Technology Netflix loses almost a million subscribers

[The Helper]

After enjoying a long reign as the king of streaming, Netflix faces a tough fight to keep its crown.

It lost almost 1 million subscribers between April and July 2022, as the number of people quitting the service accelerated.

But that was not as many as the streaming giant had feared.

Asked what may have stopped subscriptions sliding further, the firm's chief executive, Reed Hastings, said: "If there was a single thing, we might say 'Stranger Things.'"

The new season of the hit drama has been a phenomenal success, and may have helped stem the exodus of Netflix customers.

The company reported its first subscriber loss since 2011 in April, news that was followed by hundreds of job cuts and a sharp drop in its share price.

Netflix loses almost a million subscribers

Season four of the hit series Stranger Things may have helped to stem the exodus of Netflix customers.

www.bbc.com

 

[Ghan]

I cancelled it a while back. Too expensive these days and not enough interesting content.

 

[jonas]

I think the main issue is that there is too much partitioning of the content across the different producers' networks.

That's why I stay with Netflix and don't go to the other producers' networks. If enough people do the same, partitioning will become financially infeasible and they'll have to concentrate the content on fewer providers.

Ideally the producers and providers would be different companies, with all providers having access to most content. The current situation, that every producer almost exclusively streams their content on their own network for which I'm supposed to pay yet another 10$ is stupid.

 

[Ghan]

I think the main issue is that there is too much partitioning of the content across the different producers' networks.

Absolutely right, and this model can't really leverage the economies of scale you used to have when it was all done through the cable companies. Not supporting the way it was done there, but the point is that now you have to pay way more across tons of providers if you want access to all the content.

I generally don't watch TV shows anyway. Less reason now than ever to do so. No cable subscription, no streaming subscriptions for me now. All I have is Amazon Prime which includes some video content, but that's not why I signed up for that anyway.