200,000 users abandon Netflix after crackdown backfires::Aussies have spoken, and the results are not looking good for Netflix. A new report reveals why users are turning to streaming competitors.

379 points

This article is specifically about Australia. Globally, Netflix added 5.9 million subscribers after their password-sharing crackdown.

I hate to say it, but the crackdown worked exactly as intended.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66240390

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160 points
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iirc, they launched in new countries at the same time, skewing the result quite a bit. Probably intentional to say “see? it worked”

Edit: can’t quite find a source for it. Might have been somthing I misread. Take with a grain of salt

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99 points

Not to mention that they did start with the narrative that they start enforcing this on a certain date, but it took me 2 months over that to receive the warning/being locked out. I remember seeing people from Canada (one of the countries in the first wave) that still had not been forced off 4 months into the date they had set.

They appear to be taking it slow (not booting off everyone at the same time) to build this narrative that it’s working fantastically so to not get a massive drop off in users (stock price drop) and waiting out for their competition to also move forward with this change. All of this while also adding more markets, dropping the prices in others and removing the cheaper plans.

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47 points

Yeah, it’s not like people quit because Netflix said they’ll crack down.

They’ll quit after Netflix hassles them a couple times for it.

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3 points
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2 points

As far as I’m aware, our account for the notification once, my wife exited it without doing anything, and everyone is still able to access it to this day.

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24 points

It probably did work though. We had some relatives piggy-backing off of our top tier 20 year old account when we got shut down last August in what must have been beta testing for the program. We cancelled our account. I’m not sure how many of the relatives ended up getting their own accounts but the poorest and least able to afford an additional monthly charge went and signed right up, so they were at at least a net zero change in subs there (though they signed up for the cheapest option).

People are just disappointing.

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-2 points

There’s probably a reason they’re the poorest

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8 points

I was looking at sky sports in the UK and the majority of their packages had “free Netflix” offers included. I wonder if enough of those signs ups would have influenced the numbers?

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4 points

I don’t know about launching in new countries, but a lot of the new subscribers were added in countries where Netflix is cheaper so while they did add a lot of subscribers the revenue increase wasn’t large.

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33 points

And yet their stock dropped massively after revealing the 5 million gain because investors realize that it was a one time boost that won’t help them in the long run.

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16 points

They essentially showed the market their firm cap for revenue, and the market was like ‘uhh thats it?’

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6 points

None of that is based on reality anyways.

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1 point
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Dropped massively?

Are you looking at the gains in the past three years because what you’re saying versus reality isn’t true at all.

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16 points
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I live in multiple places with each stay lasting about three months. So far Netflix has not given me shit about it. It just asks me if I want to movey home address. As long as it continues to let me move around, we’re cool. The moment it decides that I have to open a separate account per home, I am out. I watch Paramount+ the most anyway.

EDIT: Honestly, the real conversation should be how mid Netflix original content is most of the time. Their best shit is stuff they import.

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4 points

I have a similar lifestyle thanks to work and Netflix did exactly what will make you cancel. Whatever you do, don’t set it up on your home smart TV because that’s the thing that screwed up my account. Suddenly, I had to create new accounts for every random hotel I was living in for months at a time or go home every 30 days to reconnect to my home WiFi. I cancelled as soon as the account I paid for, that I didn’t share outside my household suddenly stopped working. As an aside, I wonder how this effects other traveling people: truckers, military families, traveling nurses, or air crew.

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16 points
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“Yes, I’d love to pay even more money for even shittier service. Thank you!”

-People apparently

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10 points

Every time Netflix was in the front page of reddit, I’d check my Netflix stock.

My Netflix stock keeps increasing. The first so called “massive exodus” took it from $140 to $220. It’s currently over $400.

So… Yeah.

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7 points

I was going to post the same, thank you. I hate it but this has caused dramatically more signups

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3 points

the ad supported subscription cost less, so I wonder if they are still making as much money

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11 points
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Supposedly, Netflix makes more from the ads tier:

In Q2, as in the previous quarter, Netflix’s advertising tier generated higher average revenue per user (ARPU) overall than the Standard ad-free plan ($15.49/month), implying more than $8.50/month in ad revenue per subscriber, Neumann said.

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4 points

I wouldn’t be surprised if the ad supported tier made more money than the cheapest ad-free tier. Ads are a huge business.

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2 points

Yes, and Disney+ said they will do the same

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2 points

wow, surprising in a way but i guess people just want easy access to content to binge

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4 points

It costs less to add a household than it does to have two subscriptions. Netflix was at least somewhat smart about it.

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2 points
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-1 points

Some people are motivated to help others.

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1 point

Cable cost hundreds and still had ads, people won’t give a fuck over 20$ if that means relative ease of watching season 57 of Big Mouth

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2 points

The only people down voting this are people who haven’t been on cable in years and have no idea how bad it is.

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1 point
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I hate to say it, but the crackdown worked exactly as intended.

Of course it did. Why wouldn’t it? It’s not like anyone is thinking “oh my grandson’s friend can’t use my account for free anymore, I’m going to cancel my subscription now!”. All while Netflix is dramatically reducing their server load costs.

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1 point
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Maybe. It’s just the start right? How many will keep those subscriptions? What about when they raise costs again? I’ve had a Netflix account for a really really long time. I was even grandfathered into a plan at one point. Eventually was forced into coughing up more and more money, getting less and less for it. It wasn’t just the password sharing. It was the way they keep running their business, and how it’s going across the whole streaming system. I cancelled my service a few days ago after over a decade of service.

On top of this all: 🤬 ads. I’m so sick of being bombarded literally everywhere. From Products I buy and bring home, to being outside of the house. I’m sick of being a cash cow and getting ’trickle down’ wages and dealing with inflation. So yeah. 🖕 Netflix.

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88 points

Thanks for posting this. I almost forgot to cancel my subscription to Netflix. Thanks for the reminder 🙂

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72 points

Yep, cancelled the subscription we shared among my dad, brother and I. Most outrageous fact was that I actually have two residential addresses (private and an apartment provided by my company near the office), and even as account owner I was being inconvenienced with the “are you travelling” bullshit.

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9 points

That drove me nuts.

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67 points
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I used to use my dad’s account. Now I just don’t use Netflix. So far im not missing much.

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24 points

I also use your Dad’s account tell him to stop messing up my Cuties re-watch.

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12 points

Which episode were we on?

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64 points

Is that a lot? What %?

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22 points
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According to the same company (Telsyte) Netflix had about 6 Million subscribers in 2021. So that would make about 3% losses in subscribers.

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6 points

I yin the 200k is just Aussie subscribers though? Or are you saying they also had 6 million new aussie ones?

The article isn’t 100% clear, but it says “get lost 200k”. They the next sentence “the first time they’ve lost aussie subscribers”

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4 points

It is pretty clear the article is talking about Australian subscribers.

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0 points
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2 points

Wtf. Netflix has 100s of millions of subscribers.

Subscriber count has been in slow decline since 2021.

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17 points

In Australia.

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9 points
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