Netflix Gains 8 Million Global Subscribers Amid Price Hikes and Push to Ad-Supported Streaming

[TsMkLg068426]

Ad plan with low resolution stream on a 4K tv? lmao Amazon Prime offers 4K with ads freevee or basic Amazon Prime.

 

[TsMkLg068426]

Pay to watch ads or pirate to not see ads.

Ridiculous that the legal way gets you less value.

or just purchase on 4K Blu-Ray much better quality and no ads. Hard copy is going nowhere.

 

[H2SO4]

Apple was able to thread this needle with the music store. There’s a solution if a company is willing. This, however, is not the case. It can be done by respecting customers and providing convenience. Folks did the right thing ages ago but Netflix is just another network at this point with all the baggage that entails. And they continue to be rewarded for their laziness and lack of initiative. So people only have themselves to blame in the aggregate sense. And those inclined to download unauthorized copies will jump back on that train. It will take some time for the pendulum to swing back but I think this is a self-correcting issue. When we start seeing articles about it that when you know it’s about to happen.

I didn't read your comment in it's entirety. I would have done had you answered the question first and then explained your reasoning for agreement, disagreement or neutrality.

 

[danny842003]

What if I was never planning on buying it anyway?

That’s not what one less potential customer means.

I’ve pirated loads of stuff myself but these mental gymnastics are just wild.
Just own it we’ve all been stealing stuff since Napster.

 

[kiv.atso]

Have us watch ads and yet pay for it. Genius. And what a sad bunch of people we are to swallow that. Maddening 🤬

 

[Shanghaichica]

A necessary evil these days.

 

[macnomad]

It’s never gonna happen

True. Lots don’t seem to have anything inside them saying “don’t fall for it” or “refuse to be ripped off”. Paying to watch ads is like buying a new car to push it.

 

[macnomad]

or just purchase on 4K Blu-Ray much better quality and no ads. Hard copy is going nowhere.

Exactly. That’s what I’ve been doing. Going to my local CEX store and eBay and buying cheap blurays and then ripping them to my NAS and I have them forever. No subscription. No quality loss. Pure 4k bluray on my OLED tv is better than ANY subscription and it doesn’t cost me any more than it would paying for Netflix etc.

 

[macnomad]

Have us watch ads and yet pay for it. Genius. And what a sad bunch of people we are to swallow that. Maddening 🤬

Speak for yourself lol. I would never pay to watch ads. Ever.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

I shouldn’t be surprised that another “tech industry will revolutionize everything” just makes promises it has no idea how to keep, redirects the revenue to itself, strangles another industry & puts everyone out of work, & then has no new ideas after all and just delivers a cheaper, worse facsimile of the same product & industry it replaced. Yet another bait & switch. But the gamblers sure love it and that’s what’s important.

Yeah it’s the kids torrenting movies they wouldn’t otherwise see that are the the real scumbags here. And also going over to their friends house and watching movies they don’t each have a proper subscription to see too. And old dvd and vhs tapes, won’t somebody think of all those media viewings that aren’t turning into subscription dollars???

 

[webkit]

Have us watch ads and yet pay for it. Genius. And what a sad bunch of people we are to swallow that. Maddening 🤬

What's maddening is people who complain so much about something that is optional. No one is forced to subscribe to Netflix with ads. Subscribers can choose a Netflix ad-free plan. For those who want to save 55% over the standard (without ads) plan, the OPTION to go with an ad-supported plan is there. Newspapers, magazines, and television typically haven't given the subscription option of ad or ad-free but at least steaming services like Disney+, Hulu, Max, Netflix, etc. do.

 

[Ethosik]

Seems quite shocking so many complaints with YouTube, Netflix and every other service having ads. People much not remember cable where even if you pay quite a large fee you still get commercials.

That being said, the price hikes made me go back to physical media. I just wish Stranger Things was available in blu-ray format.

 

[Raist3001]

Pay to own a television or break into your neighbor’s house and steal theirs.
Ridiculous that the legal way gets you less value.

Pay to own a TV or break into your neighbors house and WATCH thiers. I fixed your incorrect analogy.

 

[Raist3001]

I love it when people quibble over the definition of "theft" and "piracy" - regardless of what you call it, you're depriving not only the company releasing the content of income, but those who were part of its production. There is no excuse for it, but people keep finding new ones every time the structure of media changes.

You are so right. Meanwhile we pay the price hikes, pay for better experiences like HD and Atmos, pay for better streaming, all to put more money in the pockets of the company releasing the content, those part of the production, the actors, producer, etc. Corporate greed. There is no excuse, yet there is.

 

[GizmoDVD]

Like others have mentioned, ads at the start of episodes are tolerable for me. But I find I’m unable to tolerate ads during episodes, especially when they are not at stopping points created by the producers.

Has this improved at all? The early implementations of ad-supported tiers that I experienced were awful, incredibly lazy, with scenes cut off, endings mangled, and so on. You couldn’t go back and replay something without the whole thing crashing.

I have the free Netflix sub from T Mobile and I literally see an 20 second ad in a tv show every 2-3 hours. I forgot I had a plan with ads.

View attachment 2398426
Some users here.

as opposed to just watching from your college roommate account?

 

[MacAddict1978]

$6.99 with ads or a $8.50 jump for the same identical plan without ads (2 streams, 2 device downloads, 1080P, crap sound)).... and then $23 to get 4K, Atoms, 6 device downloads, and 4 streams. It's nuts and unbalanced for sure....
I wank the 4K but refuse to pay $23/month. I need 1 stream, 1 device download. It was obscene when it was $18.99.

I join for a month once or twice a year, binge the stuff I want to watch, and then cancel. Netflix now erases your account after 3 months to discourage this so you lose your watch history and queue.

 

[MacAddict1978]

$6.99 with ads or a $8.50 jump for the same identical plan without ads (2 streams, 2 device downloads, 1080P, crap sound).... and then $23 to get 4K, Atoms, 6 device downloads, and 4 streams. It's nuts and unbalanced for sure....
I want the 4K but refuse to pay $23/month. I need 1 stream, 1 device download. It was obscene when it was $18.99.

 

[MacAddict1978]

YouTube has a free/paid model and they generated more revenue than Netflix. I wonder if Netflix would generate more revenue if they let people watch for free with ads

YouTube shows a CRAP ton of ads though, and lets creators embed banner ads in content. Most YouTube videos consumed are under 10 minutes creating a lot more opportunity for serving even more ads.

Look at Tubi, Crackle, FreeVee, etc. 100% ad supported and not bringing in huge swaths of money. When watching a movie or a TV show, you can only get away with so many ad breaks before people will just not watch. A 15 second add between binging 2-10 minute videos is perceived differently.

 

[Dephtones]

If it weren’t free for me through T-Mobile I wouldn’t have a subscription. If that goes away, I pirate. I use iptv too so I’m paying like $7 a month for every cable channel. Hope this grinds the gears of the holier than thou type.

 

[Abazigal]

YouTube has a free/paid model and they generated more revenue than Netflix. I wonder if Netflix would generate more revenue if they let people watch for free with ads

The thing about YouTube content is that they are not funded by the parent company, but instead paid out of pocket by the creators themselves. It's not as though Youtube helped to defray the cost of say, filming a MrBeast video. So ads for YouTube really represent pure profit (since they keep ½ of ad revenue). Though they probably spend more on hosting and moderation, it's probably still a drop in the bucket compared to your standard 6-8 episode season.

I don't think the two business models are remotely comparable at all.

 

[Jumpinbeans]

The clamp down on sharing was at first annoying but it's a pretty halfhearted effort at restricting people.

 

[Victor Mortimer]

There is no “value” in pirating. It makes you a common thief, no different than the guy who breaks into your car and steals your radio. I fail to see where theft can be justified under any circumstances.

 

[attila]

This is why we can't have nice things.

 

[Victor Mortimer]

YouTube shows a CRAP ton of ads though, and lets creators embed banner ads in content. Most YouTube videos consumed are under 10 minutes creating a lot more opportunity for serving even more ads.

Look at Tubi, Crackle, FreeVee, etc. 100% ad supported and not bringing in huge swaths of money. When watching a movie or a TV show, you can only get away with so many ad breaks before people will just not watch. A 15 second add between binging 2-10 minute videos is perceived differently.

Youtube has ads?

Not for me it doesn't. Let me introduce you to a few VERY helpful extensions:

uBlock Origin â Get this Extension for ð¦ Firefox (en-US)

Download uBlock Origin for Firefox. Finally, an efficient wide-spectrum content blocker. Easy on CPU and memory.

addons.mozilla.org

SponsorBlock - Skip Sponsorships on YouTube â Get this Extension for ð¦ Firefox (en-US)

Download SponsorBlock - Skip Sponsorships on YouTube for Firefox. Easily skip YouTube video sponsors. When you visit a YouTube video, the extension will check the database for reported sponsors and automatically skip known sponsors. You can also report sponsors in videos. Other browsers...

addons.mozilla.org

There you go, free and ad-free Youtube (and the rest of the internet, I don't know anybody handles unfiltered websites, they're horrible. I install uBlock Origin on every computer I touch.)

 

[Victor Mortimer]

There have been interesting points raised, and I haven’t really thought about how privacy vs theft; does distinguishing privacy from theft matter, are they both “bad” or is it by nature a degree of “badness”?

The start of my not thought-through idea: although you’re not “taking” the item from the owner, the taker is still up one item, and the owner is out one sale. Although not everyone would buy in the alternative, some would. So would the rights to the item not have lost value? A highly pirated album must surely be worth fewer USD than had the same album not been pirated, right?

I am inclined to believe, at the moment, there’s a distinction between piracy and theft. From a morality scale of 1-10 (assign either end as better or worse, doesn’t matter). Whereas morality of piracy may sit between 4 and 7, theft might occupy morality between 1 and 10. We can all imagine a person who steals out of necessity, and we can all imagine a teenager downloading a movie they’ll never be able to afford. There’s not a situation that I can conceive of where there is a piracy of necessity, nor where piracy is the equivalent of stealing the life savings of a person without earning potential.

Of course there's a distinction between piracy and theft. Theft is theft, piracy is just copying.

You want a scale of morality? Here's one:

Theft from a poor individual: 10 (ALWAYS bad unless you're starving to death and have zero other options to get food)
Theft from a rich individual: 3 - 7 (Can vary depending on circumstances)
Theft from a corporation: 2 - 5 (Lots of factors go into that, depends on what you're stealing and why.)
Theft of food from a corporation so you can eat: 0
Piracy: 0 (Copying is not and cannot be stealing, it's always morally fine)
Piracy after a corporation pulls a stunt like jacking up prices, blocking sharing, and putting in ads: NEGATIVE 10

Pirating Netflix shows right now is not just morally the right thing for you to do, it's a net positive for society. It helps send the message that their bad behavior will not be tolerated.