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The video streaming service plans to spend up to $8bn on content next year to compete with fast-growing rivals.
Netflix will issue bonds to investors, although the interest rate it will pay has yet to be decided, the company said in a statement.
Netflix plans to release 80 films next year, but some analysts are wary about its cash burn and debt interest costs.
The company's latest debt fundraising is its largest so far, and the fourth time in three years it has raised more than $1bn by issuing bonds.
Earlier this month, Netflix said it would raise prices in countries including the UK and US for the first time in two years.
Has Netflix added enough original material to make up for the licensed content they've dropped and the price increase they mean to enact?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bob_super on Tuesday October 24 2017, @11:31PM (12 children)
That's not what's gonna kill Netflix short-term.
The end of Net neutrality, bringing low-low caps on anything not rubber-stamped by Comcast or ATT will, at least in the US.
Netflix will have to raise their prices to pay off the ISPs, until they're just one more cable-like choice...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @11:39PM (1 child)
It will free people to search for new ways to pass data around.
Email, wikipedia reading, txt messaging, etc., doesn't need 10 Gbps down/up links, or even wired last-mile networking.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday October 24 2017, @11:56PM
There's also avian carriers
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Tuesday October 24 2017, @11:49PM (4 children)
I don't think so.
People are slowly but steadily leaving cable TV as the oldest generation dies out, and younger generations don't see the value in something where they can't skip the commercials (without a DVR), can't pick what to watch when, it has an utterly archaic UI, etc. But people are showing that they're perfectly happy to spend good money on streaming services: Netflix, Amazon video, iTunes/Apple, and now with Star Trek: Discovery, CBS has found people are perfectly willing to sign up in hordes for a $6/month service just to watch a single big-budget TV show with angry, unlikeable characters that are at each others' throats (STD is such a success that CBS has already renewed it for a 2nd season).
There's a lot of leeway for Netflix to jack up its prices: it could cost just as much as a premium cable subscription and lots of people will stick with it, because it still offers a level of service that you'll never get with cable TV: a convenient web interface that even keeps track of which episodes you've watched, for instance, with descriptions, suggestions, etc., and truly on-demand viewing at very high video-quality levels. You just won't ever get that with cable TV; the technology is archaic and obsolete and can't be changed. Now that people have had a taste of this, they don't want to go back to the old concept of "channels" and "timeslots", and they sure as hell don't want to watch commercials. So Netflix has a lot of room to raise prices, and people have shown that they're willing to spend a lot of money on digital services billed monthly: XM radio, Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, etc.
Personally, I canceled my Netflix sub a while ago because I just wasn't using it much, and didn't appreciate stuff constantly coming and going, and so much stuff being DVD-only, but apparently most people are still happy to subscribe.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday October 25 2017, @12:53AM (1 child)
I love Netflix, except for how small their library is. When something new comes out that I find I like I'll binge the whole series, then there's nothing else worth watching until something else good comes out.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday October 25 2017, @02:23PM
There's a new season of Stranger Things on friday. Resub!
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday October 25 2017, @06:02PM (1 child)
...and didn't appreciate stuff constantly coming and going...
Of course, if they make their own content, it doesn't need to come and go anymore.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday October 25 2017, @07:03PM
Right, but it's silly to think that one production company is going to make all the stuff I'll want to watch, so instead we'll wind up with lots of different, incompatible streaming services, and you'll have to have subscriptions to all of them just because there's one (and only one) show on each you want to watch (CBS All Access, HBO Go, etc.).
The whole point of Netflix was that they'd have pretty much everything you wanted to watch in one place, for one monthly price.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday October 24 2017, @11:57PM (4 children)
Netflix's per-subscriber bandwidth costs are lessening over time.
Bandwidth is still getting cheaper, equipment gets better although you have to buy it, and new video standards [wikipedia.org] lower the bitrate.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday October 25 2017, @12:01AM (3 children)
None of which matters if the big ISPs want you dead and throttle you, with the FCC's blessing.
Anticompetitive practices are not delusions, conspiracies or speculation, but proven historical facts.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday October 25 2017, @02:28AM (1 child)
Take your net neutrality shilling elsewhere. Netflix made peace with big cable years ago, which is why they no longer care about the issue. They colocate "Netflix in a box" appliances in all the ISP central offices. Cable boxes are building in Netflix support so you don't even need a third party device (i.e. Roku/XBox) to watch so they can keep you in their UI. Soon enough Netflix won't even count toward your bandwidth cap. And of course that means the cable co can see what you watch. Netflix is well on the road to becoming another HBO and the cable companies are all too happy to assist that transition. They know how to monetize that. Soon you will be able to subscribe to Netflix through the cable company like you do HBO and have it all on one bill.
People think the cable company is obsolete. Nah, they own the pipe most people would use to watch any replacement with, as any of them get big they will partner up with them as just another content outlet, exactly like they carry HBO, Showtime, NICK, CNN, FNC, etc. Netflix will eventually just be another tranche of on demand programming merged into their menus. And if you have the Tivo co-branded cable box / DVR it will even look and work nice. And to make the convergence complete, don't be shocked when a NetFlix channel pops up on your channel grid snuggled in with the other premium channels.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday October 25 2017, @04:22PM
You're looking at it backwards, unsurprisingly.
Netflix wants to go straight to the consumer, not be just another HBO.
Big cable can't prevent it under Net Neutrality rules, so they Embrace for now, to reduce cord-cutting. Big cable owns HBO, showtime and the others. Netflix is an annoying competitor threatening the oligopoly and its fat margins.
As soon as your ISP, who wants to sell you their own overpriced video service, is no longer required to treat Netflix packets fairly, why the fuck would they?
Netflix would need to be as profitable for the ISPs as their own service, then the bean counters would point out that not investing their own money is better. But being as expensive as HBO without getting the newest Hollywood blockbusters? Why would the customers watch?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 25 2017, @02:14PM
I can't remember who it is but someone on SN has this sig: "It's not a conspiracy, it's a plot!"