Netflix Tells Employees Ads May Come by the End of 2022 (nytimes.com) 94
Netflix could introduce its lower-priced ad-supported tier by the end of the year, a more accelerated timeline than originally indicated, the company told employees in a recent note. From a report: In the note, Netflix executives said that they were aiming to introduce the ad tier in the final three months of the year, according to two people who shared details of the communication, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe internal company discussions. The note also said that they were planning to begin cracking down on password sharing among its subscriber base around the same time, the people said.
Last month, Netflix stunned the media industry and Madison Avenue when it revealed that it would begin offering a lower-priced subscription featuring ads, after years of publicly stating that commercials would never be seen on the streaming platform. But Netflix is facing significant business challenges. In announcing first quarter earnings last month, Netflix said that it lost 200,000 subscribers in the first three months of the year -- the first time that has happened in a decade -- and expected to lose two million more in the months to come. Since the subscriber announcement, Netflix's share price has dropped sharply, wiping away roughly $70 billion in the company's market capitalization.
Last month, Netflix stunned the media industry and Madison Avenue when it revealed that it would begin offering a lower-priced subscription featuring ads, after years of publicly stating that commercials would never be seen on the streaming platform. But Netflix is facing significant business challenges. In announcing first quarter earnings last month, Netflix said that it lost 200,000 subscribers in the first three months of the year -- the first time that has happened in a decade -- and expected to lose two million more in the months to come. Since the subscriber announcement, Netflix's share price has dropped sharply, wiping away roughly $70 billion in the company's market capitalization.
Why do successful companies do this? (Score:5, Insightful)
How many times have we seen a successful company like Netflix decide to destroy everything that made them successful?
Netflix was cheap, so they made it expensive.
Netflix had everything, so they cut down the catalogue.
Netflix has no ads, so they want to introduce ads.
I don't think they realize just how much of a deal-breaker ads are for a lot of people. Once you get used to the ad blocking lifestyle, and watching TV without it, going back is a pretty off-putting thought.
Re: Why do successful companies do this? (Score:2)
The first price raise was when I canceled.
Re: Why do successful companies do this? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why do successful companies do this? (Score:5, Informative)
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Point 1 was always going to happen. Netflix did the market research for content providers for free and even opened up the market. But they didn't own the content. Content owners can undercut Netflix whenever they are ready and I'm sure that had been in the works since near the beginning. Once the cheap licensing deals were done, they had to make a lot of their own content. That takes a dramatic scale-up because high quality TV is very expensive these days. Netflix is one of the few major players that
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Everything old is new again. The SCOTUS decided that content should be separated from delivery [wikipedia.org] in 1948. Having to go to a studio-branded theater to see that studio's content was ruled to violate US antitrust law and is no different today. Content comes from studios (Universal, Disney, 21cFox, CBS/Paramount, etc) and is delivered for presentation (Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Roku).
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Not really - they just got rid of the last link in the chain. There's not such a need for physical theaters taking up limited physical real estate. And there's no sort of vertical integration as there previously was. It's not like your TV or smart box only supports one app.
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Or maybe Netflix believes that it can succeed better as a content creator first and a streaming provider second, and of course wants exclusive streaming rights on the content it creates. As it stands, Netflix would be shooting itself in the foot to sue under that ruling.
But if Netflix continues to bleed users since nobody likes their original content, those winds might change.
Re:Why do successful companies do this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Netflix may have failed to share enough of the profits with the content owners, thus driving them to invest the upfront cost in making their own streaming service. I am only speculating, but once a business enters that sweet spot where they basically own the market, they almost always start burning the candle at both ends (which in this case means both charging end-users high prices just because they can, AND paying providers a pittance, just because they can).
So, Netflix, in all probability, did exactly that, and that's what drove the content providers to make their own streaming platforms AND what drove end-users away to those alternatives.
Now that the damage is done, Netflix is scrambling to stay profitable without a big content library AND without a dominating market hold on users. It sucks, but they deserve it.
Re:Why do successful companies do this? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm going to give you points 1 and 3, but is point 2 really their fault? From what I've read and seen, their catalogue has been cut down by other companies pulling content from Netflix so that they can claim exclusivity in their brand new, separate, and just as expensive streaming services.
In some ways it absolutely is their fault where they got rid of content apparently just to be cheap. I will explain.
Back in the early 2000s, I was studying the Russian language and I used to rent Russian movies on DVD. There is a company called Ruscico (I think it means RUSsian CInema COuncil) that at the time was releasing all kinds of classic Russian language films on DVD. Most of these were from the time of the Soviet Union. I used to rent them as ways to reinforce my language studies because I wasn't getting a lot of opportunities to hear Russian spoken, so watching the movies in Russian with English subtitles helped. At some point in the previous decade Netflix gutted their Russian language DVD collection from Ruscico and they have but a small fraction of their offerings now. I can't imagine it was over cost. They did this around the time of their failed plan to spin off the disc rental business into its own company and I remember there were a lot of stupid things they did to deliberately sabotage the disc rental business, like gutting inventory. They've also cut down a tremendous amount of foreign films in general on disc that they used to offer. Their Hong Kong films on disc are far far fewer than they were 10+ years ago.
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I think that there might be another reason why Netflix gutted their early DVD titles other than some malice intent.
I was in a similar boat as you but with anime. If you wanted to watch anime the only place to rent them was from Netflix. Over time their fantastic anime selection dwindled to just a few titles with most of the disk I wanted on forever hold.
I suspect the decline in anime, and Russian cinema, on netflix was caused by a more mundane reason. Disks don't last forever and you have to admit t
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I think you are seriously discounting the impact of shrinkage.
- shipping damage and loss over time
- scratches and damage from use
- renters simply not bothering to returning discs or deciding to just keep the ones they want
Does it make sense to buy more copies of very low interest titles? In many cases, are replacement copies even readily available?
And from a practical standpoint if you've got a collection of 10+ year old rental discs, and over time its degrading, and many are reporte
Re:Why do successful companies do this? (Score:4, Interesting)
Back in the early 2000s, I was studying the Russian language and I used to rent Russian movies on DVD. There is a company called Ruscico (I think it means RUSsian CInema COuncil) that at the time was releasing all kinds of classic Russian language films on DVD. Most of these were from the time of the Soviet Union. I used to rent them as ways to reinforce my language studies because I wasn't getting a lot of opportunities to hear Russian spoken, so watching the movies in Russian with English subtitles helped. At some point in the previous decade Netflix gutted their Russian language DVD collection from Ruscico and they have but a small fraction of their offerings now. I can't imagine it was over cost. They did this around the time of their failed plan to spin off the disc rental business into its own company and I remember there were a lot of stupid things they did to deliberately sabotage the disc rental business, like gutting inventory. They've also cut down a tremendous amount of foreign films in general on disc that they used to offer. Their Hong Kong films on disc are far far fewer than they were 10+ years ago.
Alternate explanation: years and years of running the business shows them clearly which content is popular, and which is not. Low-demand niche content likely has WAY fewer copies of each disc to begin with, and discs do wear out and/or get damaged in transit. It simply isn't worth it to them to buy replacement copies of a disc at retail prices for unpopular discs that gathers dust on their shelf 10 months out of the year. Likewise, if vey few people are searching for discs in a specific series, it may not make economic sense to them to keep buying more seasons going forward. From a customer retention point of view, it may be more valuable to get extra copies of blockbuster-of-the-month, so grandma won't cancel her subscription because she always has to wait two weeks for a copy to become available to her.
Sure, they'll lose some customers like you who has tastes that deviate from the ordinary, but this way they ARE using most of their limited resources to be able to deliver what the bulk of their customers want. It's all a numbers game, and companies like Netflix tend to be pretty good in crunching those numbers to maximize their profits and long-term viability, even though those choices don't necessarily align with what 100% of their customers would have wanted.
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Of course anyone who's been paying attention should realize that Point 3 would always happen just like it did with broadcast Radio / TV / Cable / Satellite / YouTube / Twitch, and now subscription streaming services. They won't stop until ads are shown in your head at all times of the day.
Re:Why do successful companies do this? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I should have added,
When people complain about lack of content, they cancel new content.
Cancelling all the animated stuff and a lot of in-development live-action seems very short sighted. People will just follow the new content to other streaming services, especially as many of them are relatively cheap compared to Netflix.
Re:Why do successful companies do this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah I think it's the same problem google have. They fling a lot of crap at the wall then use metrics to see what sticks and aggressively kill off anything that doesn't. Sounds great on paper except people who have been burned repeatedly are reluctant to even try new things until they're established.
So those things have few takers and are canned.
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They fling a lot of crap at the wall then use metrics to see what sticks and aggressively kill off anything that doesn't.
They also allowed things to get confrontational with fans, like the Masters of the Universe (Kevin Smith responses) or Cowboy Bebop (Daniella Pineda rant).
You'd think Netflix would employ a PR person to oversee such stuff.
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Inverse Pareto, obviously. 80% of your users are affected by removing something on the many unpopular 20% choices.
There's a lot of room to live under the long tail.
Netflix has a hard time making their own content (Score:2)
That's a huge benefit for live TV, because it means they're always got something on the balance sheet for every show, even if they're losing money at least there's something on the other side of the sheet besides cost. That encourages them t
Choice is good (Score:1)
The plan is to create a new ad-supported tier, not to put ads in the existing tiers. If you don't like ads, you can keep your existing subscription. If you can't afford Netflix or are currently "borrowing" someone else's password, then you now have a more affordable option. More choice is a good thing.
BTW, "cutting down the catalog" was the fault of the Hollywood studios who tried to copy Netflix's success and needed exclusives for their own streaming services.
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I wonder if they will do the same thing Hulu does, and show ads in the more expensive "ad-free" tier for a subset of shows (which, of course, would be the most popular ones).
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Seems like I've heard this before.
"If you like your plan, you can keep your plan."
Except that they'll eventually raise the price of that plan until most folks will just bite the bullet and downgrade to the ad-supported one.
At what cost though (Score:2)
The plan is to create a new ad-supported tier, not to put ads in the existing tiers. If you don't like ads, you can keep your existing subscription.
That is true, but don't you think it 100% likely that an ad tier will also arrive with a corresponding price bump in the existing non-ad tier? And that has already been through a few price bumps...
It always seems like adding an ad tier means they make the ad-free experience cost even more.
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Exactly my point. The price is going up regardless (just like everything else). Having a lower tier allows price-sensitive subscribers to have an option other than dropping it entirely.
Re:Why do successful companies do this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Netflix didn't really build on a sustainable business model for streaming. They were cheap and had a large catalogue because they back-doored their way into a bunch of media rights for little cost, but that was only good for a limited time. They had a choice over time of paying much higher rights fees or losing content, and then not even a choice as competitors appeared and had exclusive rights to content.
When getting a Netflix client baked into DVD player firmware was a big deal, it was hard to start up a competitor, so Netflix had a bit of a captive market. Now that most every device people stream on is pretty easy for anyone to get an app on, Netflix doesn't have that leverage either.
I read years ago that their plan was to build up a customer base on a big library, but pivot to mostly original content (so they didn't have to pay rights fees) as soon as they could. That partially worked, but it feels like they didn't count on competitors being able to jump in as fast as they did.
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It's surprising how many streaming services aren't available on certain platforms, at least without some hacking. Seems to be a DRM problem, the device has to get certificates and support specific revisions of the Windevine system.
I had to side load iPlayer onto my Shield. Some other services like UKTV or whatever it's called now aren't available at all. Not that I want them, but I presume some people do.
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Re:Why do successful companies do this? (Score:5, Insightful)
I read years ago that their plan was to build up a customer base on a big library, but pivot to mostly original content (so they didn't have to pay rights fees) as soon as they could. That partially worked, but it feels like they didn't count on competitors being able to jump in as fast as they did.
I don't think that's entirely it, either.
I think they did know that the writing was on the wall once they started having to put expiration dates in contracts for re-upping royalties - if someone as big as Paramount or Disney signs a contract saying "you can stream our content for the next five years at this price", two things should be assumed to be the case:
1. they already plan to charge you much more for the same contract when negotiations start again in five years, and
2. they plan to use your money to hire some developers to copy/paste some StackOverflow code to wrap MKV files in DRM and roll their own streaming service.
Now, I do think Netflix did assume this correctly, which is why they spent those years developing their own content library. However, it's not a fair fight. Disney has a century's worth of movies and decades of TV shows. Even if they did not add a single new movie or series after November 12, 2019, there would still be a measurable number of subscribers who would pay subscriptions solely for access to everything between "Steamboat Willie" and "Avengers: Endgame". When Disney can get millions of subscribers without having to spend a dime on new content, and Netflix is stuck having to spend five years playing a century's worth of catch-up, Netflix was going to be stuck being the underdog.
Now, maybe Netflix would have been in a better spot had it only been Disney. However, with Paramount and NBC and Warner following suit, each of them having their own decades-old libraries to offer on opening day, Netflix was going to run into this wall sooner or later. ...now, what would really have made this interesting is if we still had 25-year copyright terms and every streaming service could serve up Star Wars and Gone with the Wind and Star Trek TOS / TNG and I Love Lucy and The Princess Bride and Speed and Nightmare on Elm Street...
Totally Agree (Score:1)
I was coming to post something similar, but you perfectly summarized Netflix's path to destruction.
As others have said maybe point 2 was not totally up to Netflix, but on the other hand you could argue that Netflix could have maintained a lower output of higher quality shows, and in addition to that just paid more to license some good content/
As it was they starts dumping filler shows when they lost licenses to other things, so the quality took a huge nose-dive even as the prices ratcheted up. I was a huge
armchair analysis (Score:3)
The nice thing about ad revenue is you can fix a revenue problem immediately, it makes the next few quarters look great. The bad thing is when subscribers leave you have a much more difficult problem to solve. And the market will be looking very closely at changes in subscriber numbers in order to gauge future growth.
NFLX's PE is still double digit. If subscribers leave there is no potential for growth. This means the current price is likely too high. Watch a sell off occurring during the (now inevitable) r
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1) Costs go up, and Netflix doesn't have Disney's or Amazon's virtually unlimited pockets to keep the price artificially low. Netflix only streams media. They don't have alternate revenue sources to prop up the prices.
2) They had everything, because the old shows they streamed were assumed to be worthless and streaming was a stupid idea. Now that streaming isn't a stupid idea and people are interested in watching reruns on demand, the rights holders refused to renew the contracts and started their own st
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You think Netflix doesn't already have a record of everything you watch? How do you think they make recommendations of things you might like?
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How many times have we seen a successful company like Netflix decide to destroy everything that made them successful?.
They people doing this don't care about Netflix. They care about the profits. When Netflix does collapse they get paid and the cycle repeats.
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The reason Netflix went under is because they started sourcing content literally nobody cared about. They had big blockbuster content, then they went and donated how many millions to the Obama's for a series on their life, documentaries that weren't based in any reality, stupid dating shows, child and other exploitation movies and shows ...
They still think awards like the Oscars drives mainstream interest, it doesn't, nobody cares about artsy-fartsy woke messaging short movies.
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How many times have we seen a successful company like Netflix decide to destroy everything that made them successful?
The real reason, on top of what others have said, is because no publicly traded company nowadays is really about whatever they ostensibly make, sell or do. Their real product, the one thing they try to make the most valuable, is "higher share prices". And their real customer, the ones they move mountains to please, are "the holders of shares".
The ostensible side of the business whole purposes is to serve as a leverage to increase share prices, for as long as possible. If that side somehow makes share prices
Re: Why do successful companies do this? (Score:2)
I dunno...but I'm glad i dropped them 6-7 years ago when they upped the price by $1.
I had been wanting to cancel for a while...that was all it took for me to get off my ass and do so.
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This is what happens with a lot of things. Introduce a good product that is inexpensive, jack up prices, add ads and telemetry, and remove features until the execs start wringing their hands that people are bailing. Repeat.
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Netflix has to come out with something new and innovative to compete long term. Since they don't appear to be able to do that, they're going to milk every last cent from their brand for short term profits. The execs wi
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To answer your question:
Because companies are rarely satisfied with simply making some level of money, no matter how reliable or steady, they always want to make *more* money than they were making last year.
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The other big one you missed is that Netflix and most other streaming companies are inexplicably afraid to make television shows using the "traditional" model. That being that each year, a network would greenlight a handful of new shows. The ones that failed to gain any viewers were cancelled, the ones with some traction were given runway to build an audience. Popular shows would then run for years, often even after major drops in audience numbers (see the Simpsons).
There's a reason the top shows on Netflix
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Interesting comment, but I think the ads could work as an option. Too bad the usual emphasis of ads is shoving them down people's throats.
How about ads to persuade people to accept ads? ;-)
But seriously, folks, I think I could be interested in an opt-in advertising option. Here are some of the options I'd like to see:
(1) Grouped ads versus ads distributed through the content.
(2) Long random ads versus shorter targeted ads based on my actual interests. (Yeah, that means I'd have to agree to share some person
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(3) Interactive ads versus more boring ads.
Oh, hell no. That's just asking for them to verify that you're actually watching the ad, instead of walking away to ignore it.
A boring ad—even a long one—that I can step away from and 100% ignore is wayyyy preferable to an interactive ad.
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It's an option that you obviously would not choose, but I'm looking at the ads in terms of time, MY time. I'm basically willing to sell a SMALL around of my attention.
However, "interactive" is actually a can of worms. The kind of interactivity I'd really want would be honest, and I don't see a good way to get there from here. I'd like "interactive help" in considering the options, but not just the options from any one company. That's the kind of "evil genius" thinking behind the multiple versions of Windows
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At least Prime offers options to rent/buy content that is unavailable for free. Cutting back content/volume/options is always the start of the slippery slope.
When Netflix offers a low-end, ad-supplement option, it probably means that ads will be added to all options after a while. This is the way of PBS and Cable TV and is unwelcome to me.
Netflix will start a gallop to their destruction soon
On the bright side, someone/s will see the opportunity and s
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It was cheap when they started because when they started there really was no streaming video for the masses that was simple enough for your grandma to use -- so very little competition, especially since none of the studios themselves were operating in that market. Netflix was able to get really good licensing deals with the studios for providing content at that point. (Especially since a big chunk of their initial catalog was made possible through a sub-licensing deal they made with Starz, which already had
Re: Why do successful companies do this? (Score:1)
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How many times have we seen a successful company like Netflix decide to destroy everything that made them successful?
Netflix was cheap, so they made it expensive.
Netflix had everything, so they cut down the catalogue.
Netflix has no ads, so they want to introduce ads.
I don't think they realize just how much of a deal-breaker ads are for a lot of people. Once you get used to the ad blocking lifestyle, and watching TV without it, going back is a pretty off-putting thought.
Well ignoring that Netflix isn't successful, They're running $16 bn in debt.
This is simply the way products work. You start out producing the best product you can then when people like it you start cutting corners to make it profitable. When a dairy company releases a new icecream, it'll be made as best it can, costing far more to produce than it sells for. If it's popular they start finding out how to make it cheaper, reducing the number of crushed nuts, thinner chocolate, dropping the volume by a few g
May not be the end of the world (Score:2)
I hear YouTube also introduced ads a number of years ago, but no one I know has ever seen one.
Re: May not be the end of the world (Score:1)
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Netflix don't use a browser (where ADs are easy to block), but am app on TV...
I watch it, and other streaming services, on my desktop's browser. There are plenty of add-ons that enhance the experience if one wants to. Ad-blocking will be one such when ads start appearing. Besides, it's trivial to output the full screen video to a TV if one wants to.
Re: May not be the end of the world (Score:1)
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Your case may be the case of 2% of the viewers (maybe 3%)
Maybe the minority, but not that much of a minority, otherwise it wouldn't be cost effective for Netflix, and other streaming providers, to provide browser-based watching. They'd simply tell users to open the dedicated app on whatever dedicated viewing device they own. My guess is many people like to have a streaming service PIP window open in the corner streaming something while they work.
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When Netflix first added streaming to their DVD rental service, they sent us a free disc to run their streaming service on our Nintendo Wii.
For a long time, that was the only way we did it. For a while you could stream on a Windows browser with a Silverlight plugin, but I had switched to Linux by then.
Then there was a brief period when Chrome was the only Linux browser that could do it. That's the only time I've ever installed or used Chrome.
When the Widevine plugin was made available for Firefox on Linux,
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C'mon, are you a geek or a consumer? Frankly, that only finally makes Netflix intresting, who'd like to block ads if it was easy?
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Ha, I actually pay to get rid of the adverts (and to get a music service) but after I pay to remove ads...
Today's video is brought to you by Raid Shadow Legends / Nord VPN / SquareSpace / SkillShare
Already knew that... (Score:3)
Yup, very recently they sent out this promo e-mail with the following text:
Come on back and watch what you want, when you want, on any device you want. And once you’re watching, we’ll never interrupt you with commercials.
REJOIN TODAY
I unsubscribed from any further messages in order for them to know my feelings. Apparently they do not understand that for certain customers, the issue of 'ads' is a very delicate one. Of course, as a business they are free to do as they see fit. So am i. There is a reason why people cut cords, and ads are the primary one, not costs.
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And once you’re watching, we’ll never interrupt you with commercials.
REJOIN TODAY
This may be the way they handle this, which would be a less-terrible compromise. If they do a few pre-roll and a few post-roll ads, it may be more tolerable than Paramount Plus' traditional multiple-ad-break format.
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Economics aren't my strong suit (Score:2)
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I am really surprised that many people would think "Hey, I can't afford the extra couple dollars each month, so I guess I'll have to go with the ad version." Is there really enough people like that out there that this makes good business sense? I assume they've done their legwork on this, but at first glance it seems fairly counterintuitive.
It might making the existing pricing more attractive in a "Netflix is cheap but for $x more I can go add-free, which sounds good". It's a model of deliberately make the cheap version a bit crap so the version they actually want to sell - and make more profit on - is more attractive by comparison.
This sometimes referred to as "anchoring". Pick the cheapest wine in the restaurant and you're a cheapskate. Pick the second cheapest and you're buying what they have a big pile of in their storeroom.
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I am really surprised that many people would think "Hey, I can't afford the extra couple dollars each month, so I guess I'll have to go with the ad version." Is there really enough people like that out there that this makes good business sense?
For Netflix? No.
For Netflix AND Hulu AND Disney+ AND HBO Max AND Paramount+ AND AppleTV+, it adds up pretty quick.
Standard Netflix: $15.49/mo
Standard Hulu/D+: $19.99/mo
Ad-Free HBO Max: $14.99/mo
Paramount+: $9.99/mo
AppleTV+: $4.99/mo
Total: $65.45
If I know that there are services I watch rarely, I might go for ad-based tiers in order to trim that down based on usage. $5/month less for ad tiers seems customary, so saving $20/month isn't necessarily the worst tradeoff.
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Ad-supported over-the-air television worked for 50+ years. Besides, Netflix is a worldwide business. There are lots of places where a couple dollars a month is the difference between lots of subscribers and none.
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If anything, it at least allows them to say "starting as low as X.XX" which would be $2-3 per month less than the plans everyone actually signs up for.
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I think allot of people are in the same boat (Score:2)
I have been a long time customer but with the catalog being weak these days and the price increase, I have been on the fence whether or not to cancel. I am not using it as much as I used to and over the last year I have also incurred a number of monthly subscription fees for other channels/services.
So if they start streaming Ads that will be the final straw causing me to definitively cancel if I have not done so already. I think my sentiments are where allot of people are right now given all the options a
so typical (Score:2)
Not welcomed, yet hardly to say it's unexpected. All businesses always follow such a path, constantly degrading existing memberships by introducing the new "better" "premium" experience - someone can say "wait, they're adding a new ad tier", but you'll see, sooner or later the "not ad" membership will need a price adjustment. Wasn't it the same with the cable TV? Airlines - thinner seats, smaller spaces, smaller luggage allowances. It seems to me that, when a business is new it has a customers "grabbing" pe
it's a scam (Score:2)
it is a scam to raise prices. they know most do not care for ads and will pay higher prices to avoid them. It gives Netflix the excuse to ignore their victims...I mean subscribers complaints
Why no pay-per-view? (Score:3)
In my opinion, the biggest miss from Netflix was no way to rent or buy any movie or show, like Amazon allows you to do. Their bundled catalog has been shrinking, so I'm more likely to not find the title I want, so I go to Amazon and pay the $4. Why can't Netflix offer the same options? Are the negotiations with the rights holders too hard without a huge diversified company behind them?
Lower Price? (Score:3)
Suckitude. (Score:2)
The way they swoop in and dismantle something as soon as it's worth anything, it's like a ritual sacrifice.
will they have HD at the low tier as well? (Score:2)
will they have HD at the low tier as well?
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The NetFlix of Y2K does not exist (Score:2)
Back in 2000, NetFlix offered every single movie and TV series in the universe, ad-free, under one single subscription umbrella -- by mailing out DVDs. It was a golden era. When they added streaming, we assumed that eventually every movie and TV series in the universe would be available for streaming. Yaay!
But that didn't happen.
Netflix's streaming catalog didn't grow, it shrank! New releases didn't come to DVD. Instead, they came to new exclusive streaming services. So what made Netflix amazing fell
Where's the value proposition for users? (Score:2)
Seriously.
Is this going to allow them to double or triple the content they have up?
Is it going to enable better/more in-house content?
Is it going to stabilize the price long term?
If the answer to one of these is "no", an argument can still be made for value.
If the answer to more than one of these is no, they've destroyed the value proposition.
Ads are a stupid idea (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole advantage of Netflix not having ads is that they are only answerable to their users and subscribers in terms of content and don't have to worry about whether content they make (or acquire the rights to) might somehow put an advertiser (or potential advertiser) offside.
If they have ads, now they have to pander to advertisers and not just focus on whatever content will do the most to attract and retain subscribers.
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Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.
If my tier increases in price or gets ads... (Score:1)