Netflix Tumbles as 200k Users Exit for First Drop in Decade | Hacker News Reader

Netflix Tumbles as 200k Users Exit for First Drop in Decade

bloomberg.com

13 pointsspacebanana77 comments

On the one hand: Has badly lost its way on content. Can understand why other providers are stripping out legacy content (e.g. old BBC shows), but equally Netflix's own content has been very much expensive quantity over quality.

They're at risk of blowing their relatively dominant position.

On the other: the headline figures aren't terrible. Their boycott of Russia saw them lose 700k subscribers, while the net decrease is actually 200k. Their projection for Q2 is interesting, and clearly they have some basis for projecting a steeper decline.

Ultimately Netflix have moved from what looked like a very strong incumbent position into a keenly fought battle where content will decide which 2/3 streaming services people subscribe to. For me this year it's probably the third most watched after Disney+ and Apple TV... so is at risk of the chop if it doesn't come up with the goods soon. Can't imagine I'm alone.

Interesting point about the Russia loss. I doubt their stock would be down near as much if they'd had a slowdown to 500k net increase, as would otherwise be the case.

Completely agree - if the projection from Q2 wasn't also so negative, I would say the market has overreacted a little bit.

Just an anecdotal perspective, but several of my friends have cancelled recently because there’s just not much new and good to watch. I’m also not finding enough content to watch lately, but I have two other streaming services I don’t mind paying for, so I’m not going to cancel it just because it’s been a few weeks since I saw something interesting.

I share my password with my family (yes, I am paying the family plan). My old folks still watching Netflix from time to time is the only reason I have not cancelled yet - there's very little new quality content coming out as compared to Netflix's "golden age" (Marco Polo, the first few seasons of House of Cards, ...), much of the new content seems to be made solely to tick checkboxes with the social justice crowd, and it's prices keep climbing.

As someone that just cancelled their subscription for me it was cost and to cut down the number of streaming services I have. Netflix didn't stand up well next to the others for cost and quantity of must watch content.

They'll probably turn to advertising and lose more subscribers.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com