’t wrong. I’m definitely liberal, but a lot of liberal media content is pretty bland and annoying. Not Netflix, but the Twilight Zone remake suffered terribly from this. I’ve no doubt that there’s a ton of aggressively left comedians because... most stand up is bad?

That being said... I don’t really expect to watch even a majority of netflix’s catalog so idk if it matters if some low quality content exists.

That's not really a fair question in an industry in which having the wrong opinions will get you Eiched.

"Please tell me," the inquisitor said in a kindly voice, "which specific forms of witchcraft you think we're unfairly suppressing. Go into detail."

I cancelled Netflix when I realized I never used it anymore. There's practically no good third-party content left and the first-party content all seems to come from one particular worldview that I find grating and repulsive.

I strongly believe in Netflix, there is just no way they will go down because they were the first ones and the fastest to get into the market. They're already producing a lot of masterpieces and soon it'll be a hard loss not to have your content there.

First mover disadvantage is a thing

I’m a Netflix investor. I’ve posted my tech portfolio here before, Netflix was a big part of it.

Not anymore. I’ve decided to sell off in the after hours and be content with my 25%+ gain before things get worse. Or better. I don’t care.

I’ve had a bad feeling about NFLX for some time, but this earnings only confirmed it. And if they’re counting on a Stranger Things, they’re screwed. I felt season 3 was garbage, and so do many other people, the latest season of Black Mirror was also terrible. There’s just nothing here for me anymore, and because of that I can’t sleep soundly being invested in this company.

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