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Comment by torstenvl | Hacker News Reader

There's a simple way Netflix can stop the bleeding.

It isn't that difficult and doesn't involve any technical innovation whatsoever.

Just stop being assholes.

They made record profits during the COVID era, seeing huge subscriber increases during lockdown and work-from-home.

So they increased prices. And nickel-and-dimed customers. And got rid of the best parts of their catalog. And threw a fit about sharing passwords.

Geez. Hey I'm stuck several states away from my family for two years but God forbid we try to connect by sharing our movie and TV watch lists. Meemaw can't watch Peppa Pig with her grandson in person, so we'd better watch out for her wanting to check out his Netflix Kids list and try to connect with what's interesting him.

Netflix used to be great. Now they're just jerks with mediocre content that charge 3-4x what Discovery does.

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> Meemaw can't watch Peppa Pig with her grandson in person, so we'd better watch out for her wanting to check out his Netflix Kids list and try to connect with what's interesting him.

That’s something Disney and Apple are both embracing with shared viewing sessions. It’s an excellent feature and it has been so much easier watching Disney content together than trying to count down and sync pause/play of content, so guess where we go when it’s remote movie night?

How exactly does that work? I’ve seen it as an option but haven’t tried it.

On Disney next to the watchlist button there’s a group play button and you can text a link.

On AppleTV you need to be on a FaceTime call.

They aren’t embracing it they just starved (well, disney) netflix of content long enough to make them flinch first.

I’m specifically talking about shareplay/groupwatch features, not the content itself here.

My best guess is that the password-sharing crackdown is a response to slowed subscriber growth in an attempt to keep that growth at some astronomically high target. "Got rid of the best parts of their catalog" is definitely a subjective take. I'm going to assume you're referring to much of their licensed content which is a hard-to-scale problem unless you continue to throw money at it. One of Netflix's problems is that the profits it takes today doesn't get realized into "good content" until a much later date when production is wrapped and released.

> And got rid of the best parts of their catalog

I'm not sure they have much of a choice in the matter, given the remaining movie producing companies are trying to fund/build alternatives. Netflix would gladly host all the latest Disney movies, but they aren't allowed to anymore.

Netflix was well aware of this several years ago and leaned into it, but failed to focus on quality.

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