Netflix Gains Six Million Subscribers After Password Sharing Crackdown
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/07/19/netflix-gains-six-million-subscribers-q2-2023/Open linkView original on lemm.ee193
Comments95https://www.macrumors.com/2023/07/19/netflix-gains-six-million-subscribers-q2-2023/Open linkView original on lemm.ee
I didn't see that coming, I'll admit.
Guess those greedy bastards know what they're doing.
People don’t give big business enough credit in this space. Things like this are market tested and simulated long before they are rolled out.
Well, things work until they don't. Predictions can only get you so far. See: new coke, qwikster, onlyfans trying to ban porn. But yeah I'm sure they did a cost benefit and decided it was worth
Net subscribers may have increased, but I suspect many of them have chosen a cheaper option. Since my family can no longer use my account there's no need to have 3 simultaneous streams. I chose for a cheaper subscription and expect many to do the same.
Wasn't there a news article floating around yesterday claiming that Netflix was about to ditch their cheapest ad-free option?
They are, in the US and UK. Greedy bastards.
I suspect you are right, because Netflix is axing its lowest ad-free tier and those on it will either need to pay the higher ad-free or switch to ads.
Damn those greedy bastards wanting users to pay for their service
I was paying for it, for four screens and multiple users, as permitted on their site.
Many others were using other people's accounts for free
No, the accounts were paid for.
No, they were using paid accounts.
If I buy a frisbee and throw it to a friend, my friend doesn’t owe the frisbee company anything. I paid for the frisbee, I can do what I want with it.
If I pay for 4 simultaneous streams from a video company, why is it that company’s business how and when I use them, or who I share them with?
Exactly this
Netflix literally said “Sharing is caring” about passwords a few years back…
I guess they changed their minds then. Hypocrites or not I still feel like wanting to get paid for people using your service is reasonable. I've never used Netflix but if I did I'd imagine this wouldn't affect me much as a paying customer. It seems to mainly be an issue for those who either travel alot or are using somebody else's account
That was their business model, hence why people got upset.
I allow people to use it for free as it's not a huge expense, and it's something nice to do.
The users were playing for the service tho.
They then created artificial barriers to charge more for the service.
They've been doing it consistently.
They’re the ones who said it was OK to share your password. So yeah they deserve to get flak for this.
Love is sharing a password… until it affects YOY growth.
I mean, *maybe. *
First, they’re not seeing the effects of their policy yet. Its too soon after launch. I know I haven’t received a notification yet, and if they lock it down, netflix is getting cut. I might rotate them in and out, but like in the case of twitter and reddit, I will walk away. There’s more content out there than anyone can watch in several lifetimes already. If I resubscribe one month per year to catch up on the baking show, so be it.
Second, they’re doing the typical thing where they’re quoting a KPI without context. Once things have settled down (which, again, they haven’t yet) we can see whether their month over month and year over year subscriber count, hours watched, and revenue has increased over what it would have been otherwise. That’s a key part. If, six months from now, they’re showing sustained and above average growth in major markets, then they did make the right call (for them - I’d still be out as a customer). If not, then whoever came up with this scheme should be questioning their decision-making.
In science, cherry picking measurements to support your narrative is called p-hacking. It’s frowned upon. In business ot can get you promoted, unless you happen to work with someone who knows that trick and who is willing to out you doing it.
How many did they lose? They lost one from me
Doesn’t really matter because there were more new subscribers than canceled
Depends on how many of those people stay on. Most the people I know who signed up because they got locked out are finishing the series that they're currently watching and cancelling. Couple of them already finished up.
That 6M is net.
Actually I just did the math, factoring in OP's comment it was only 5,999,999 net
It was a net gain. Went from 232 millions subscribers to 238.
How many new subscribers would they have had in the same time period anyway?
Article says Netflix believes 100 million (half of all subscribers) houses were sharing passwords. Six million would be like 3% growth ...which is how much more then they would have if they didn't do this? 1.5% maybe?
It doesn't really seem significant
Significance probably does not matter to them. Number goes up = good job.
Please no. Don't go there. Nooooo
Yeah, people pirating makes me pair plex.
These foul villains can nibl on the jellyfins under the sea for all I care.
Oh I dunno, I spend too much on HDDs 😅
I only used Netflix from time to time and i would just buy one of these scratcher cards that lasts me a month or two and then i forget about it for a year.
I did this in march or so and saw yesterday that my netflix is still working. I was a bit confused until i saw that they just charge my phone bill to keep netflix running.
My sister said something similar happened to her, where she shared the password but stopped paying but the personwith whom she shared with said something like: they asked me a billing question and they just clicked on "yes" and it appeared on her phone bill too.
They have restarted a lot of cancelled subscriptions I hear. Even people just opening the app re-starts it. That’s one way to get 6 million new subscribers and a fancy headline in the news.
Yes, this happened to me. Canceled when I got the password sharing email. My niece accidentally hit the Netflix button on the controller at their house, and we were instantly billed and resubscribed again.
I would think 6 million new subscribers is a bunch of people who haven’t noticed. And that’s really low then.
I have a netflix subscription. But I still torrent netflix series.
Because:
You torrenting benefits them because it reduces their server load.
They should be paying me!
I mean… it’s not really surprising. I know the internet was all angry about it, but I’m sure most people just went “well, it was it was nice while it lasted” and subscribed to a service they already like & used but could get away with using without paying.
There was also a post two down from this one explaining that Netflix’s quarterly earnings are down, and the increase in subscribers mostly comes from markets where they did not implement the password sharing crackdown. So, I might be wrong, but I still think most people that lurk or aren’t invested in social media would’ve just gotten their own subscription after the crackdown went into effect.
I am not buying it. I have cancel our subscription and never share my password before. So have many that I know. I haven’t heard from a single person who told me they are a new subscriber because they can’t share password any longer. They just stop watching. However, I hear a lot of people upset about the approach and cancelled where before they just were too lazy to cancel (that includes me).
But Netflix may be ok with freeloaders no longer watching, since they don't have to pay for streaming costs.
I don’t think it’s free loading. The deal is (was?) per stream. It’s none of their business who is watching and where when they structure the plans like that. I definitely will not ask for permission to watch when traveling. My location is not something they need to be concerned with. Hence I left Netflix. I’ll buy a month in fall to catch up and that’s it.
Did you talk to them in person or over the internet? Because by “the internet” I necessarily mean “the people that are on the internet the most.”
Both.
Set up an openvpn/wireguard server at a "home" with bandwith, and have family/friends route their Roku/streaming device route through a router with openvpn/wireguard client back to the same "home" .
Nah I'll just pirate shit instead.
My nas and Jellyfin ftw
I expected that would be the move a lot of people would go but Netflix actually saw a net gain with what was thought to be an unpopular move. This is actually a really fascinating potential case study on piracy where you'd think it would lead to lost customers, but despite driving some away it actually increased.
Apparently it only saw a gain in subscriptions in countries where the price of Netflix is really low, so there's more factors at work in this case I think.
I'm looking forward to a region by region break down once this gets fully rolled out.
You want to walk my dad through that?
Ha! Yeah I had to set this up for my parents. My Dad couldn't believe that I knew my IP address from memory!
laughs in third world country piracy
Not me lol
Uh. Didn't predict this.
Yet another example of corporations running the world and nothing to be done about it on an individual level.
I'm out of fucks to give. May the world burn.*turns on AC*
Turn that fuckin AC off
37°C here, AC STAYS ON
Have you ever heard the stories of the Dutch and British East India Companies? They're not stories the capitalists will tell you
Guessing the gains are in places the policy isn't in effect. I'd be surprised if they grew in the US.
The article says this growth is happening on places where the restrictions were made. So I would say it is up in the US.
I mean, there are plenty of things to criticize Netflix for (SAG-AFTRA say hello), but not allowing people who aren't paying for their service to use it for free really isn't a particularly heinous crime in my eyes. It's annoying, because having to pay for things is annoying, but it's not like it's actively immoral
They're not using it for free, though. If I have a Netflix account with multiple profiles, I'm paying for that. I don't see why I don't get to determine who get to use those profiles.
Particularly after Netflix's own marketing department pushed out that "Love is sharing a password" tweet.
If they wanted to bump the price of multi-profile accounts, fine, but this accusing your customers of wrongdoing for doing something you yourself promoted is bullshit.
The point is that the terms have changed, and that is no longer what is being offered. By all means, be upset, complain about it, whatever. But to say that a business is morally obligated to continue offering a specific service under specific terms simply because they did so in the past is something I genuinely can't follow.
After fifteen years, I cancelled my Netflix last year. Don't miss it at all.
I think all these streaming platforms forget that not all of us need to watch their content 24/7. I spend less than an hour watching television a day while eating food and that's it.
Did you know that you can still enjoy Youtube ad-free (or the occasional 10-second skippable ad). How do you do it? By not watching youtube at all aside from the random how-to video. Since I watch less than an hour of youtube a month on average, I see essentially zero ads.
I will literally go out of my way to see an ad. I have stopped watching TV, except some HBO but avoid paying. I am searching random questions or products in incognito so my regular chrome isn't garage ads.
I watched a TV in a public space last week. The show was sped up and packed with ads. I watched more ads then show in 20 min.
TOTALLY get it. I've gone as far as blocking ads at the router-level so I don't see ads browsing the internet or using apps on my phone inside my network. Plus I have ublock origin to help catch any extra ads that sneak through the router block.
To say I see no ads is an understatement. The only reason why I know about the "he gets us" ads is because I hear people complain about them. Not once have I seen one hahaha.
I wish to break my youtube addiction. Every night I end up going down rabbit holes with a "just one more" attitude that would make a gambling addict blush.
The way I got around ads was adblockers and the like. Or using the new piped website. But honestly, I wish that I had the will that you have to just drop it and never use it again.
They lost subs in areas with the password crackdown and picked up subs in lower cost areas. They earned less.
Not what the article states:
Edit: I think you‘re right about them loosing subs in areas of the crackdown and winning even more in new areas. It’s not 100% clear in this article (but apparently more so in Reuters‘).
Also not true, the msn article states they didn’t loose money, they just didn’t "win" as much as shareholders were hoping for. Quoting from your link:
Haha fair point ^^
The OP from the post you shared apparently didn’t read the article close enough, they got it wrong there (or at least it’s not worded clearly enough). So not entirely on you.
I like it when people correct themselves. I like it a lot.
No, they did not. They continued to grow. They’re a publicly traded company and all of the details were just reported out.
Just finished reading Reuters and AP, and they both agree that Netflix added 6 million in areas of cheap subscription and no crackdowns vs losses in USA and UK.
I'm sure it has been a profitable move in the short term, but I think password sharing was what enabled Netflix shows to have a more significant cultural impact than shows on other streaming services—despite the relatively poor quality of Netflix's programming.
I think it remains to be seen if that is sustainable groth or if it is a short term effect and piracy will pick back up as people ditch netflix and the other streaming services as they become more inconvenient.
More expensive isn’t really less convenient in that sense, it’s just as easy as before to watch Netflix. You just have to pay more (or watch ads).
That’s the reason why Netflix and Spotify won over piracy. Convenience, not price.
Still sucks though.
Yeah, this outcome seems to really hammer in the point of what Gabe said about piracy
Lot of people value accessibility and convenience over free. Probably why you see even games that didn't have the best launch reputation like Cyberpunk 2077 that are DRM free outdoing revenue of games that have denuvo as opposed to denuvo leading abnormally record high sales figures despite Cp2077 being immediately available to pirate.
Just a really surprising outcome with this Netflix growth despite the public outrage, and much easier access to Netflix media than games. But, also really hammers how much the average person wants something that just works when they want it to without additional hurdles and research to go through.