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Netflix Loses A Million Subscribers In Spain After Greedy Password Sharing Crackdown:
We've noted repeatedly how Netflix's password sharing crackdown is a stupid cash grab that alienates and annoys loyal customers, duplicates existing efforts to restrict "freeloaders," won't give the company the financial windfall it thinks, and just generally represents how the company has inevitably shifted from innovative disruptor to the kind of tone deaf cable giants it used to criticize.
The plan basically involves charging users an extra $2-$3 a month if it's found that someone is using your account outside of your home. The problem: Netflix has already been imposing blanket price hikes, and it already limits the number of simultaneously streams per account, forcing users to subscribe to more expensive tiers if they want to expand the limit.
While the crackdown isn't expected to hit U.S. subscribers until the end of the second quarter (aka soon), the effort has generally been a hot mess in the smaller countries Netflix first used as guinea pigs to test both the underlying tech and company messaging.
The company had to suspend the efforts in countries like Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic, after users were equal parts befuddled and annoyed. And in Spain, estimates are that the company saw a defection of more than one million subscribers largely due to the higher, unnecessary fees:
"There are of course inherent risks with clamping down on password sharing, particularly when back in 2017 Netflix was seen to be actively encouraging it. Some users were expected to be lost in the process but losing over 1 million users in a little over a month has major implications for Netflix and whether it decides to continue with its crackdown globally.
Interestingly, there is no strong demographic skew to those who cancelled, signaling a more outright rejection of the password sharing clampdown. In a worrying sign for the next quarter, 10% of remaining Netflix subscribers say they plan to cancel their plan in Q2 2023, which is well above the average seen in previous quarters."
(Score: 0, Troll) by DadaDoofy on Thursday May 04, @04:20PM (6 children)
(Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 04, @04:31PM (2 children)
>If these thieves are forced to pay their fare share rather the getting a free ride, maybe prices for those of us who do pay won't go up as fast.
Dream on.
Microsoft also allowed, nay: encouraged, massive piracy of their OS and common software suites all through the '90s and well into the 2000s. It's not that they "couldn't stop the thieves," it was a marketing move pure and simple: grab market share by allowing free use of their product (which cost them next to nothing), then try to squeeze it for money where they can later. Worked pretty well.
Prices will go up just as fast as those setting the prices can get away with. https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-is-inflation-so-sticky-it-could-be-corporate-profits-b78d90b7 [wsj.com]
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday May 04, @06:47PM (1 child)
While prices get forced up by inflation, prices get lowered by competition, and competition is stifled by regulation that was "intended" to stop big companies from being "bad" because complying with regulations is a huge hurdle to small companies (big companies can afford compliance). Thus, big companies can can do more "bad" things, causing people to push for more regulation, and the cycle of life continues.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 04, @06:57PM
>and the cycle of life continues.
Always. Takes money to make money. Rich get richer, poor get poorer. Regulation stifles competition. Lack of regulation encourages (more) abuses.
Make me king of the world (and immortal, while you are at it, because the best plans take time...): Transparency is my answer. Transparency in business practices, transparency in government, etc. That, and boiling frogs - fast change is painful and creatures will resist it. Slow change allows adaptation and also course correction to improve outcomes.
With radically increased transparency, I believe we would build majority political support for driving down income inequality, raising the minimum standards of living, protecting the environment, peace, love, harmony, and a pretty pony for anyone who wants one and will care for it properly: transparency at work.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04, @08:16PM
Oh, so it is stealing now [techcrunch.com]?
I can forgive people when a company, and MS did this too, happily encourages sharing only up until they achieve market saturation, then turn around and suddenly claim it as theft.
So, yes, greedy (or more likely, desperate for chasing that investor "constantly growing earnings" nonsense).
(Score: 5, Interesting) by cmdrklarg on Thursday May 04, @08:29PM
Oh do piss off with the "stealing" hyperbole.
I'll bet the vast majority of them are like me: I pay for 2 screens @ 1080p, have been for a long time. It would be me and my son each with our own profile watching on different screens.
Now that he's at college, that situation has not changed. Our usage hasn't changed over those years, while their prices have gone up and up and up. Their costs have not risen a cent now that he happens to be 300 miles from my home.
I'd have cancelled by now if he wasn't still using it. The day they insist upon this is the day I cancel. He might get his own, then again he may not.
I'd love it if they'd let you pay for number of simultaneous streams, and then pay for whatever resolution you want (i.e. 1 stream @ 4K or 3 streams @ 1080p). But that would be a useful change, and we can't have that.
Besides, do you really think this will affect how often they raise prices? If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you...
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by r_a_trip on Friday May 05, @02:25PM
You really don't know how these things work right? You are already paying for all of the streams you get with your subscription. It's not like you can use more streams than you are entitled to simultaneously. There is no "theft" here. If you pay for 5 streams and you use 5 streams, that is what the subscription offers. Does it matter if it is Joe, Dick or Harriet watching and where?
Netflix is not going to lower prices or give you the option to purchase the amount of streams you want. They are banking on you wanting 4K streams and then they give you 5 streams and charge you full price for that. They very well know that 5 simultaneous streams is overprovisioned for most households. So they charge you for stuff you won't use.
Enter password sharing. What is netflix not getting? They are getting the money for the streams. No single stream is used twice simultaneously. So they are technically getting paid for what they are offering. But that is not what they want. They want you to pay for overprovisioned packages, which are only available in fixed bundles. So they can claim to give you much for a reasonable price, but when all subscriptions are using all 5 streams, they cry foul and mention theft.
What Netflix wants is for everybody to pay for the maximum amount of streams and then banking on only one or two being used. So they can maximise profit while underprovisioning their infrastructure. Password sharing forces them to deliver on what they sold, which is 5 simultaneous streams per subscription and that is driving up their cost and lowering their profit and that is why they are cracking down on password sharing.