alt Hacker NewsCue up people shouting about how this is horrible and that they're totally going to cancel, only to be followed by Netflix making even more money next quarter.
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Well they'd have to lose a huge percentage of people for this not to be profitable quarter over quarter. But it likely cuts in to future growth substantially.
And with what seems to now be an unavoidable economic storm as in-transit tankers dock and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz starts to be felt, there might be a larger than normal amount of people looking to cut costs in the coming year.
Or maybe not, people seem to have stopped responding to economic pressure by cutting costs in the US! When vacations got super expensive, people still spent, and increased their complaining. We will see what happens in 2026.
Customer resentment is slow to build up, but once the inertia is visible it's usually too late.
Speaking from experience, I had Netflix for years without thinking about it, starting at $8/month. At that price I didn't care if I watched it or not. Then it went to $10, $12, etc. Once it got to $15-16 (I forget), I cancelled it.
I now sign up for 1-2 months a year to catch up on shows I like and just rotate which streaming services I have. Yes, this is anecdotal.
It's hard to find data on how common rotating streaming services is. I would guess not common. I found this from 2021 showing the number of streaming services the average US household has [1]. It's worth noting that this was based on lockdown-era data.
The number if still quite high. I still have 3-4 mainly because my ISP gives me 1 and Amazon Prime bundles it. Were it not for those, I'd probably stick with 2. This is imperfect data because is it the same 4 or are some or all of these rotated? We just don't know.
Most of the data around this is how streaming is cannibalizing satellite and cable. But at this rate Netflix will cost $30+ in 10-15 years. Will it still have growing revenue and the same subscriber numbers? There is price elasticity here.
[1]: https://www.thewrap.com/u-s-households-with-4-streaming-serv...
Do you think they think they're going to meaningfully effect Netflix's bottom line?
Or are they just trying to chat online about the purchase decision topic at hand?
You do realize capitalism can continue as long as there's at least 1 customer and they keep buying?
I canceled about two years ago. Most of the stuff on netflix has already been watched. The new content is hit or miss.
Better off paying for Disney and downloading the rest.