Netflix adds 9M new subscribers as it cracks down on password-sharing | Hacker News Reader

Netflix adds 9M new subscribers as it cracks down on password-sharing

dailymail.co.uk

33 pointsvincent_s31 comments

If you zoom out, it's less impressive. It did restore at least a one-time upstep in a pattern where they had hit a plateau. It's unclear if that helps more than just once.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/250934/quarterly-number-... (only shows through Q2/23, but shows the pre-2020 history they are trying to get back to)

They also mention a big shift from ad-free to ad-supported. Though they don't mention if those are equal from a revenue perspective or not.

What % of the earth do they need to have as customers to be a successful business? It sure seems like to me they have already hit it. Now it's just balance product cost vs price to maximize profit without losing too many users.

Yeah, I did mean "less impressive" in the very narrow scope of "what did the crackdown on shared accounts do for them?"

Meanwhile i cancelled mine because of template content. It’s become a garbage content platform. Fortunately i own all my star treks on dvd - the only content i would have missed.

What can I say, my kids love netflix, and we watch many shows there (virgin river, the recruit, the diplomat, lupin, kim's convenience, etc.).

Kim's convenience is amazing

It really is. It handles father-son struggles really well. There's a few episodes I have to skip because I can't deal with that dynamic (too similar to my own).

Great mix of humor and serious issues- very wholesome.

It is really great.

I like Netflix enough but when they announced the price hike recently i didn’t like them enough to continue to pay. So I cancelled too.

this reeks of being a win for the pencil pushers at netflix who needed to turn around the slowly growing exodus from their platform on paper. i would guess that this will only be a one time boost as some people will have to get their own accounts. it seems like those people have already just done that.

it does nothing to address why there has been a slowly building exit from their platform... they have prioritized creating and promoting their own mostly-mediocre branded content instead of retaining licensing deals on movies and series people actually want to watch. all of this, while also continually raising rates.

Infinite growth is real!

Seems like they made a lucrative decision with the crackdown.

They really helped their cause with their execution on workflow. It was trivial for both me and for my 77 yo mother-in-law to migrate her profile to a side account.

I had trouble migrating my family actually. The old account owners couldn't accept the request to join my account as a side profile, because their profile already "existed". Even though we had canceled them.

Waiting until the billing period ended resolved it, but it was definitely not smooth. Waiting 2+ weeks isn't a good policy.

The addiction is real.

Good on them, it was nice they let it go on for this long. Now they have to compete with Disney I am not surprised they are tightening their reigns.

i dont see why having to compete with disney == higher fees (effectively).

surely competition 'should' lead to lower fees.

Because they need to put out even more expensive content to compete with Disney's expensive content.

Netflix and Disney aren't competing so much on price, as much as desirable content divided by price. In other words, they're competing on value (as well as certain must-see exclusives).

And it is extremely non-obvious what the right balance of premium content and price is, and it changes depending on what your competitors are doing.

Entertainment is not a sector of the economy where prices come down over time relative to income, the way food and consumer products have.

> Entertainment is not a sector of the economy where prices come down over time relative to income, the way food and consumer products have

Not necessarily true. AI is poised to upend the industry entirely. You don't even need to wait that long though - have a look at how they've replaced green screen and on-location shooting in the mandalorian with computer generated sets and a gigantic curved monitor the actors stand in front of. That saves them a ton of money compared to taking a whole film crew out on location.

Stremio is a pretty decent Netflix competitor. Runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, Android TV. 5$ a month for a VPN and you're golden.

No it isn't. Every TV comes pre installed with Netflix. It's so easy to sign up my 67 year old mother can do it.

So what if an elderly person can use Netflix? That doesn't mean another service isn't a decent competitor if it isn't tailored for the widest possible audience.

> It's so easy to sign up my 67 year old mother can do it

this narrative that a 65 years old person is so stupid that unless things are really easy and dumbed down, it's impossible for them to do anything, must die!

Old people have done a lot of things a lot more complex than signing up for Netflix. Which is a process unreasonably complicated, not complex.

Anyway, Stremio just works.

In my experience old people do tend to struggle a lot with technology, I’m sure a lot don’t but it is quite common

If someone is 67, home computing has been a thing for likely over 1/3 of their lives (depending on geography).

Kind of a terrible take to treat 67 as "old" in this regard.

But this wasn’t talking about all 67-years but a specific example. Of course the fact that it was mentioned implies that it’s relevant but I think it is because people who didn’t grow up with it tend to struggle a lot more

If it's a specific example, why mention her age.

What you're trying to retcon into the comment is that they really meant to say "My mother, who is not great with technology, can easily sign up for Netflix."

This is the way to communicate this in a non-ageist way. The age was thrown in as a clear attempt to draw on stereotypes that the elderly are poor with technology.

> In my experience old people do tend to struggle a lot with technology

people in their 60s are the generation who literally INVENTED the technology we use now.

they struggle with the idiotic interfaces people in the 2000s have started using

especially touchscreens that are a specific subset of the entire HID, that are rarely better than any tactile input device [1]. Just like joysticks are better than joypads when precision is necessary.

My dad (82 years old) had no problems with windows 3.1 and 95 UI, now they mean nothing to him, because they literally don't! [2]

[1] I started having loss of vision due to my age going forward, instead of backwards, and I can't use my smartphone as proficiently as I used to anymore. I've been working in tech for 27 years, I have no issue at all with mechanical keyboards, but I struggle a lot when I have to write a sentence longer than 3 words on a smartphone, it has become unusable as soon as my eyesight has become less than perfect. Imagine having every other part of your body working imperfectly and you'll realize that the problem lies in the input interface, not in the person age.

[2] except XFCE or MATE

EDIT: grammar

>It's so easy to sign up my 67 year old mother can do it.

Casual ageism is awesome.

My 67 year old mother moved to America when she came as 27, with me her 4 year old child. She didn't speak english. She worked retail, without speaking English. When the 89 SF earthquake happened, she was stuck in SF not speaking English and made it home via ferries to Oakland. She attended government visa hearings in SF, driving a car there without a license, without navigation, while at that point knowing a few words in english.

And you think she's incapable of using a computer.

But can it add more?

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