Netflix Cuts 150 US-based Jobs After Losing Subscribers
BBC:
Netflix has laid off about 150 staff, just a month after the entertainment giant said it was losing subscribers for the first time in a decade.
The redundancies, announced by the streaming service on Tuesday, will mainly affect its US office in California. They account for about 2% of its North American workforce.
Netflix said the job losses were due to the slump in the company's revenue.
The streaming service is battling an exodus of viewers this year.
Is Netflix losing subscribers to increased competition in streaming, to customers cutting costs in hard economic times, or to customer saturation and/or discontent with Netflix's library?
Layoffs at Netflix
The DRM site, Netflix is laying off many employees due to a downturn in revenue. The layoffs will be mostly in the US and account for about 2% of the employees. They are also being sued by investors over excessively optimistic subscription levels. They are also expected to start pushing advertisements into their streams soon, using the suspicious label "ad-tolerant" to describe the target market for ad-burdened streams. The advertisements are likely to arrive towards the end of this year. The official statement blames "password sharing" rather than a dearth of interesting content for the downturn combined with rapidly rising prices.
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Netflix has already raised its prices recently while at the same time more rival services have begun adding live streams further cutting into Netflix's market share. Netflix is also known for its legacy of encumbering web browsers, and the operating systems the run in, with DRM.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Friday May 20 2022, @01:07PM (11 children)
Shame for netflix to fail - it is fighting against amazon non-competitive practices (bundling books, video, free delivery +) and embedded content providers (looking at disney). On the other hand they never pushed any stuff I wanted to watch so I never subscribed...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 20 2022, @02:17PM (3 children)
Yes, all of the above. However, I'd say Netflix is far from failing. I subscribed about 25 years ago and have maintained the basic cheapest tier account continuously since then. Netflix is my version of cable, something to switch on and be entertained by - not a "big event movie viewing experience" most of the time, and as such it has been consistently far less expensive than any commercial filled basic cable subscription, and also cheaper than the softporn relatively ad-free "premium" channels like Showtime, HBO, etc. that charge on top of an already too expensive cable subscription.
My viewing history only goes back to 2007 (is that when streaming started?) and has 4262 entries, my wife's account has 3445. 180 months, call it $20 per month (though it was a bit less, maybe not when adjusted for inflation), that's $3600 - so less than $0.50 per show, and most importantly: on demand, no ads. Most of the time we will sit down and watch a movie on Netflix, but sometimes it's just background noise. Reviewing the viewing history, it looks like about 2/3 of the line items are series, usually binged in the space of a week or so.
If you want to see a particular movie, patronize your local theater - we do that about 2 times a year on average. It's expensive, but it's an entirely different experience.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday May 20 2022, @02:42PM (2 children)
My wife and I used to have separate accounts. Then, prices increased and multiple people could use the same account, so we consolidated. I used to let my brother borrow our account, until he got his own. (He could have afforded his own account at any time, but was mostly not in the USA. He only used it when he was state side.) Now, prices are increasing some more and they're introducing a "cheaper" "ad-supported" pricing tier. We're already canceling / have canceled our Disney+ account, thinking seriously about canceling our Netflix account next, and Amazon may be next. We're using Amazon enough for the shipping alone to be worth it, so we may keep it a bit longer.
We've had at least one account on Netflix since before they were a streaming service. They are pretty much the reason why there are any streaming video platforms. Also, Netflix killed Blockbuster, pretty much single handed and they were the first to seriously invest in and excel in streaming video for consumers. They've only got so much goodwill and they've mostly burned through it.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 20 2022, @05:50PM
I think they've _finally_ pushed their luck too far and they're getting _some_ subscriber pullback as a result. They've _got_ to be approaching market saturation in the U.S. at least, they'd have subscriber pullback sooner or later even if they did everything possible to please the consumers. They pulled some kind of subscriber alienating stunt ~15 years ago and managed through that without getting their share price dinged for more than a quarter. Of _course_ I should have started investing $5 a month in Netflix stock back when I first signed up for DVD rentals in 1997, I shudder to think what that rate of return would be today - probably approaching a well timed TSLA investment lately. Any time I looked at Netflix stock price it was unreasonably high relative to even 2x current subscriber and income raw numbers, but it always outgrew expectations, until now.
We may have seen the end of Netflix's perpetual exponential growth, but that doesn't mean they won't continue as a viable enterprise for at least another 25 years. They can take their ad supported tier and shove it where the screens don't shine, and just because I've been a loyal customer for 25 years doesn't mean I won't switch to a better / cheaper service in a heartbeat, I just haven't seen one yet.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2022, @06:31PM
what a bunch of dumb-ass race traitor slaves.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday May 20 2022, @02:33PM (1 child)
Netflix is sliding down the slope of Greedy Businesses. Yes, Netflix could be something great. No, they're not getting better with age. Would be nice, if they stuck to their "No Advertisements!" idealism. Instead, they're following the likes of Google's "Don't Be Evil" strike, with their own "the people just can't bear the thought of never seeing another advertisement", we shall fix that with a new "cheaper" "advertisement sponsored" tier of service.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Touché) by canopic jug on Friday May 20 2022, @03:41PM
The "cheaper", ad-based tier will probably just be the old basic tier renamed plus infected with ads. Then they will likely just raise the prices on all the other tiers instead. That will drive even more people away, and to make up for it in the short term, they'll raise prices again, entering a feedback loop leading to irrelevance and then insolvency. Instead, they could invest the money in basic service, but that's unlikely to enter the mind of an MBA.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Friday May 20 2022, @02:44PM (2 children)
Don't think the "bundling" free delivery, music and books etc. is the issue with Amazon - more that Amazon use the "included with Prime" part as a loss leader to promote other, paid content (even the "full" music and books services are extra). If you avoid being lured into spending extra money, though, the "included with prime" video offering is pretty decent, and I find myself using it more than Netflix.
Both Netflix and Amazon are suffering from Disney+ and other content producers starting their own streaming services, decimating their back catalogues. Also, a lot of productions have been delayed by the dreaded lurgy....
The nice thing about Netflix is, once you open their App, if it's there it's included. The nasty thing about Netflix is charging higher subscriptions for (limited) 4k content, and responding to the "boom" period of the last few years by generously increasing their prices... They're in danger of pricing themselves out of the market.
I suspect they'll take a further nosedive when "Stranger Things" has finished (which is the point at which I plan to give them a rest for a year or so & try Disney Plus for a while).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Friday May 20 2022, @03:05PM
Disney Plus has a good number of interesting things. Though, I mostly just used it to catch up on the Marvel series of stuff. I have purposely avoided everything Star Wars related after having watched Episode IX. Disney decided to nuke the whole series from orbit as far as I'm concerned. Rogue One and Solo were both rather decent in my opinion. Episode IX had tons of "nostalgia" + "ooo shiny" thrown in, but the story was cliche and the ending was stupid. Also, if you kill off a main character. Please don't do it in such an utterly stupid fashion, thanks. Helps, if the evil villain, comes across as evil. As opposed to a spoiled rotten brat. It wasn't the actor's fault either, because there was a stupidly good Saturday Night Live "Undercover Boss" skit with his character. Which was 99.999% better than the entirety of Episode IX.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday May 20 2022, @09:05PM
Disney+: all of the Star Wars movies, plus new Star Wars material.
Paramount+, same thing only Star Trek instead of Star Wars.
Netflix? Well, they have some halfway decent WWII documentaries...
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 20 2022, @04:13PM
I had Netflix since it came out. Over the years it got worse but still had stuff available. It got.more expensive but still not too much. Then Netflix adaptations started, it began to grind my gears. But the Cuties pished it ober the top. They got a swift cancelling and a long ranty email from my wife. Good ridence to that piece of shit. You think I went to any of these other grooming services? No. I will not touch anything with a '+' in the name. Amazon Prime I still have, but there have been instances where their shows have not been kosher by my standards, like the new Clifford series.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday May 20 2022, @09:01PM
I have Amazon Prime, but seldom watch anything there; I have it for shipping but they count me as a subscriber. I have my daughter's Netflix, and they're simply inferior to Disney+ and Paramount+. Disney and Paramount run rings around them, and cost far less; Netflix wants an extra $5 for 4K, it's in the base price for Disney+ and Disney really knows how to do 4K; theirs are far superior. Patty was paying for 4K for my sake as her TV isn't 4K, I had her cut it back to 1080 because Netflix just can't compete with Disney or Paramount. They have done movies for over a century and actually know how to make quality movies. Netflix is an infant.
The first is the worst. They stupidly ignored their competition, charging Cadillac prices for their Chevy Vega. Highest price and lowest quality guarantees they'll go bankrupt unless they get their shit together. Their own greed is what's killing them.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 20 2022, @01:13PM (6 children)
If you look at the SJW crap like "The Great" that they're spewing out, it's no wonder they're losing subscribers.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 20 2022, @01:25PM (1 child)
Yes, get woke, go broke. Unfortunately, the wokies screw up a lot of people's lives in the process.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2022, @05:32PM
"Yes, get woke"
Wait, aren't you also the ones that whine about corporations going "woke"? Standard fascist rhetoruc, the enemy is weak but also a force to be scared of. The irony of anyone getting mad about social justice us too much ;^D
(Score: 5, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 20 2022, @03:21PM (1 child)
TRIGGERED by a historical comedy about Catherin the Great that isn't even on Netflix....
Please tell us more about how you definitely aren't projecting right now!
(Score: 1, Disagree) by mcgrew on Friday May 20 2022, @09:08PM
I marked him as "troll" because only trolls are against justice.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 20 2022, @04:28PM
I kind of wonder how many of the laid off folks were vocally progressive? Netflix's tokenism has been a bad joke for quite a while, but they seem to be turning their backs on that.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 21 2022, @12:24AM
woke indeed
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10837347/Netflix-layoffs-hit-staff-working-original-content-marginalized-communities.html [dailymail.co.uk]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 20 2022, @01:54PM (2 children)
Well duh, people are spending less time indoors than they did in 2020.
A drop in streaming is expected.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 20 2022, @03:14PM
That plus there is a lot more competition now.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday May 20 2022, @09:10PM
A drop in streaming doesn't mean a drop in subscriptions, but higher quality competition at a lower price does.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 20 2022, @05:15PM
Netflix used to have everything. It was so good people would just cut cable and watch it. If you weren't into live events (sports) it was a viable option. But that was the beginning of the end. Hollywood needs about a hundred per household to stay swimming in hookers and blow and a Netflix sub couldn't do that, it was only supposed to be an "over the top" service added to a cable sub.
So all the studios launched their own service and pulled their catalog, leaving Netflix with mostly really old stuff and the self produced woke drek. Now you need subs to all of the streamers and either cable (sports) or one of the new streaming replacements. Most people are paying even more for worse "entertainment."
Hopefully the recent small signs of sanity at Netflix promises a rebirth, make content people actually want to watch. What a concept. And yes, the ad supported tier is sensible, most people watched regular TV and basic cable and were willing to make that trade, ads for a lower price. If only modern ads were so vile and stupid!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday May 20 2022, @07:25PM (10 children)
I have been a big fan of Netflix for years. After they removed old movies from the library I didn't mind too much because I had already seen all of them several times, and because they started to produce their own content. Some of that new content was meh, like Bright, and some was good like Stranger Things. But there was enough to hold our interest.
Then for a while they brought in productions shot in other languages against different cultural tableaux and that was interesting. There was something neat about watching a show shot in Istanbul in Turkish and catching glimpses of places we had been on our honeymoon. They had several series and movies in Russian that had a different perspective I hadn't seen before. It was good and it re-awakened my dormant love for other languages.
But two or three years ago they began to inflect everything they did with the Woke ideology, and it was so contrived, so paint-by-numbers, so shrill and preachy, that it soured the milk. It was like waking up one day and discovering that the Nazis or the Maoists or some other band of extremists had taken over the company.
Just, no thank you. When one-note extremists get up in my face and start frothing at the mouth, my natural reaction is to punch them in the teeth. So, they lost us, and the sad thing for them is that they lost my kids, too; they would rather play Roblox or watch TikTok videos than sit down for the boring, long-form content that only the elderly like us would watch.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by mcgrew on Friday May 20 2022, @09:14PM (9 children)
"Woke" means awake and aware, and you're against that? What is an anti-intellectual doing on S/N? As to Nazis, have you seen Fox news lately? Unamerican garbage nobody with an IQ over 85 could stomach.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2, Interesting) by tizan on Saturday May 21 2022, @03:19AM (1 child)
Some of the racists with loudspeakers have decided to make words like woke or antifascists bad things.
Being for gender equality or racial justice are good things...
So instead of saying they are racists or do not want gender fairness..(i.e they want go back to pre 1950..where the woman knew her place at home and colored people were not uppity....etc) they assign a word "woke" some bad connotation and keep hammering on it on everything ... how netflix downturn is associated to being non racist is weird. you don't like their content fine ...that is why disney+ is booming.
So you claim that disney+ or paramount+ are less woke...have you seen the simpsons or star wars or startrek !
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday May 21 2022, @05:09PM
I'd mod you offtopic, if I didn't think what you said merited repeating. Now someone please mod me offtopic, because I am.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Sunday May 22 2022, @12:09AM (1 child)
That is not what "woke" encapsulates, and well you know it. "Woke" is a wrapper, a doubling down on pandering that refines political correctness to absurdity. It is a unique form of doublethink that deceives white liberals into thinking that if they apologize hard enough that minorities will stop saying mean things about them long enough that they can get into their limousines and drive off to their beach homes. Meanwhile, they keep on keepin' on with the same policies and tropes that deny political captives real opportunity so that they can actually be real equals in society.
It doesn't work. And let me be the first to tell you that nobody that the Woke are pandering to buy it. They all know it's BS. Humans can be fooled about a great many things often, but they have a remarkable ability to know when somebody or something is full of shit. Wokeism is full of shit.
But let's throw out a few practical measures to illustrate. When you start accusing Dave Chappelle of being a white supremacist, maybe, just maybe, you're the one who's full of it. When you start trying to cancel JK Rowling for saying that there is such a thing as a real woman, which is as obvious as pointing out the sky is blue, then maybe, just maybe, you're the one who's full of it. When you lose Bill Maher, maybe, just maybe, you're the one who's full of it.
So maybe it's time for the Red Guards driving this Cultural Revolution to pause and begin self-criticisms of their own. If you start calling up "down" and down "up," you've lost the plot.
Oh, apologies. You were probably expecting a different response because I'm an "anti-intellectual." Here you go: Woke Bad.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Touché) by mcgrew on Sunday May 22 2022, @06:08PM
Odd, your definition of the word bears no resemblance to what either Webster's or the OED says.
... It is a unique form of doublethink that deceives white liberals into thinking that if they apologize hard enough that minorities will stop saying mean things about them...
Wow, where do you radicals come up with this insanity? Minorities aren't saying mean things about you, they're demanding that YOU TREAT THEM LIKE HUMAN BEINGS, like their lives matter, and stop lying about history.
I, an old man who votes for candidates rather than parties, vehemently dislike radicals from either wing. BTW, you may not realize it, but your words gave your racism away. I guess racism is more acceptable now that the former Klansman-in-chief was head of the government.
Humans can be fooled about a great many things often, but they have a remarkable ability to know when somebody or something is full of shit.
I certainly don't see that in you. I see a right wing radical who thinks anybody who isn't is a right wing radical is a radical lefty. I see a brainwashed fool.
When you start accusing Dave Chappelle of being a white supremacist, maybe, just maybe, you're the one who's full of it.
Excuse me while I look him up... holy shit, you ARE insane, now I know where I heard the name. What moron is calling a Black man a White supremacist? I'm old and retired and watch the news a couple times a day, and read most of the English language newspapers and have once to hear anyone calling any Black person a White supremacist! Cancel JK Rowling? Do you have links to any of this horse shit??
So maybe it's time for the Red Guards driving this Cultural Revolution to pause and begin self-criticisms of their own.
Red Guard? Your peerless (thank God) leader said Putin was a genius for invading Ukraine. In case you haven't heard, Putin is a COMMUNIST who hates democracy and freedom, and you far right yahoos are the ones wanting to take away any rights you disagree people should have, COMRADE COMMIE.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by The Vocal Minority on Sunday May 22 2022, @11:56AM (3 children)
I'm sure you're aware that the term "Woke" is used somewhat ironically here. Don't be so disingenuous, you are better than that.
(Score: 3, Touché) by mcgrew on Sunday May 22 2022, @06:13PM (2 children)
It's simply my opinion that "woke" as an insult is brain dead stupid. It's a real word with a dictionary definition and attempting to change its meaning is dishonest, and I see that far too often these days. I'm pointing out to idiots that they're stupid. Changing the meaning of words ("freedom is slavery") is something Orwell warned us about.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by The Vocal Minority on Monday May 23 2022, @02:42PM (1 child)
Yeah, I think I spoke to you before about how you need to forge broad alliances if you want to do something about reforming your county's health care system. This isn't it.
Also, equating colloquial usage of a term with Orwellian language manipulation, because it doesn't match the dictionary definition of the word, is kind of odd. And somewhat worrying. You don't identify as woke yourself do you? I don't think you are.
Although woke doesn't trace it's origins directly to the Stalinism that Orwell was critiquing, it is much closer ideologically than is the broad church of anti-woke. There is a direct line of reasoning from some of the old Frankfurt School theorist to the modern day woke intelligentsia. I think it would be much more accurate to say that it is they who are engaged in the Orwellian language manipulation.
The Classic example of course being the term "White Supremacist". Once it was a description of people who explicitly held the view that Europeans were inherently superior to those with a heritage that includes ancestors from other parts of the world, now it is anyone who disagrees with the woke position on race. Of course there is some twisted logic that justifies this, generally invoking false consciousness because they, of course, know what's going on in your head better than you do. So wonderfully insufferable. The term "woke" is well deserved.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2022, @05:36PM
"Although woke doesn't trace it's origins directly to the Stalinism that Orwell was critiquing, it is much closer ideologically than is the broad church of anti-woke."
I love when rightwingers attempt academic rigor. Major Jordan Peterson vibes here, pro-tip do not get put into a medically induced coma instead of doing the hard work of addiction withdrawal yourself! Don't be like Jay Pee!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2022, @06:36PM
You're a stupid disgusting bitch. Maybe after some dumb Nigger rapes your daughter you'll understand. It's way more likely than you've been brainwashed to believe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 20 2022, @11:38PM
just saying...