What's seriously making me consider canceling my subscription is that it's slowly but surely becoming a worse service over time.
It's clear that rising licensing fees are eating it alive, and its response, to create more original content, is mostly failing. Original Netflix series and movies are, by and large, fairly awful. The exceptions are notable but rare.
Next year, when the mass exodus of Disney content occurs, there will be a noticeable drop in the number of good movies on Netflix -- I'm predicting that I'll likely be one of many canceling Netflix in favor of Disney's streaming service, and that will be an inflection point in the beginning of Netflix's end.
Netflix original content is not enough to sustain it, and soon it won't have much else.
>Original Netflix series and movies are, by and large, fairly awful.
I've found it's not worth watching anything on netflix, originals or not, unless it's something I already know is good or if the rating is above 7/10 on a couple different review sites(even that's fairly unreliable).
I also find a lot of shows start good...are full of story dragging filler in the middle then end either in some kind of cliffhanger or just don't bother wrapping up most of the story.
I understand why they end that way....but most of the things i've watched like that don't end up with a second season...it just ends up feeling like I wasted a bunch of time with a story that will never conclude.
Not to mention the strange recommendations, the way netflix alters cover art depending what demographic they think you are...and something strange I asked about but was told I was crazy for thinking but..
But I have suspicions netflix associates unrelated accounts used on the same network in some way.
My girlfriend had been watching a series on netflix using my account, under my name on the roku app through the television.
She recently got a new laptop that came with a netflix app and used her parent's account to sign in. The two accounts have completely different information associated with them, my account had never been used on her computer, her parents account had never been used on the tv and thr show had never been watched on her parents' account yet when she started the show on her computer it started off at the exact minute she'd left off on the tv.
The only two things the two devices had in common were that they were used on the same network in the same house.
But I was told by multiple people I just have been mistaken and netflix doesn't work like that so what do I know?
There is too much awful garbage on Netflix. I don't want to waste my time with it, but it's right there--presented front and center. I can't count how many times I've started something only to exit it within the first few minutes. Or never made a choice in the first place.
I'd prefer a service with a few really good shows. Something a la carte.
> the suggestion algos (for me at least) have gotten worse.
They were ever good? At least for me, and with spending a lot of time rating, telling Netflix which genres I liked and which I disliked resulted in Netflix recommending I watch series of genres I explicitly told it I didn't want.
Their recommendations always were as bad as Amazon's which is to say the dumbest possible implementation (at least for usefulness for me as a viewer, I assume they both have reasons for it)
> Original Netflix series and movies are, by and large, fairly awful.
I disagree strongly. There are quite a few Netflix original shows that I like. The wife and I just finished watching Travelers last night, and it the 3 seasons were fantastic.
Why bother making that distinction when Netflix doesn't themselves? If they're going to put everything they license on the same level as Stranger Things or Roma, doesn't that show that they want all those "Netflix Originals" treated the same in the eyes of viewers?
At a base cost of 8 bucks a month, do you see a large number of people canceling it, vs. supplementing it with something else? In my case, I'm paying for netflix, hulu, amazon, and youtube. So adding one more item would be similar to changing up a cable tv package.
You probably make a lot more than most Americans (I'm assuming you're American since from what I hear Netflix content is really bad for everyone else).
Everyone I know already shares accounts because it's too expensive to have all of them. Adding another streaming service is hard to swallow. Does anyone have an idea how much Disney will charge? I feel it won't be as cheap as the entry level Netflix sub but who knows.
All of those add up to under $50/month. When I was a kid, everyone around (in small town midwest) had a cable package for over $100/mo and many were by no definition rich.
when you subscribe to cable tv, you pay for content and delivery, so i think it is far to compare the price of streaming service including the price of internet
While I get that that's more money than a lot of people have to spend, all of those combined are cheaper than a typical non-basic cable or satellite plan even today - after they know they need to compete with streaming services. It's a lot cheaper (especially adjusted for inflation) than those services were 10 years ago. So anyone that could afford content then is probably able to afford it now, but they have better options - so they might choose not to.
I've checked out Netflix in Russia, all the current and 1-2 y.o. shows are available with some random films. Also, the only language available to choose (except English and original if it differs) is finnish!
$8 a month is for the standard definition plan, which I doubt many people have at this point. The most popular (HD) plan just went from $11 to $13.
Subscribers might add Disney+ without dropping Netflix, sure - but all those services will reach a saturation point eventually, and subscribers will eventually have to choose which services they want to drop. Netflix still brings more to the table now than many of its competitors, but it's on a long, slow downward slide that will almost certainly accelerate this year.
I think they'll be OK this current price increase, but not the next one. I'm sure they have a good model on cancellations after price increases and they'll make up for the loss with the increased price. But I think a lot of people are going to start examining if they want to continue paying for Netflix every month without thinking. More people will likely cancel and re-subscribe periodically when they hear about a series or movie they want to watch. And the more competition from other streaming providers, the more people are going to be examining their total spend per month on streaming services, which if you have a lot of them, is beginning to approach a traditional cable television bill.
The price increase really wasn't the main driver for me; it was more that Netflix continues doing the exact same thing -- manipulating its users through user interface trickery, and continuing to spend money on content that is not very good. The more shows, including original series that I pass on, the more I realize that I'm paying an increased monthly cost to finance Netflix's overspending on B-rated content that I won't even be watching.
I also think Netflix took away the wrong thing from the Bird Box "success." Yes, a large percentage of Netflix subscribers watched at least 70% of the movie, but I think it was 1) to see Sandra Bullock, who is a great actor and 2) it came out over the holidays when you often want something in the background to watch because there isn't a ton of things to do that the entire family can do together. For me, I'm a fan of Sandra Bullock so that is why I watched it, but the rest of the movie and story was not that great or anything unique.
After I cancelled Netflix, I signed up for YouTube Premium instead, and I feel much better about it. You can turn off auto-play and video previews don't have sound. YouTube music isn't quite there yet, but it's getting better, and the iOS app is solid. And their recommendation engine is actually good. Plus I like that I can watch ten or twenty minute videos on an infinite variety of things instead of committing ten hours of my life to a Netflix show.
If Netflix had any faith in their own content, they would introduce some kind of impartial review system (either user-based, or Rotten Tomatoes, etc). Netflix's "% match" system is a complete joke; I frequently see 90% matches and start watching and go "why in the world was this recommended to me?"
Disney will also be launching their streaming service this year, and it will be rumored to undercut Netflix pricing. Plus Disney will now have all the Fox content, some of which is on Netflix and might be pulled down the line. I think Disney+ will also be more appealing to people with kids over Netflix, which tends to be more adult-themed.
The other issue they're going to run into is that they have almost reached peak saturation in developed markets. In order to continue getting new users in developing markets, where those people will be more price sensitive, they cannot keep raising the price. I wouldn't be surprised if they begin segmenting the pricing by region, or creating lower cost plans that only have limited content, or more restrictions.
Ah, I just found it, but it's on the website only under "playback settings." You cannot turn it off from the app clients, or at least not from the Apple TV one. I think this still shows an intentional act by Netflix to make this hard to do, because most people are not using Netflix from a web browser / computer.
You also cannot turn off the auto-playing previews with sound.
For me, turning off auto-play worked on both my Roku and Visio TVs. I actually turned it off on a per user basis.
As for the auto-playing previews, my partial solution is to hit the mute button when browsing the Netflix home screen. Still gets annoying when trying to read the text description of a show, but it disappears from the screen too fast and replaced by the preview.
It's clear that rising licensing fees are eating it alive, and its response, to create more original content, is mostly failing. Original Netflix series and movies are, by and large, fairly awful. The exceptions are notable but rare.
Next year, when the mass exodus of Disney content occurs, there will be a noticeable drop in the number of good movies on Netflix -- I'm predicting that I'll likely be one of many canceling Netflix in favor of Disney's streaming service, and that will be an inflection point in the beginning of Netflix's end.
Netflix original content is not enough to sustain it, and soon it won't have much else.