The days are not good for Netflix. They are baffled by the loss in the number of subscribers and they may very well lose even more. Currently, they have lost whopping 200K subscribers and now is the time for action.
Are they working on promotion?
NO
Are they reducing prices and providing better resolution?
NO
Are they cancelling woke content and working on mass-appeal originals?
ABSOLUTELY NO
Surprise surprise, they are going after password sharing.
If you are sharing your Netflix password with someone living outside your household then you would have to pay extra for being able to share the password. According to Netflix, 100 million households share passwords out of which 30 million are in the USA and Canada itself.
They already started a test of this feature in Peru, Costa Rica and Chile and it may take a year to implement it globally.
The chief operating officer of Netflix said “If you’ve got a sister, let’s say, that’s living in a different city, you want to share Netflix with her, that’s great. We’re not trying to shut down that sharing, but we’re going to ask you to pay a bit more to be able to share with her so that she gets the benefit and the value of the service, but we also get the revenue associated with that viewing.”
But alas, this might act as a poison pill for the platform leading to even more loss in the number of subscribers.
As soon as the news about Netflix going after password sharing broke, netizens did not seem too happy about the decision. They are claiming that they will give up their subscription if they are forced to pay any extra charge for sharing passwords.
The irony is that about 5 years ago, Netflix was promoting password sharing through their official handle.
Regardless, people are still not over the trauma Netflix shed upon them by disabling screenshots, this new lightning will force those individuals to cancel subscriptions who share money and password for translating more views on Netflix itself.
netflix disabling screenshots was one of the worst decisions its ever made. there used to be jokes about how people making memes out of screenshots was doing more press for netflix shows than netflix actually was. and they were right!
— zach silberberg (@zachsilberberg) April 23, 2022
But at the end of the day, this is a corporate decision and Netflix may generate more revenues even if they end up losing more subscribers. The problem here is that Netflix is stamping out their frustration on their existing subscribers when they should analyse the reason 200K people cancelled their subscription.
People often let go of their opinions on social media regarding what they like/dislike about content on any streaming platform. Sadly, Netflix failed to notice that its content is getting too woke and repetitive. It is also significantly expensive when compared to Prime Video, Disney+ and others all across the globe.
For instance, in Disney+Hotstar, you get an annual plan of Rs 1499 with 4K streaming but for Netflix, even if you go with the cheapest plan then your option is Rs 1788 with only 480p on a mobile phone.
The Biggest Problem With Netflix
Let’s take the scenario of Amazon Prime Video India. The streaming giant put enormous investment in series like Mirzapur and The Family Man.
Even globally, they are making mega-budget series like “The Wheel Of Time” or “The Rings Of Power”. The investment in these shows is so much that the platform can’t earn profits from subscription fees which are very less. Prime Video was never meant to be a profitable streaming platform.
The basic idea is to make the customers purchase the Prime subscription so that they also remain inclined to purchase products from Amazon. Prime Video never wails for password sharing because even if one friend in a circle has a Prime account then they order products for their friends thus earning great profits.
Similarly, in the case of Disney, they can easily manage losses from Disney+ and Hulu because their main source of income is theatrical films and they sell streaming platforms to support their theatrical releases. For example WandaVision or The Book of Boba Fett.
But in the case of Netflix, their sole source of income is the subscription fee which falls short of supporting extremely high budget series like “Stranger Things” which cost $30 Million per episode.
This is the actual reason behind Netflix being so expensive and yet struggling. It’s high time they should find an alternate and reliable source of income because going after password sharing will NOT help them. It will only dig their grave deeper which at least they would never want.
people share money,passwords to use netflix, if pwd sharing is stopped then it will be the downfall
— Chaitanya ⚔️ (@Chaitu_2812) April 23, 2022
Netflix is blaming their loss of 200,000 subscribers over password sharing. pic.twitter.com/ywaYWzSibO
— Comic Tropes (@CTropes) April 21, 2022
Thus the challenge to convince the existing subscribers to continue using their service is huge. Let’s just wish all the best to both viewers and Netflix.
We’re hiring!
We are hiring two full-time junior to mid-level writers with the option to work remotely. You need to work a 5-hour shift and be available to write. Interested candidates should email their sample articles to [email protected]. Applications without a sample article will not be considered.
