This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I dust off my robe and wizard hat.
Plex is a great streaming alternative. Cancelling Netflix pays for the upgrade to gigabit Internet. Hard drives are cheaper now than ever. Usenet access remains safe and speedy. The DIY community for automation is thriving.
Is that the Jolly Roger coming in to port? Welcome back old friends.
the capitalists are unable to understand that the "eternal growth" their books mention is not feasible in real world and in fact it is a bug. There are physical upper limits that cannot be overcome. There will not be unlimited people that will always enrol in a new subscription. They need to somehow understand that at some point a company may reach their ceiling. This is not reason to do whatever panic change in order to show growth in the numbers. It will just not happen.
Ah but when the prices can't go any higher they can always remove content, paying their suppliers less and getting cheaper hardware. I wish I was joking but these are the options that are left.
"And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds left to conquer."
-- H. Gruber.
When will the greed stop? At what point will these corporations realize that the average American is completely stretched thin financially and will have to cease unnecessary expenses? They’re all just shooting themselves in the foot.
"When will the greed stop?"
Never
It‘s laughable to expect corporations to act against their only purpose. As soon as a company sells shares it takes the route of infinite growth which is impossible. First they grow their user base and once they start to inevitably stagnate, they start milking their costumers, shaving off features and laying off workers in order to grow their income. It is really the only way for them to remain existent when the market is saturated. They cannot stay in business when they make billions a year when these billions aren‘t even more billions than last year. You can‘t attract new investors that way and therefore cannot continue to exist. Enshittyfication only just started. It cannot possibly get better when they can‘t expand their user base, only worse. They know they will self destruct eventually, but that doesn‘t matter as long as shareholders get their piece of the cake and jump ship to sink the next one. Just being a massively profitable company is bad business if you‘re not growing. That‘s the state of capitalism we‘re in.
As consolidation continues corporations do not need to compete on prices as there are no alternatives. Yes people will pirate but they’ve already lobbied vendors to embrace DRM and governments to make it illegal so that makes it as annoying as possible.
Are we reading the same thing? Netflix has more competition now than it ever has. When Netflix had cheaper prices when it has no competition than it does now. Piracy has been making a huge resurgence as well.
"More competition" meaning less access, people having to pay for multiple different services instead of having it in one place.
The competition should be about having the best platform, not exclusive content. There's no reason why the same show couldn't be on two different platforms. And available globally. Practically, all you really need is more local servers for where there's more traffic.
Price of WD red HDD's about to go up too
We should all know that Netflix's method of "throwing money at the wall and hope one of the shows becomes a hit, cancel immediately after a season if it doesn't work out" is completely unsustainable at this point, as this kind of dehumanizing disposablilty of production is the exact " industry disruptive" approach to expect from a bunch of arrogant Silicon Valley techbros, so this cost increase should not come as a surprise.
Many long running shows have had pretty bad first seasons, "Parks and Rec", the US version of "The Office", and "The Simpsons" comes to mind, and these shows would never have even gotten off the ground if Netflix was running them, because as with all industries, it takes a while for people to find their footing and get to know each other to work together effectively.
The real sad part is, the industry that has copied Netflix's "disruptive" approach are now finding out that the emperor has no clothes and are desperately trying to pass the cost off to anybody else for their own survival, which is why it is more important than ever to fight for the dignities of the people who worked on your favorite shows for your entertainment.
I could very well be mistaken and please correct me if I am. I remember reading that canning a show before season 3 or so was a way of getting around union costs that kick in for a 'longer' running show. A very anti labor strategy designed to cash in quickly then drop it so Netflix wouldn't have to share the wealth.
Imo they're really poisoning the well. If they pump out shit show after shit show what will happen (and is likely already happening) is consumers wait until the second season for a show releases to make sure they're not wasting their time getting invested into a show that will be canceled anyway. That will then lead to fewer and fewer shows actually becoming successful, eventually leading to people cancelling the subscription because the last time they watched anything (good) on Netflix was 10 years ago.
Thanks for reminding me that I haven't even watched Netflix in a minute. I cancelled it. Fuck them.
They're not even slowly raising prices, they are very rapidly raising them. We've reinvented cable.
But I can only cancel my subscription once, and I already did, months ago.
I've been a Netflix customer for over 20 years. The recent password crackdown and constant price gouging led me to cancel their service yesterday. Yo Ho MF'ers.
Never mind the price, Netflix just doesn't have stuff I want to watch anymore.
Netflix does have good shows, but they're just so few and far in between. I stopped my subscription about a year ago, and haven't missed it. I'll resubscribe this month to watch Fall of the House of Usher, then unsub again just because there's nothing to watch.
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if others are doing this, the streaming companies catch on, and we pay a bulk amount for a season a la early iTunes again
They also actively pigeon hole users into a small portion of their content, they've been stripping away all search and discovery functionality over the years. They are going down the route of "our algorithm is perfect and knows exactly what you want so why would you want to do anything else"
I bet there's a ton of content you'd actually enjoy that Netflix will never recommend to you because it's outside of what the algorithm thinks you want to see
Ah yes, because derivative reality shows and bottom-of-the-barrel adult cartoons are so expensive to produce.
What the hell happened, you used to be good.
Just cancelled, haven't touched NF since I subbed to HBO (and even that is getting cancelled next month). Maybe its time to try Hulu.
Hulu will still show ads for some things, even if you pay extra for ad free. Pisses me off, they're a terrible company. They'll never get another dime from me.
Sounds like Netflix is panicking and scrambling. The frequency of their subscription hikes increases and increases. Perhaps they think they can price hike their way out of the dissatisfaction they have delivered to subscribers. Keep trying Netflix, find that magic subscription price point that will surely cover for all the subscribers you're shedding with your idiocy and will definitely not hasten your arrival to 0% revenue. Increasing that price won't lose you more subscribers right? Of course not. Burn Netflix burn.
it's amazing that they think people are going to continue to pay them at these prices for no content
Some people seem to believe the customers are suckers who will eternally take the price hikes, but even the most gullible fool still doesn't have infinite money. At some point they'll have to cut something or the bank will cut it for them.
Well, back to the seas it seems. It was fun while it lasted. One might as well pay for a VPN instead.
But they are
Exactly. No one I know cancelled. They just had to buy separate accounts while complaining.
Every time Netflix changes anything, people freak out and say they're gonna lose all their subscribers.
And every time, Netflix makes more money than before, because they have awesome data analysis and have a very good idea of how many subscribers will leave and how much more money they'll make from the remainder.
I remember when they lost like 4% of their subscribers a few years back and everyone was all doom and gloom, but they'd raised their rates like 15%
Eventually they'll figure if they can get one person to pay 10 billion dollars a month, they can lose all their other subscribers and still hit their quarterly goals.
Ahoy mateys...time to set sail on the seven seas.
You know I really should get around to getting a paid tier of proton VPN so that I can have cannons on me ship when I sail the high seas.
Oh god, I can't find it now but before the whole crackdown on shared accounts someone tried to argue with me that it was worth it. As cutting account sharing would allow Netflix to keep their current prices to undercut competition. I actually bet them that that would not be the case and Netflix would still hike the prices again. I wish I could find them just to say “I told you”.
The juice isn't worth the squeeze
Might finally get me to cancel Netflix, but who am I kidding, I probably have 6+ hours of it playing in the background daily.
The problem I really have is the lack of 4k without buying a ton of extra screens. A single screen 4k plan would fix 99% of my complaints about pricing.
You could go with YouTube if you want something on the background. Or just ~~pirate the media~~ buy BluRays and DVDs of the shows and movies you rewatch.
Already going "hybrid" when it comes to content and Netflix only survived the last round because family members voted "stay". Not sure about the next time, especially since their little fabricated "crackdown" on sth. that was once not only tolerated, but actively encouraged definitely rubbed me the wrong way.
I wonder what this Netflix live action anime ONE PIECE is all about?
The real treasure was the torrents we downloaded along the way.
