
Netflix shares sink 10% as subscriber take-up slows - osrec
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49008300
======
JauntyHatAngle
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).

~~~
sleepinseattle
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.

~~~
JauntyHatAngle
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.

------
Semaphor
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.

~~~
pcurve
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.

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

------
xienze
> "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.

------
afarviral
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.

------
tyingq
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.

~~~
hbosch
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.

~~~
schlumpf
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.

------
Waterluvian
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.

~~~
apexalpha
>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.

------
stock_toaster
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.

------
bsharitt
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.

------
chank
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.

------
tobsmagoats
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.

~~~
echelon
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.

~~~
rlayton2
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)

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

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

~~~
quelltext
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.

------
paul7986
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.

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

------
wolco
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.

------
azernik
Earlier discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20463467](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20463467)

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

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

~~~
dbetteridge
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

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

------
neural_thing
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.

~~~
riffraff
What's COGS?

~~~
neural_thing
Cost of goods sold

------
superasn
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.

~~~
albanread
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.

------
rco8786
I’ve realized in the last few months that I basically watch nothing on Netflix
anymore. I’ve been considering canceling.

------
Fej
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_ ).

------
richliss
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...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_distributed_by_Netflix)

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.

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

------
WomanCanCode
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!

------
distant_hat
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-...](https://www.businessinsider.in/As-it-seeks-to-grow-in-India-
Netflix-will-censor-itself-to-avoid-a-crackdown-on-offensive-
content/articleshow/67577890.cms)

------
lm28469
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.

------
refurb
My uneducated prediction:

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

~~~
axaxs
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.

~~~
flukus
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.

------
dvfjsdhgfv
> "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.

------
luhego
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).

------
empath75
It’ll be interesting to see if other streaming services also lose subscribers.
Might be an early sign of recession as consumers cut costs.

------
gaucheph
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.

------
Lucadg
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.

------
yur3i__
Yo ho ho, a pirates life for me

------
oeoeo00
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.

~~~
fullshark
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.

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

------
OrgNet
10% is nothing for netflix

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

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

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

~~~
ladberg
What content was too biased for you?

~~~
dx87
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."

~~~
bcassedy
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.

------
quotemstr
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.

------
baby
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.

~~~
fullshark
First mover disadvantage is a thing

------
xwdv
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.

