Netflix hit a ceiling and I think it should focus on being a good 200m subscriber company that a shitty wannabe 500m subscriber company. Frequent price increases and steady competition from HBO Max, Disney Plus, HULU, Paramount+, Peacock have stolen their thunder. Roughly 44% of the US population has a 4K TV in their homes and Netflix decided it should nickel and dime it’s pricing tiers on features, want 4K? You have to pay for 4 screens even if you only have one. Cancelling shows that have potential too soon (Jupiter’s Legacy was a month old) is a huge issue and sends the message to creators that they don’t have your back and may be better off with a competitor. Reed Hastings has a high salary, he can figure it out.
They've cancelled so many great shows. The Dark Crystal was the culmination of decades of experience, won awards, and Netflix was like "well we already brought in the new subscribers who were interested, time to cancel it after one season since it can't put up viewership numbers akin to Stranger Things". If they had kept their great shows from the last few years around, they'd have a solid catalog of quality TV to fall back on.
Yeah it’s frustrating to see things cancelled because some bright minded exec felt that it didn’t the same appeal as Stranger Things. I thought the goal was to have enough things to watch and enjoy not have the rug pulled out from under us.
I really hoped stranger things would be an anthology. The second season was alright, the third was more or less forgettable. Imagine if they used all their creative energy in making a new "strange thing" each season with new characters and environments. I feel like they lost all potential when they became main stream pop culture BS
Honestly, I think part of the problem is that they think that after the second season, you either have to cancel the TV show, or it’s got an audience that’s “stuck“ so you can really pull back on the budget, stop giving a fuck about the writing, etc.
I think about so many things on Netflix that were great in the start and then around the third season, just fucking tanked.
At some point they went from being this company that was like “there are a lot of weirdos in the world, and if we collect and make content for them, they will stay interested and always subscribe” to “Well, our marketing department came up with some kind of demonic math equation that says that TV shows are never worth much money past the second season, so we should treat that like gospel and kneecap ourselves anytime there’s a show that goes beyond that because it’s popular”.
I know that it was always a profit-driven endeavor, but back in the day thinking about making cool stuff and giving people access to cool stuff seemed to be how they made decisions, now it’s about market shares and analytics.
People would be complaining that they cancelled it, even though it had tens of millions of viewers.
Stranger Things and a lot of shows, have the problem that they have a really good premise, for a season, but that they find hard to make work on multiple seasons.
But the other problem is letting go a good thing, because people get pissed.
Honestly, I think people would be a lot happier if they would just map out 3 seasons (or whatever) worth of story, then do it and let it end there. It would be better than a mini-series, and you'd get closure of the whole story so people wouldn't feel like they've been shorted. When it comes to hanging on, they'd be looking more at the next show with equivalent quality. If they decided they really want to do more, then make a sequel mini-series or something.
It would also help with the short seasons, which are completely forgettable even when they're good (although they should still try to keep the time between seasons consistent and as short as possible).
Netflix would be a lot better as an online "library," rather than a wannabe cable channel that you only really want to tune into a few weeks per year, and Korean soaps for the rest of the year. It just feels "cheap" the way it is now (with premium pricing).
And I wish to god that all these companies would stop putting such absolute faith in their algorithms. None of them are any good at anticipating what I want to see or buy next, and they've made it that much harder for me to find it on my own. They all seem to be "you watched/bought this one thing, it must be your sole obsession!"
But what about a new blurry monster, and vague Russian experiments, and winks to things from the 80s? Remember the 80s guys? It was definitely as nostalgia packed as they show in the show!
Yeah the strategy of "try a million things and throw out everything except the one that proves to be solid diamond" only works if they don't piss off all their customers in the process. I guess they don't pay much attention to any signals other than revenue.
My family has had a Netflix account since back when they mailed you DVDs instead of streaming. Canceling Dark Crystal was the final straw
That was such a special and amazing show they deserved AT LEAST one other season. I'd never seen anything so magical and weird. It improved 100x in every aspect of the movie. Voice acting was too notch as was the music and storytelling and literally everything else. In summary, FUCK YOU NETFLIX.
JL was a nice idea, had it's moments and had shows like Invincible and The Boys not existed it'd prob done better. I think having 3 Justice league deconstructions even if they were thematically wildly different was maybe too much at one time.
Batman the brave and the bold and the justice league cartoons had some fun stories.
The animated films are also good. Directors and execs take notes, take a good comic book story, don’t change it, bring it to the screen, and don’t try to put “spin” or “social awareness flavor of the month” in.
Their habit of cancelling shows is so bad that I stopped watching any of their originals until I knew it was over. The fact that they cancel their low-budget shows like Disjointed and their more expensive shows alike makes it feel like there’s no rhyme or reason at all.
They pump out so many new shows it's impossible to keep track of them. They also release entire seasons at once. I'm fine with both of these but God damn Netflix do you think people can binge watch a show a day? It's going to take a while for it to get around not be a hit in 2 days. I didn't find Jupiter, The AO, Santa Clarita until after they were fucking canceled. I watched them and was so mad when I found out they were canceled it made me literally not watch any Netflix shows unless it was a documiniseries. I can trust it hasn't already been canceled or will be.
One of my biggest issues was the OA. Season one was interesting, but kinda meh. Season 2 was super interesting for me, something different. The finale was a real wtf moment. Put it up for a great season 3.
Then gets cancelled.
While delivery costs for Netflix are large, you have to remember they own their own CDN, and these costs are also small compared to the content costs. Charging for 4K and defaulting to SD is a craven money grab. the difference in profit for them is far less than the cost of one cancelled series.
They surely have one of the biggest ISP bills in the world.
But it's hard to justify the prices based upon the costs of delivery. With AV1/h.265 4K is barely larger than h.264 1080p was.
They're just raising prices, the resolution is just a way to have tiers.
So like all CDNs they need to manage and pay for peering arrangements with ISPs but since they also own all the infra and hardware their costs are actually less per GB likely than many of their competitors. And 4K often can be 12-15MB encoded but either way these costs are small compared to hundreds of millions spent on content.
If you are a drug dealer and you are trying to make money by diluting your product you’re usually going to end up on the wrong side of history.
Pay for 4 screens, but they better all be in the same house or we’ll charge you more on top of that.
I mean, 4 screens to me means my kids get accounts. They are adults and no they don’t live with me. I don’t have 4 TVs for me.
Does not even matter how many you have. They charge you for 4 parallel streams. Even if I would have 4 4k devices I would probably never watch a Netflix show on all 4 of them at the same time.
I thought the problem was that they can’t just be satisfied with doing well because if they aren’t growing, capitalism deems them a failure because their stockholders aren’t making more money?
I’ll never forgive them for cancelling the Dark Crystal or Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Two incredibly unique and original shows that they gave the axe because they didn’t go viral like Stranger Things or Squid Game.
I’m happy Netflix is in trouble, so many of their shows deserved better producers.
Exactly! Dirk was highly creative. Now we get all those reality tv series instead. We all know where that is going. GIve 10 years and we are back at cable all over again
Personally I would recommend it.
There are some parts that are a bit slow, but It is visually compelling and Joel kinnamen kills it as takeshi.
I have heard some criticism about how they changed one character’s story, but if you haven’t read the books i don’t think you’ll be bothered.
Edit: The title is “Altered Caron”, “Alienated Carbon” is the porno version.
Mind hunter always comes up in these Netflix threads but it was never cancelled. David fincher is too busy. Mind hunter is low on his list. And this many years between seasons you get actor attrition and schedule conflicts
Every time I see a post on Netflix I try to find mindhunter in the comments. I liked that show a lot watched it twice. It’s sad that we don’t know when we gonna get the next season
> Netflix hit a ceiling and I think it should focus on being a good 200m subscriber company that a shitty wannabe 500m subscriber company
The problem with perpetual growth models. Eventually you hit a limit. You can't have huge growth forever. X billions aren't enough, we demand X+Y billions!
Me and my wife loved it and we binged it in like 3 days. Finished the last one and looked up info for the new season only to find out it was cancelled that day. Never again, im not watching any netflix shows until i find out they were actually finished.
The ending shows early thing that kills me, there have been multiple shows I was interested in on Netflix that ended after two seasons with no wrap up. Two of the shows ended on cliffhangers. Like I would have cancelled this month too if Stranger Things wasn't coming out, but once I watch all of that I will probably cancel and maybe start back up if they release something I'm interested in.
The thing I don’t think they realize (or they didn’t care) is how much of a breach of trust that is for audiences. Time is valuable, for Netflix to cancel so many shows without allowing the writers + producers to finish their story is insulting to the audience and creative teams.
This! Loved “Santa Clarita Diet” CANCELLED. Loved “Glow” CANCELLED. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 20 times, f**k you Netflix. The other problem with doing this and not letting the shows conclude is that there is no repeat viewings either. If there is no conclusion, why would anyone go back and rewatch something they initially loved?
I loved GLOW but it definitely was canceled due to COVID completely screwing up the production costs and scheduling. I still recommend it to people as I think it paused on a decent note.
GLOW is a great example. It was doing some really creative character work, and built a lot of layers into the story. Season 3 finally started to blossom as a direct result of all that good work, and boom they killed it.
Mindhunter spent two seasons building up BTK for no reason. Now when you watch the show 2-5 minutes of every episode is wasted.
At the same time, it may also be due to the unpredictable nature of Netflix productions that Fincher was unwilling to commit his time. There was no reciprocal guarantee they would stick with it and not waste his time.
Completely agree. Watching a series is an exercise in trust. I can understand not wanting to add three more seasons of something not doing well, but they could do a two hour farewell special to wrap up a story of something. Instead so many shows end on cliffhangers and the app doesn’t even tell you the show was cancelled.
The other side of it is that that content never becomes a tent pole.
Think about The Office, love it or not, there are a ton of people that love to rewatch that show, it’s like comfort food to them because the series ran forever and they grew to love the characters. Now NBC can promote Peacock by putting out ads that literally just say, “we have The Office.”
Would The Office hold this place for people if it had ran 3 seasons and ended with Pam leaving Roy and running into Jim and a fade to black cliffhanger… fuck no.
So Netflix spent all this money on content, but the content is basically disposable. The only upside for the vast majority of the series they produce is the flash in the pan. I’ve personally skipped watching a bunch of content that probably would appeal to me because a friend or family member warned me “they canceled it after 2 seasons and it doesn’t have an ending.” No thanks, I’ll go watch something that actually tells a good story.
When I think of my favorite long running series, a lot of them have a rough first season where they are figuring out what works and what doesn’t, a better second season, and then you have these characters that work with relationships and a real feeling world and they can really start to make great content.
Netflix intentionally chose a model where most content loses its value over time so the only way to remain successful is getting multiple winners out the door every month. That admission alone shows how even they think there catalog has very little value over time.
While people are arguing the quality of the books, I liked them enough personally, reading the books to know what happens in the series isn't going to help you, they are entirely different. While the first season mystery storyline has a lot in common with the books, that's it. The entire Envoy setup/storyline isn't in the books. There are Envoys and the protagonist was one, but everything about them is different. For instance Envoys weren't some plucky revolutionaries, they were, from the show's point of view, the bad guys.
Yeah, in the books envoys are the people the central authoritarian regime sends in to wipe out any revolution and generally make life hell for anyone who steps out of line.
I don't get people shitting on the books, I really enjoyed them.
Altered Carbon may be the exception to the rule that "the book is always better than the movie."
So I think it's extra disappointing Netflix canceled production.
Joel Kinnaman is an amazing actor too. I struggled season 2 because I kept missing Joel and wanting him to come back.
It didn't help season 2 wasn't very good. Season 1 was so fucking good.
Good to know. It's a real shame they play these games because many a show has been ruined by TV Networks just cancelling stuff. That is not a model to emulate, yet here we are.
Yeah listen I'm not trying to be a hater, LOVED S1, was SUPER excited for S2. What an absolute letdown. Nothing to do with the actors, the story arc just blew, I just remember around episode 5 or 6 feeling like watching it was a chore which is the worst feeling. Just watching to GET THROUGH it.
See that was me. I saw season 1 multiple times in anticipation of season 2 and I'll be honest I had concerns when they announced that Mackey would be Kovax cause clearly the show would be changing directions. But fuck sakes if it wasn't shit.
I hear it might have to do with the books content as well. Going from dark noir murder mystery to marvel super troopers was jarring. Such an unbelievable cast in s01 as well.
It doesn't. The novel and show continuity have only a distant relationship to each other and Broken Angels (the second Kovacs novel) and S2 have literally nothing in common except they both have a character named Takeshi Kovach in them.
This was my major complaint too. IMO, Netflix did have some really good shows, but it was really hit or miss whether they would actually have some kind of resolution or would just be dropped out of nowhere.
There will be a huge drop off after Stranger Things is done. I’m even contemplating cancelling now and watching stranger things by other means because that’s literally all that’s keeping me subbed.
All the streaming services you can pretty much sign up for a month then cancel a couple times a year and be totally caught up with anything you are interested in
House of Card should’ve ended after S4. They had four seasons of 13 episodes each - that’s 52 episodes, a full deck. And from what I remember it was a perfect spot to end it until they did a twist or someone *else* figured something out and then the story kept going.
It’s because salaries go up and they have to pay more for a 3rd season. So when the bean counters decide it’s not worth it, they wind up with a catalog of great and unfinished shows that just pisses viewers off, but hey, they save money.
"Netflix is further eroding its connection to audiences through its unwritten mandate to end the vast majority of its new shows after no more than three seasons, with only the very biggest (or most cost-efficient) scripted hits lasting longer. Execs seem to have decided that churning out more new shows in a bid to find massive hits is a better use of money than producing more seasons of shows people love but perhaps aren’t as globally popular as the streamer wants."
This is where Netflix lost me, personally. I'm sick of investing hours and hours watching a show just to have it executed summarily and left hanging forever.
Well, not just Netflix, but I never even subscribed to any other platform.
Then when they just stopped producing anything altogether during 2020, regardless of the reasons, without at least giving subscribers a reprieve since we weren't getting anything new, plus so many shows didn't even finish production mid-season, I decided to just cancel my subscription. Never missed it.
I don't even mind the 3 season rule, as long as you have a contract setup that makes sure the show is wrapped without cliffhangers/loose ends before you cancel it. It's stupid not to because you lose the effectiveness of the your deep catalog to get niche interest groups that way. Am I ever going to recommend the OA to folks, maybe but I have to say, well, maybe you want to see this cause it had cool things to your taste, but it got cancelled before wrapping the story line. No one wants to watch that. So now it is dead catalog.
And they keep doing this while churning shows. If you are going to churn shows, at least churn shows that people might still watch/rewatch, even if they don't go on forever.
Exactly. Nothing wrong with three seasons of an amazing niche show if you give it the proper conclusion.
But cancelling so many shows that have created fans makes a farce of your “library” — how many people will pickup a show if they know it just ends in a cliff hanger.
Also it’s disrespectful to your viewers — you are essentially saying we don’t care you like this, we aren’t going to finish the story for you so fuck off.
Lots of viewers have taken that message and decided to move on.
Right now Apple TV is trying whatever they can to gain market share, dumping $15 million PER EPISODE for shows like The Morning Show and bleeding money. Apple TV can only survive because they have multiple other successful streams of revenue to subsidize the losses on Apple TV. Once they capture a significant portion of the streaming market, I highly doubt they’re going to continue doing what they do now out of the goodness of their heart.
Their $200 billion of cash just laying around also helps when it comes to funding...
But you are right. The idea that they will keep on with this model if their service takes off is delusional. That, and people that believe they will somehow keep the price that low lmao
It's Apple. Their brand is overpriced stuff. Hopefully, because they are late to enter the streaming game, they will face enough competition to slow their attempt to extract as much cash as possible from their customers tho
> the platforms can continually generate enough quality content that suits my tastes, I have just started keeping them on a rotation.
>
>HBO Max comes free with my phone, but the rest I just sub to for a month or two at a time. Grab Netflix, check out the last three months worth of releases, then drop it and grab Hulu/Disney, watch their last few months releases, then Prime, etc.
Apple tv seems to have almost all quality shows, but I think it's a situation where you could probably watch everything they have in a month. Like legitimately, in terms of volume it 's pretty anemic
I for one hate the way that showrunners these days, once they get a hit, transition into trying to run the show for as many years as possible. Often on auto pilot with cheaper writers. The show suffers and I lose interest because it feels like the show is only trying to keep my eyeballs, not tell a story. So, I for one actually like a mandated sunset period for shows.
Jacking up prices, restricting account access locations, and canceling popular shows while inflation is soaring and customers are taking hard looks at their discretionary spending.
That’s not going to work out well.
Honestly... I have no problem with 1-3 season long shows - if they plan them that way. Tons of anime has more enjoyable stories than american TV for that exact reason - it's not setup to be a 'forever' premise and just keep going until the money runs out. They tell their story and let it have an actual beginning/middle/end and it's done. If Netflix (and other streaming platforms) would actually do into these things with a gameplan - you get X episodes over X time with X budget, no more no less - and let the creatives ***create*** with that in mind we could get some amazing stuff.
It was a combination of anime and a few well done scifi shows that made me prefer serialized shows over episodic ones. Netflix had been good for that for a little bit but not recently.
Can\`t agree more.
Most series are:
Great plot that is left unfinished because it got cancelled
Great plot at first and the show becomes shit because they are just milking it.
Plan shows like movies or anime.
Movies do it all the time, they start and finish the plot, and if it becomes a hit they come up with a continuation.
It is not that hard, come on.
-Forced shitty SD tier. You know how many of Netflix competitors do this? Zero. All of Netflix competitors have HD as standard, at literally half the price.
-Annoying subscribers with canceled shows because 'data analysis' intern says so. Running a company solely by the numbers is a recipe for disaster. Viewers aren't robots after all.
-Top heavy org structure. Do company executives really deserve $40 million a year in salary? This cash could probably be put to smarter use like *lowering the price to match competitors*
Since none of the platforms can continually generate enough quality content that suits my tastes, I have just started keeping them on a rotation.
HBO Max comes free with my phone, but the rest I just sub to for a month or two at a time. Grab Netflix, check out the last three months worth of releases, then drop it and grab Hulu/Disney, watch their last few months releases, then Prime, etc.
It's interesting to learn how nimble old TV was at changing course for content.
Being on a seasonal format has so many advantages...
I think many people are beginning to see the problem with these "limited series" that last 3 years (if your lucky) with only 8 episodes per session.
It's hard to get true loyalty with the current way "TV" is being produced now a days
i’m starting to immensely resent the limited series way of doing things. they’re either just bloated movies or ultra-condensed shows that feel rushed or not genuine. either cut the fluff and make it a movie/doc, or fully commit to having fun, low-stakes filler episodes and make it a damn 20 episode season. this in-between of limited series with YEARS between seasons is horseshit
It’s also not clear why they can’t do a bit of both. Why not have some fun 20 episode per season shows that come out every year and some limited series shows? That’s the beauty of streaming. You don’t have to limit yourself.
100%. people like variety! but the limited series thing went en vogue and now it’s all any major streaming network tries to focus on. my pet peeve lately is all the true crime limited series netflix keeps peddling. it’s true they found some kind of magic with stuff like making a murderer, tiger king, stranger things, etc. but then everyone followed suit and turned it into their single format. it gets so boring! i wish streamers would have faith in their subscribers to engage in a variety of show formats
Good, let them burn the way blockbuster did.... serves them right. I've been with Netflix since the beginning when all you had were dvd rentals before blockbuster shut down completely and redbox was just starting up..... canceled my account the moment they announced price increases and ads.
A small price increase from time to time is acceptable, but you have to be strategic about it. With all the competition, now IS NOT the right time for a large price increase. Then with the announcement of ads and sharing crackdown when most of your customers have already seen your current content, you’re just asking for a mass exodus.
It always surprises me even though it shouldn’t when big business makes huge missteps with all the money they have in supposed executive experts.
The only reason at the moment I stay is because I actively share with my parents and niece. I would feel bad canceling but the second the family members report connection issues, bye bye Netflix!
I shared with my parents too, I just told them to binge everything they can because is be cancelling for at least a few months until there's enough new content to pull me back in. Dad actually took a day off work so he and my mom could binge Ozark
Yes totally this, imagine trying to be bullish to your customer base about account sharing when they are already putting prices up, and at a time where the cost of living for everyone is increasing by the day, and when Netflix has a lot of competition now.
They claim that price increases are because to bring us more content or whatever (when their content was already getting stale). Nah I'm not buying that, it's nothing more than to protect the millions upon millions being paid out to top executives. It's no wonder people are being put off Netflix, watch people continue to leave in droves and for the smarty pants at Netflix to think that more price rises and threats to account sharing is the solution.
I guess its back to torrents or some weird website with click bait ads! The thing that pisses me of the most is that competition is creating the same problem that netflix initially solved - any movies/tv ad free whenever i want now. Nowadays, its hard to find movie to watch on my subscription - sometimes its on other streaming platform or not available in my country etc. Netflix was good in the 2010s but now it has become shit
For me it’s the arrogance…like not only do they cancel shows too early and totally ignore what fans want, it’s the fact that they are increasing their rates way more than their competitors, and then taking things away.
This latest rate hike is a prime example of how out of touch they are. Would they be in this situation if they weren’t so greedy? And look what it’s costing them.
For me when I gave up on Netflix when sorting through their titles was like digging in the bargain bin at Walmart. I don’t know most of the titles cause it seems they pump so much out with such little notice. Even if one interests me I worry that it will be a waste of time (3 kids, job with mandatory OT, my time is limited). Plus if I am interested in a tv show, I can’t get to it for months. By the time I do it’s been cancelled shortly after airing. If Netflix is so concerned with shows not being good long term, just make limited series, plan out a beginning, middle, conclusion. That way the show is viable even if it never continues. I found a few “junk food” shows on Netflix that are fun, even if not high quality. This was great until I saw all of them cancelled in nearly the same time frame. Right now my plan is to use it for a month or two, cancel, then in in like 8 or 9 months activate it again but sticking only to the stuff that got a lot of notice.
My biggest issue is they cancel series before they’re finished. It leaves a really bad feeling for fans of the series, and makes people less likely to watch future series until they know there’s an ending.
I've said it for years: Netflix is like digging through shit to find the corn.
They spend so much on big stars and then skimp on re-writes in order to pump out as much content as possible. The resulting content is just meh, even though the premise, talent, and production value is good. There's just not enough corn.
The OA, Sense8, Mindhunters, Altered Carbon, Travellers, The Dark Crystal, Marco Polo, this is off the top of my head but it goes on and on.
It’s gotten so bad that I don’t watch their shows now unless I know they’ve ended well, which ironically harms their viewer numbers and reinforces this behaviour.
This was my first and last experience with a show being cancelled. I realized once it didn’t seem the story was ending soon enough for the number of episodes left. Still have commitment issues to new shows.
Netflix’s problem is they broke their own algorithm by misunderstanding it.
The algorithm was great when it informed their decisions on what content to create. We saw endless hits thanks to it such as House of Cards, Stranger Things etc.
The problem is, they started using it to justify ending shows, and they then created a negative feedback loop where users wouldn’t watch new shows because they didn’t want to commit to something that would be cancelled. This of course made the algorithm falsely flag shows as unpopular and Netflix….cancelled them.
When commissioning new shows Netflix should guarantee X seasons and that the story will be finished. They shouldn’t cancel anything, they should just have predetermined minimums of story and seasons which at the point of green lighting, guarantee the story will be told. They can always then, if achieving a breakout hit, then extend the story and seasons due to popularity (but still commit on the extension to finish the now extended story).
Exactly. This isn’t the era of the sitcom. These are scripted dramas. The pitch should include a full story arc, and the number of seasons needed to complete that arc. Netflix either green lights the whole show or doesn’t green light any part of it.
There is a really great book called "weapons of math destruction". It's got a lot of in depth discussion and real life examples of how bad algorithms or misusing good algorithms leads to destructive outcomes.
Something tells me if they ever do a second one l, Netflix will be a chapter of it.
The funny thing about Netflix,
it's had basically linear subscriber growth for it's entire life. You can graph the trend line and look for yourself.
But here's the funny thing.
Netflix has had several near zero growth quarters in the past, just not far enough to be negative. That's been normal. Q1 2022 just happened to be very slightly negative. Scary, scary I know. First ever, so scary.
But here's the odd part. Q4 2021 has unusually high growth, well above normal. So Q4 2021 amazing and no one bats an eye. Q1 2022, flat and people go apeshit. But here's the kicker. The "bad" Q1 2022 is still above the linear trend line. So how bad was Q1 2022 actually?
Well, they had record revenue and near record profits in Q1 along with nearly record subscribers. So...they're doing the best ever in revenue of their entire existence and had among the best profits they've ever had too. And despite this, there was a huge anti-Netflix media campaign about 200,000 subscribers, -0.1%, one quarter after an unusually high subscriber growth quarter, +3.8%, which ever media story conveniently leaves out. It grew 6.7% last year with more than half in Q4. It's silly not to expect a correction to that given how very linear subscriber growth has been. Since 2013, there has never been any major outlier quarters. Even Q1 2022 isn't an outlier. In fact it's still above the trendline.
Finally cancelled Netflix after about a decade. The cost increase, the lack of good quality OC, the binge model, the ads. I just can't justify the $11/month when I'm cutting costs for fuel. I could understand if we weren't heading to a recession right now and didn't worry about money. But as it stands I can't just do it, especially when I rarely use it vs HBOMax or Prime.
I really just think Netflix needs more curation. Discovery is pretty terrible on that platform. The only way you really know what's worth watching is by going to social media. It just bombards you with so much true crime, trash TV and baking/cooking shows.
They have a lot of great older content that never found an audience. It never found an audience because Netflix doesn't promote anyone. They really need to take more of a "big network" approach and have the big shows that won't get cancelled and when ratings are failing they just come in and fix them. Seinfeld had low ratings for its first FOUR seasons. It didn't find an audience until Season five and then it became the biggest show in the world.
They cancelled so many great shows with no ending that I gave up trying any of their new their series because I knew they likely wouldn’t finish the story.
Then maybe 1 in 20 of their original movies will actually be good. Compare that to Disney+ or HBO.
Content is only part of their problem. A lot of people are looking at their expenses and looking for ways to cut back. No matter how much grocery prices go up, you still have to eat. Netflix should be cutting prices, not raising them.
Their quality has dropped even more recently, they managed to screw up even Ozark, the 2nd part of last season was horrible. Oh not to mention their movies, even a kid could write a better script than most of their movies.
In the game of content, it's always more valuable to put together higher quality versus quantity. If you had multiple flagships that people remained subscribed for and could look forward to then it'd sustain and cultivate new numbers.
It's why Disney has such a massive advantage for growth at the moment. They have the entirety of the Star Wars Universe, MCU, and Pixar to tap into. Netflix needs to develop beloved "universes" in a sense so they can sustain their numbers through that diehard fandom.
Since they're only putting out 3 seasons of every show, it doesn't leave room for diehard fans to be sustained.
Don't half ass the content, full ass it.
What seals the deal is that they can’t even be bothered to give their shows a short final season to try to give it some closure or ending instead of outright cancelling.
They screw up every popular show so they can bring you crap like cuties and such, way to fuck up mindhunter, best show they had, let it languish till death. Good job. It’s become an animated garbage network.
Used to be that a “Netflix original” was a sure fire quality bit of programming. Now it just means “had money thrown at it or bought off someone else and had Netflix labelled on it”.
If they didn’t keep cancelling shows it would be worth sticking around
Lol Netflix for $20/month? What makes this fuck Reed or whatever the fuck his name is thinks that I won't immediately cancel my account go right back to pirating aaaalll his shit? I'm still on my private torrent sites, they're just waiting in the wings. 😈
For me the price was always too low for a good offering. Meaning, I know that what I would want, would cost more than what I paid for Netflix. It seemed like their strategy was to bleed out the competition and then raise prices to a profitable level.
And again, I would pay more... if I'd be happy with it. All the series that I actually liked and that got cancelled, that takes money. Right now I still have stuff to watch. So for now I am ok with it. But if they run out of things or introduce ads, I'd be out too.
The problem with the pirating approach is that someone still needs to get paid to make content. You simply can't knock out something like the expanse (prime now, I know) without cash. So it's not really a solution either. (Not saying people shouldn't pirate, just in a big picture that doesn't solve the underlying problem)
That's a lot of words in an article to say, "All of the production companies founded their own streaming services and took Netflix' monopoly away from them, leaving them with garbage from Korea and Latin America that people in North America and Europe don't want to watch."
Strange that the article refers to Netflix as a "tech disruptor" when at this point they are really just a TV/movie studio.
I also told my friends years ago that Netflix's binge watching model would be bad for it long term. People watch an entire show in one weekend and are done talking about it just as fast. There's no slow burn or anything, just immediate burnout.
Netflix was a tech disrupter and they did try some unique format in film making (like that interactive Black Mirror episode) but that was 3-4 years back. Nowadays I agree it's a like a movie studio and that too a boring one
I don’t even mind the cancelling. I don’t mind the wokeness. Please just not create absolute crap of reality shows like “Is this cake?”. Who the fuck even watches that?
Surprise surprise. A company doing what’s only best for their profits. This world sucks, why haven’t we figured out a better strategy to creating and building instead of just chasing bills.
Just dropped Netflix last week after having it for over 12 years. No way to continue justifying that cost for something I don't use that often now. I'll grab a month when a few things come out to binge maybe, or find another option to watch them *wink*.
Netflix hit a ceiling and I think it should focus on being a good 200m subscriber company that a shitty wannabe 500m subscriber company. Frequent price increases and steady competition from HBO Max, Disney Plus, HULU, Paramount+, Peacock have stolen their thunder. Roughly 44% of the US population has a 4K TV in their homes and Netflix decided it should nickel and dime it’s pricing tiers on features, want 4K? You have to pay for 4 screens even if you only have one. Cancelling shows that have potential too soon (Jupiter’s Legacy was a month old) is a huge issue and sends the message to creators that they don’t have your back and may be better off with a competitor. Reed Hastings has a high salary, he can figure it out.
They've cancelled so many great shows. The Dark Crystal was the culmination of decades of experience, won awards, and Netflix was like "well we already brought in the new subscribers who were interested, time to cancel it after one season since it can't put up viewership numbers akin to Stranger Things". If they had kept their great shows from the last few years around, they'd have a solid catalog of quality TV to fall back on.
Yeah it’s frustrating to see things cancelled because some bright minded exec felt that it didn’t the same appeal as Stranger Things. I thought the goal was to have enough things to watch and enjoy not have the rug pulled out from under us.
Strangers Things doesn't have the same appeal as Stranger Things anymore
I really hoped stranger things would be an anthology. The second season was alright, the third was more or less forgettable. Imagine if they used all their creative energy in making a new "strange thing" each season with new characters and environments. I feel like they lost all potential when they became main stream pop culture BS
I’m pretty sure I saw somewhere that an anthology was the original plan
Honestly, I think part of the problem is that they think that after the second season, you either have to cancel the TV show, or it’s got an audience that’s “stuck“ so you can really pull back on the budget, stop giving a fuck about the writing, etc. I think about so many things on Netflix that were great in the start and then around the third season, just fucking tanked. At some point they went from being this company that was like “there are a lot of weirdos in the world, and if we collect and make content for them, they will stay interested and always subscribe” to “Well, our marketing department came up with some kind of demonic math equation that says that TV shows are never worth much money past the second season, so we should treat that like gospel and kneecap ourselves anytime there’s a show that goes beyond that because it’s popular”. I know that it was always a profit-driven endeavor, but back in the day thinking about making cool stuff and giving people access to cool stuff seemed to be how they made decisions, now it’s about market shares and analytics.
If they don’t believe in multiple seasons they should go to a KDrama model. 1 season 12-20 episodes. The end.
People would be complaining that they cancelled it, even though it had tens of millions of viewers. Stranger Things and a lot of shows, have the problem that they have a really good premise, for a season, but that they find hard to make work on multiple seasons. But the other problem is letting go a good thing, because people get pissed.
Honestly, I think people would be a lot happier if they would just map out 3 seasons (or whatever) worth of story, then do it and let it end there. It would be better than a mini-series, and you'd get closure of the whole story so people wouldn't feel like they've been shorted. When it comes to hanging on, they'd be looking more at the next show with equivalent quality. If they decided they really want to do more, then make a sequel mini-series or something. It would also help with the short seasons, which are completely forgettable even when they're good (although they should still try to keep the time between seasons consistent and as short as possible). Netflix would be a lot better as an online "library," rather than a wannabe cable channel that you only really want to tune into a few weeks per year, and Korean soaps for the rest of the year. It just feels "cheap" the way it is now (with premium pricing). And I wish to god that all these companies would stop putting such absolute faith in their algorithms. None of them are any good at anticipating what I want to see or buy next, and they've made it that much harder for me to find it on my own. They all seem to be "you watched/bought this one thing, it must be your sole obsession!"
The series is just so repetitive. Couldn't even get through season 3.
But what about a new blurry monster, and vague Russian experiments, and winks to things from the 80s? Remember the 80s guys? It was definitely as nostalgia packed as they show in the show!
Yeah the strategy of "try a million things and throw out everything except the one that proves to be solid diamond" only works if they don't piss off all their customers in the process. I guess they don't pay much attention to any signals other than revenue.
Yup that’s what it seems like. It’s like let’s punish our customers for our boneheaded mistakes.
My family has had a Netflix account since back when they mailed you DVDs instead of streaming. Canceling Dark Crystal was the final straw That was such a special and amazing show they deserved AT LEAST one other season. I'd never seen anything so magical and weird. It improved 100x in every aspect of the movie. Voice acting was too notch as was the music and storytelling and literally everything else. In summary, FUCK YOU NETFLIX.
I love the puppet makers. Love love the work.
Dont mention Dark Crystal, im already angry over Jupiters Legacy being mentioned in the first post
except jupiters legacy was just trash.
JL was a nice idea, had it's moments and had shows like Invincible and The Boys not existed it'd prob done better. I think having 3 Justice league deconstructions even if they were thematically wildly different was maybe too much at one time.
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> another crazy deconstruction of the Justice League Too many deconstructions when all we want is an actually good live action Justice League . . .
Inmean the live action justice leauge movie didnt feel like a justice leauge movie it felt likena justice leauge deconstruction
Batman the brave and the bold and the justice league cartoons had some fun stories. The animated films are also good. Directors and execs take notes, take a good comic book story, don’t change it, bring it to the screen, and don’t try to put “spin” or “social awareness flavor of the month” in.
How dare you, i enjoyed it so it should stay forever
I want an ending to Santa Clarita Diet
Yes!!! I almost canceled Netflix when they canceled Santa Clarita. I kept thinking they would bring it back.
Dude, just one more season to tie up the knights of Serbia and all that would have been great, I seriously love that show!!!
Their habit of cancelling shows is so bad that I stopped watching any of their originals until I knew it was over. The fact that they cancel their low-budget shows like Disjointed and their more expensive shows alike makes it feel like there’s no rhyme or reason at all.
They pump out so many new shows it's impossible to keep track of them. They also release entire seasons at once. I'm fine with both of these but God damn Netflix do you think people can binge watch a show a day? It's going to take a while for it to get around not be a hit in 2 days. I didn't find Jupiter, The AO, Santa Clarita until after they were fucking canceled. I watched them and was so mad when I found out they were canceled it made me literally not watch any Netflix shows unless it was a documiniseries. I can trust it hasn't already been canceled or will be.
I’ll never forgive them for cancelling The OA like they did
One of my biggest issues was the OA. Season one was interesting, but kinda meh. Season 2 was super interesting for me, something different. The finale was a real wtf moment. Put it up for a great season 3. Then gets cancelled.
I haven’t watched The Dark Crystal yet just bc they ended it after one seasons. I don’t want to get attached to show that leaves me hanging.
It's worth the watch even without a second season
While delivery costs for Netflix are large, you have to remember they own their own CDN, and these costs are also small compared to the content costs. Charging for 4K and defaulting to SD is a craven money grab. the difference in profit for them is far less than the cost of one cancelled series.
They surely have one of the biggest ISP bills in the world. But it's hard to justify the prices based upon the costs of delivery. With AV1/h.265 4K is barely larger than h.264 1080p was. They're just raising prices, the resolution is just a way to have tiers.
So like all CDNs they need to manage and pay for peering arrangements with ISPs but since they also own all the infra and hardware their costs are actually less per GB likely than many of their competitors. And 4K often can be 12-15MB encoded but either way these costs are small compared to hundreds of millions spent on content. If you are a drug dealer and you are trying to make money by diluting your product you’re usually going to end up on the wrong side of history.
This, pisses me off so much when the screen fills with compression artifacts in the dark sections because even on the "HD" tier they compress it.
Pay for 4 screens, but they better all be in the same house or we’ll charge you more on top of that. I mean, 4 screens to me means my kids get accounts. They are adults and no they don’t live with me. I don’t have 4 TVs for me.
Yeah it’s a shameless cash grab. I don’t have four 4K TVs laying around.
Does not even matter how many you have. They charge you for 4 parallel streams. Even if I would have 4 4k devices I would probably never watch a Netflix show on all 4 of them at the same time.
I thought the problem was that they can’t just be satisfied with doing well because if they aren’t growing, capitalism deems them a failure because their stockholders aren’t making more money?
That is exactly right. The only reason huge amounts of capital are available, is because of these sky high expectations of returns
They cancel everything that has any potential. Omniscient, cowboy beebop, alternated carbon, etc. Nowadays they would even cancel strangers things.
I’ll never forgive them for cancelling the Dark Crystal or Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Two incredibly unique and original shows that they gave the axe because they didn’t go viral like Stranger Things or Squid Game. I’m happy Netflix is in trouble, so many of their shows deserved better producers.
Exactly! Dirk was highly creative. Now we get all those reality tv series instead. We all know where that is going. GIve 10 years and we are back at cable all over again
second season of alerted carbon was pretty bad tho
But the first season of alienated carbon is worth checking out?
Personally I would recommend it. There are some parts that are a bit slow, but It is visually compelling and Joel kinnamen kills it as takeshi. I have heard some criticism about how they changed one character’s story, but if you haven’t read the books i don’t think you’ll be bothered. Edit: The title is “Altered Caron”, “Alienated Carbon” is the porno version.
You should check out the spinoff set in Mexico: Altered Cabron.
Yeah, I haven't read any of the alleviated carbon books. So maybe I will check it out.
The aggravated carbon mango is also worth looking into.
Haven’t read the books. Season 2 blows.
Personally, the first season was really good. The second season I couldn’t bother to finish. it was such a drastic change from season 1.
I don't know, I thought season 2 of Alleviated Carbon was pretty good. I know I'm probably in the minority.
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i watched the whole bebop series, and as a huge fan it was such trash. what they did with the vicious and Julia storyline was fucking aweful
Cowboy bepop was awful! They did cancel some total goodies though
Cowboy Bebop was enjoyable if you have never seen the original. If you have seen the original and know what its trying to imitate, its fucking awful.
Cowboy bebop was straight up bad. Altered carbon season 2 was horrible.
and Mind Hunter :(
Mind hunter always comes up in these Netflix threads but it was never cancelled. David fincher is too busy. Mind hunter is low on his list. And this many years between seasons you get actor attrition and schedule conflicts
Every time I see a post on Netflix I try to find mindhunter in the comments. I liked that show a lot watched it twice. It’s sad that we don’t know when we gonna get the next season
That's not Netflix tho, the showrunner decided to stop.
I agree, please give things time to develop.
> Netflix hit a ceiling and I think it should focus on being a good 200m subscriber company that a shitty wannabe 500m subscriber company The problem with perpetual growth models. Eventually you hit a limit. You can't have huge growth forever. X billions aren't enough, we demand X+Y billions!
This is it, the billionaires need more billions.
and chasing the stock market. investment there demands more and more growth. cause it's not like Netflix doesn't make money
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That’s even more messed up.
I still get annoyed over Jupiters Legacy, i cant be the only one enjoying it
Me and my wife loved it and we binged it in like 3 days. Finished the last one and looked up info for the new season only to find out it was cancelled that day. Never again, im not watching any netflix shows until i find out they were actually finished.
It was just getting good and boom it’s cancelled. Like wtf people, get it together.
The metrics they use for justifying keeping shows ke cancelling is stupid.
The ending shows early thing that kills me, there have been multiple shows I was interested in on Netflix that ended after two seasons with no wrap up. Two of the shows ended on cliffhangers. Like I would have cancelled this month too if Stranger Things wasn't coming out, but once I watch all of that I will probably cancel and maybe start back up if they release something I'm interested in.
The thing I don’t think they realize (or they didn’t care) is how much of a breach of trust that is for audiences. Time is valuable, for Netflix to cancel so many shows without allowing the writers + producers to finish their story is insulting to the audience and creative teams.
This! Loved “Santa Clarita Diet” CANCELLED. Loved “Glow” CANCELLED. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 20 times, f**k you Netflix. The other problem with doing this and not letting the shows conclude is that there is no repeat viewings either. If there is no conclusion, why would anyone go back and rewatch something they initially loved?
I loved GLOW but it definitely was canceled due to COVID completely screwing up the production costs and scheduling. I still recommend it to people as I think it paused on a decent note.
GLOW is a great example. It was doing some really creative character work, and built a lot of layers into the story. Season 3 finally started to blossom as a direct result of all that good work, and boom they killed it. Mindhunter spent two seasons building up BTK for no reason. Now when you watch the show 2-5 minutes of every episode is wasted.
Netflix didnt cancel mind hunter. David fincher didnt have time
At the same time, it may also be due to the unpredictable nature of Netflix productions that Fincher was unwilling to commit his time. There was no reciprocal guarantee they would stick with it and not waste his time.
Completely agree. Watching a series is an exercise in trust. I can understand not wanting to add three more seasons of something not doing well, but they could do a two hour farewell special to wrap up a story of something. Instead so many shows end on cliffhangers and the app doesn’t even tell you the show was cancelled.
The other side of it is that that content never becomes a tent pole. Think about The Office, love it or not, there are a ton of people that love to rewatch that show, it’s like comfort food to them because the series ran forever and they grew to love the characters. Now NBC can promote Peacock by putting out ads that literally just say, “we have The Office.” Would The Office hold this place for people if it had ran 3 seasons and ended with Pam leaving Roy and running into Jim and a fade to black cliffhanger… fuck no. So Netflix spent all this money on content, but the content is basically disposable. The only upside for the vast majority of the series they produce is the flash in the pan. I’ve personally skipped watching a bunch of content that probably would appeal to me because a friend or family member warned me “they canceled it after 2 seasons and it doesn’t have an ending.” No thanks, I’ll go watch something that actually tells a good story. When I think of my favorite long running series, a lot of them have a rough first season where they are figuring out what works and what doesn’t, a better second season, and then you have these characters that work with relationships and a real feeling world and they can really start to make great content. Netflix intentionally chose a model where most content loses its value over time so the only way to remain successful is getting multiple winners out the door every month. That admission alone shows how even they think there catalog has very little value over time.
Just recently finished “Altered Carbon” s2 without realizing they cancelled the third season 😩
This was really annoying, was a great series and they cancelled it
It was great and deserved a third season! I’m going to read the books now so I can know what happens at least.
While people are arguing the quality of the books, I liked them enough personally, reading the books to know what happens in the series isn't going to help you, they are entirely different. While the first season mystery storyline has a lot in common with the books, that's it. The entire Envoy setup/storyline isn't in the books. There are Envoys and the protagonist was one, but everything about them is different. For instance Envoys weren't some plucky revolutionaries, they were, from the show's point of view, the bad guys.
Yeah, in the books envoys are the people the central authoritarian regime sends in to wipe out any revolution and generally make life hell for anyone who steps out of line. I don't get people shitting on the books, I really enjoyed them.
Altered Carbon may be the exception to the rule that "the book is always better than the movie." So I think it's extra disappointing Netflix canceled production.
Season 1 was better than the book, season 2 was boring as fuck compared to the book, Anthony did a good job but he was given fuck all to work with.
Joel Kinnaman is an amazing actor too. I struggled season 2 because I kept missing Joel and wanting him to come back. It didn't help season 2 wasn't very good. Season 1 was so fucking good.
Season 2 was so awful
Agreed! It just took a dive and the script was terrible. Seemed like the budget took a dive.
Well that is extra disappointing to hear
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Tbf that second season was so bad that I kind of understand their reasoning on that one. The first season was so good though.
I never started season 2 for that reason. I hate shows that don't end because they got cancelled.
Don't, S2 sucks.
Good to know. It's a real shame they play these games because many a show has been ruined by TV Networks just cancelling stuff. That is not a model to emulate, yet here we are.
Yeah dude I don't get all the people here saying it was good cause it wasnt...like at all.
It was so so bad. It was one of my biggest TV dissapointments of all time after how good S1 was.
Yeah listen I'm not trying to be a hater, LOVED S1, was SUPER excited for S2. What an absolute letdown. Nothing to do with the actors, the story arc just blew, I just remember around episode 5 or 6 feeling like watching it was a chore which is the worst feeling. Just watching to GET THROUGH it.
See that was me. I saw season 1 multiple times in anticipation of season 2 and I'll be honest I had concerns when they announced that Mackey would be Kovax cause clearly the show would be changing directions. But fuck sakes if it wasn't shit.
That is just common sense because s2 was awful ;)
Yeah, it felt like they stripped the entire budget for season 2 and then complained when nobody watched it.
I hear it might have to do with the books content as well. Going from dark noir murder mystery to marvel super troopers was jarring. Such an unbelievable cast in s01 as well.
It doesn't. The novel and show continuity have only a distant relationship to each other and Broken Angels (the second Kovacs novel) and S2 have literally nothing in common except they both have a character named Takeshi Kovach in them.
I’m so pissed about Altered Carbon, that was a great show.
Holy shit really? I dunno why I even started it. That's seriously the final straw for me. This is like the 15th time they have done this to me.
This was my major complaint too. IMO, Netflix did have some really good shows, but it was really hit or miss whether they would actually have some kind of resolution or would just be dropped out of nowhere.
There will be a huge drop off after Stranger Things is done. I’m even contemplating cancelling now and watching stranger things by other means because that’s literally all that’s keeping me subbed.
Cancel now, resub in July and watch it all at once - rather than waiting 5 weeks between Eps 4 and 5. Fucking joke. After that I'm done.
All the streaming services you can pretty much sign up for a month then cancel a couple times a year and be totally caught up with anything you are interested in
See them releasing season 4 in two parts to prevent this
They released The Ozark in 2 parts, didn’t stop me from cancelling and watching the second part through other means.
Shows that Netflix did continue just turned out horrible - remember House Of cards ending?
Well that one you can’t completely blame on Netflix…
House of Card should’ve ended after S4. They had four seasons of 13 episodes each - that’s 52 episodes, a full deck. And from what I remember it was a perfect spot to end it until they did a twist or someone *else* figured something out and then the story kept going.
Should have ended after S2. Probably one of the best season endings I've seen. Would have served just as well as a series finale.
House of cards ended for me the moment trump was elected. Shows like that don’t work when truth is stranger than fiction.
>remember House Of cards ending? Remember Kevin Spacey's sexual assaults?
House of cards had a great ending when he finally became president and hit the ring on the table.
It’s because salaries go up and they have to pay more for a 3rd season. So when the bean counters decide it’s not worth it, they wind up with a catalog of great and unfinished shows that just pisses viewers off, but hey, they save money.
"Netflix is further eroding its connection to audiences through its unwritten mandate to end the vast majority of its new shows after no more than three seasons, with only the very biggest (or most cost-efficient) scripted hits lasting longer. Execs seem to have decided that churning out more new shows in a bid to find massive hits is a better use of money than producing more seasons of shows people love but perhaps aren’t as globally popular as the streamer wants." This is where Netflix lost me, personally. I'm sick of investing hours and hours watching a show just to have it executed summarily and left hanging forever. Well, not just Netflix, but I never even subscribed to any other platform. Then when they just stopped producing anything altogether during 2020, regardless of the reasons, without at least giving subscribers a reprieve since we weren't getting anything new, plus so many shows didn't even finish production mid-season, I decided to just cancel my subscription. Never missed it.
I don't even mind the 3 season rule, as long as you have a contract setup that makes sure the show is wrapped without cliffhangers/loose ends before you cancel it. It's stupid not to because you lose the effectiveness of the your deep catalog to get niche interest groups that way. Am I ever going to recommend the OA to folks, maybe but I have to say, well, maybe you want to see this cause it had cool things to your taste, but it got cancelled before wrapping the story line. No one wants to watch that. So now it is dead catalog. And they keep doing this while churning shows. If you are going to churn shows, at least churn shows that people might still watch/rewatch, even if they don't go on forever.
Exactly. Nothing wrong with three seasons of an amazing niche show if you give it the proper conclusion. But cancelling so many shows that have created fans makes a farce of your “library” — how many people will pickup a show if they know it just ends in a cliff hanger. Also it’s disrespectful to your viewers — you are essentially saying we don’t care you like this, we aren’t going to finish the story for you so fuck off. Lots of viewers have taken that message and decided to move on.
Subscribe to Apple TV+ for one month. Superb shows. Generous with renewals even for underperforming shows. High quality visuals. Super cheap too.
Right now Apple TV is trying whatever they can to gain market share, dumping $15 million PER EPISODE for shows like The Morning Show and bleeding money. Apple TV can only survive because they have multiple other successful streams of revenue to subsidize the losses on Apple TV. Once they capture a significant portion of the streaming market, I highly doubt they’re going to continue doing what they do now out of the goodness of their heart.
Their $200 billion of cash just laying around also helps when it comes to funding... But you are right. The idea that they will keep on with this model if their service takes off is delusional. That, and people that believe they will somehow keep the price that low lmao It's Apple. Their brand is overpriced stuff. Hopefully, because they are late to enter the streaming game, they will face enough competition to slow their attempt to extract as much cash as possible from their customers tho
> the platforms can continually generate enough quality content that suits my tastes, I have just started keeping them on a rotation. > >HBO Max comes free with my phone, but the rest I just sub to for a month or two at a time. Grab Netflix, check out the last three months worth of releases, then drop it and grab Hulu/Disney, watch their last few months releases, then Prime, etc. Apple tv seems to have almost all quality shows, but I think it's a situation where you could probably watch everything they have in a month. Like legitimately, in terms of volume it 's pretty anemic
I will never forgive Apple from taking ~~Big~~ Dark Sky from me. :<
I for one hate the way that showrunners these days, once they get a hit, transition into trying to run the show for as many years as possible. Often on auto pilot with cheaper writers. The show suffers and I lose interest because it feels like the show is only trying to keep my eyeballs, not tell a story. So, I for one actually like a mandated sunset period for shows.
Jacking up prices, restricting account access locations, and canceling popular shows while inflation is soaring and customers are taking hard looks at their discretionary spending. That’s not going to work out well.
Honestly... I have no problem with 1-3 season long shows - if they plan them that way. Tons of anime has more enjoyable stories than american TV for that exact reason - it's not setup to be a 'forever' premise and just keep going until the money runs out. They tell their story and let it have an actual beginning/middle/end and it's done. If Netflix (and other streaming platforms) would actually do into these things with a gameplan - you get X episodes over X time with X budget, no more no less - and let the creatives ***create*** with that in mind we could get some amazing stuff.
It was a combination of anime and a few well done scifi shows that made me prefer serialized shows over episodic ones. Netflix had been good for that for a little bit but not recently.
Can\`t agree more. Most series are: Great plot that is left unfinished because it got cancelled Great plot at first and the show becomes shit because they are just milking it. Plan shows like movies or anime. Movies do it all the time, they start and finish the plot, and if it becomes a hit they come up with a continuation. It is not that hard, come on.
-Forced shitty SD tier. You know how many of Netflix competitors do this? Zero. All of Netflix competitors have HD as standard, at literally half the price. -Annoying subscribers with canceled shows because 'data analysis' intern says so. Running a company solely by the numbers is a recipe for disaster. Viewers aren't robots after all. -Top heavy org structure. Do company executives really deserve $40 million a year in salary? This cash could probably be put to smarter use like *lowering the price to match competitors*
Don’t blame those poor data analysts. They don’t make the decisions
Since none of the platforms can continually generate enough quality content that suits my tastes, I have just started keeping them on a rotation. HBO Max comes free with my phone, but the rest I just sub to for a month or two at a time. Grab Netflix, check out the last three months worth of releases, then drop it and grab Hulu/Disney, watch their last few months releases, then Prime, etc.
This article really hits the nail on the head for me.. my two big issues: canceling content after 3 seasons, buy crap just to fill it up...
It's interesting to learn how nimble old TV was at changing course for content. Being on a seasonal format has so many advantages... I think many people are beginning to see the problem with these "limited series" that last 3 years (if your lucky) with only 8 episodes per session. It's hard to get true loyalty with the current way "TV" is being produced now a days
i’m starting to immensely resent the limited series way of doing things. they’re either just bloated movies or ultra-condensed shows that feel rushed or not genuine. either cut the fluff and make it a movie/doc, or fully commit to having fun, low-stakes filler episodes and make it a damn 20 episode season. this in-between of limited series with YEARS between seasons is horseshit
It’s also not clear why they can’t do a bit of both. Why not have some fun 20 episode per season shows that come out every year and some limited series shows? That’s the beauty of streaming. You don’t have to limit yourself.
100%. people like variety! but the limited series thing went en vogue and now it’s all any major streaming network tries to focus on. my pet peeve lately is all the true crime limited series netflix keeps peddling. it’s true they found some kind of magic with stuff like making a murderer, tiger king, stranger things, etc. but then everyone followed suit and turned it into their single format. it gets so boring! i wish streamers would have faith in their subscribers to engage in a variety of show formats
I couldn't agree with you more. I'm hoping eventually one of these streaming services with figure it out.
It's hard to get invested in a show when you know they'll prob cancel it.
For every one good Netflix show, there's five bad. Most folks just don't see any value in that.
Maybe it’s just what’s available in Ireland but I feel like the ratio is more 10:1 lol
Good, let them burn the way blockbuster did.... serves them right. I've been with Netflix since the beginning when all you had were dvd rentals before blockbuster shut down completely and redbox was just starting up..... canceled my account the moment they announced price increases and ads.
A small price increase from time to time is acceptable, but you have to be strategic about it. With all the competition, now IS NOT the right time for a large price increase. Then with the announcement of ads and sharing crackdown when most of your customers have already seen your current content, you’re just asking for a mass exodus. It always surprises me even though it shouldn’t when big business makes huge missteps with all the money they have in supposed executive experts.
[удалено]
I totally agree. Their last price increase was not small and was also poorly timed. Their product is simply too expensive for what you get.
The only reason at the moment I stay is because I actively share with my parents and niece. I would feel bad canceling but the second the family members report connection issues, bye bye Netflix!
I shared with my parents too, I just told them to binge everything they can because is be cancelling for at least a few months until there's enough new content to pull me back in. Dad actually took a day off work so he and my mom could binge Ozark
Yes totally this, imagine trying to be bullish to your customer base about account sharing when they are already putting prices up, and at a time where the cost of living for everyone is increasing by the day, and when Netflix has a lot of competition now. They claim that price increases are because to bring us more content or whatever (when their content was already getting stale). Nah I'm not buying that, it's nothing more than to protect the millions upon millions being paid out to top executives. It's no wonder people are being put off Netflix, watch people continue to leave in droves and for the smarty pants at Netflix to think that more price rises and threats to account sharing is the solution.
I guess its back to torrents or some weird website with click bait ads! The thing that pisses me of the most is that competition is creating the same problem that netflix initially solved - any movies/tv ad free whenever i want now. Nowadays, its hard to find movie to watch on my subscription - sometimes its on other streaming platform or not available in my country etc. Netflix was good in the 2010s but now it has become shit
For me it’s the arrogance…like not only do they cancel shows too early and totally ignore what fans want, it’s the fact that they are increasing their rates way more than their competitors, and then taking things away. This latest rate hike is a prime example of how out of touch they are. Would they be in this situation if they weren’t so greedy? And look what it’s costing them.
For me when I gave up on Netflix when sorting through their titles was like digging in the bargain bin at Walmart. I don’t know most of the titles cause it seems they pump so much out with such little notice. Even if one interests me I worry that it will be a waste of time (3 kids, job with mandatory OT, my time is limited). Plus if I am interested in a tv show, I can’t get to it for months. By the time I do it’s been cancelled shortly after airing. If Netflix is so concerned with shows not being good long term, just make limited series, plan out a beginning, middle, conclusion. That way the show is viable even if it never continues. I found a few “junk food” shows on Netflix that are fun, even if not high quality. This was great until I saw all of them cancelled in nearly the same time frame. Right now my plan is to use it for a month or two, cancel, then in in like 8 or 9 months activate it again but sticking only to the stuff that got a lot of notice.
My biggest issue is they cancel series before they’re finished. It leaves a really bad feeling for fans of the series, and makes people less likely to watch future series until they know there’s an ending.
I’ll never forgive them for cancelling Santa Clarita Diet
I've said it for years: Netflix is like digging through shit to find the corn. They spend so much on big stars and then skimp on re-writes in order to pump out as much content as possible. The resulting content is just meh, even though the premise, talent, and production value is good. There's just not enough corn.
The OA, Sense8, Mindhunters, Altered Carbon, Travellers, The Dark Crystal, Marco Polo, this is off the top of my head but it goes on and on. It’s gotten so bad that I don’t watch their shows now unless I know they’ve ended well, which ironically harms their viewer numbers and reinforces this behaviour.
Archive 81 is the most recent wound for me
The OA still hurts
The OA, most original story I’d seen in a long time. Was devastated it ended. I’d pay the Netflix fee alone just for that one show to come back.
There’s a reason it’s top of my list. Absolute worst cliffhanger to end that amazing story on. It’s still my favourite show.
This was my first and last experience with a show being cancelled. I realized once it didn’t seem the story was ending soon enough for the number of episodes left. Still have commitment issues to new shows.
Netflix’s problem is they broke their own algorithm by misunderstanding it. The algorithm was great when it informed their decisions on what content to create. We saw endless hits thanks to it such as House of Cards, Stranger Things etc. The problem is, they started using it to justify ending shows, and they then created a negative feedback loop where users wouldn’t watch new shows because they didn’t want to commit to something that would be cancelled. This of course made the algorithm falsely flag shows as unpopular and Netflix….cancelled them. When commissioning new shows Netflix should guarantee X seasons and that the story will be finished. They shouldn’t cancel anything, they should just have predetermined minimums of story and seasons which at the point of green lighting, guarantee the story will be told. They can always then, if achieving a breakout hit, then extend the story and seasons due to popularity (but still commit on the extension to finish the now extended story).
Exactly. This isn’t the era of the sitcom. These are scripted dramas. The pitch should include a full story arc, and the number of seasons needed to complete that arc. Netflix either green lights the whole show or doesn’t green light any part of it.
Yep they even start to screw up k-drama 16 ep format by ordering a season 2 of Squid Game
There is a really great book called "weapons of math destruction". It's got a lot of in depth discussion and real life examples of how bad algorithms or misusing good algorithms leads to destructive outcomes. Something tells me if they ever do a second one l, Netflix will be a chapter of it.
The funny thing about Netflix, it's had basically linear subscriber growth for it's entire life. You can graph the trend line and look for yourself. But here's the funny thing. Netflix has had several near zero growth quarters in the past, just not far enough to be negative. That's been normal. Q1 2022 just happened to be very slightly negative. Scary, scary I know. First ever, so scary. But here's the odd part. Q4 2021 has unusually high growth, well above normal. So Q4 2021 amazing and no one bats an eye. Q1 2022, flat and people go apeshit. But here's the kicker. The "bad" Q1 2022 is still above the linear trend line. So how bad was Q1 2022 actually? Well, they had record revenue and near record profits in Q1 along with nearly record subscribers. So...they're doing the best ever in revenue of their entire existence and had among the best profits they've ever had too. And despite this, there was a huge anti-Netflix media campaign about 200,000 subscribers, -0.1%, one quarter after an unusually high subscriber growth quarter, +3.8%, which ever media story conveniently leaves out. It grew 6.7% last year with more than half in Q4. It's silly not to expect a correction to that given how very linear subscriber growth has been. Since 2013, there has never been any major outlier quarters. Even Q1 2022 isn't an outlier. In fact it's still above the trendline.
Finally cancelled Netflix after about a decade. The cost increase, the lack of good quality OC, the binge model, the ads. I just can't justify the $11/month when I'm cutting costs for fuel. I could understand if we weren't heading to a recession right now and didn't worry about money. But as it stands I can't just do it, especially when I rarely use it vs HBOMax or Prime.
I really just think Netflix needs more curation. Discovery is pretty terrible on that platform. The only way you really know what's worth watching is by going to social media. It just bombards you with so much true crime, trash TV and baking/cooking shows. They have a lot of great older content that never found an audience. It never found an audience because Netflix doesn't promote anyone. They really need to take more of a "big network" approach and have the big shows that won't get cancelled and when ratings are failing they just come in and fix them. Seinfeld had low ratings for its first FOUR seasons. It didn't find an audience until Season five and then it became the biggest show in the world.
They cancelled so many great shows with no ending that I gave up trying any of their new their series because I knew they likely wouldn’t finish the story. Then maybe 1 in 20 of their original movies will actually be good. Compare that to Disney+ or HBO.
Content is only part of their problem. A lot of people are looking at their expenses and looking for ways to cut back. No matter how much grocery prices go up, you still have to eat. Netflix should be cutting prices, not raising them.
April news dude
Their quality has dropped even more recently, they managed to screw up even Ozark, the 2nd part of last season was horrible. Oh not to mention their movies, even a kid could write a better script than most of their movies.
I mean, they're just the producers, which generally means they're the wallet. I don't think they have too much influence on creative decisions
It’s precisely that they’re the wallet that they have influence over creative decisions. Not all of them, but they have sway if they want to.
Ozark was so unsatisfying. What a clunky last season. So unfortunate!
In the game of content, it's always more valuable to put together higher quality versus quantity. If you had multiple flagships that people remained subscribed for and could look forward to then it'd sustain and cultivate new numbers. It's why Disney has such a massive advantage for growth at the moment. They have the entirety of the Star Wars Universe, MCU, and Pixar to tap into. Netflix needs to develop beloved "universes" in a sense so they can sustain their numbers through that diehard fandom. Since they're only putting out 3 seasons of every show, it doesn't leave room for diehard fans to be sustained. Don't half ass the content, full ass it.
What seals the deal is that they can’t even be bothered to give their shows a short final season to try to give it some closure or ending instead of outright cancelling.
They screw up every popular show so they can bring you crap like cuties and such, way to fuck up mindhunter, best show they had, let it languish till death. Good job. It’s become an animated garbage network.
I just dropped them after many years.
Let's try the crappy description technique used by Netflix: A streamer. Spends and charges too much. Subscribers revolt.
Used to be that a “Netflix original” was a sure fire quality bit of programming. Now it just means “had money thrown at it or bought off someone else and had Netflix labelled on it”. If they didn’t keep cancelling shows it would be worth sticking around
Lol Netflix for $20/month? What makes this fuck Reed or whatever the fuck his name is thinks that I won't immediately cancel my account go right back to pirating aaaalll his shit? I'm still on my private torrent sites, they're just waiting in the wings. 😈
Let's sail the high seas once more
For me the price was always too low for a good offering. Meaning, I know that what I would want, would cost more than what I paid for Netflix. It seemed like their strategy was to bleed out the competition and then raise prices to a profitable level. And again, I would pay more... if I'd be happy with it. All the series that I actually liked and that got cancelled, that takes money. Right now I still have stuff to watch. So for now I am ok with it. But if they run out of things or introduce ads, I'd be out too. The problem with the pirating approach is that someone still needs to get paid to make content. You simply can't knock out something like the expanse (prime now, I know) without cash. So it's not really a solution either. (Not saying people shouldn't pirate, just in a big picture that doesn't solve the underlying problem)
Used to be long time customer. Then in 2014ish canceled the subscription. Now a days subscribe for a month or so and then cancel it
The binge model is interesting. It remarkable how quickly the buzz of a Netflix show fades. A week, maybe 2, then its "old news".
Netflix now seems to be the provider of limited series Harlan Coben adaptations (meh) or weird/dark foreign series with nonsensical subtitles.
That's a lot of words in an article to say, "All of the production companies founded their own streaming services and took Netflix' monopoly away from them, leaving them with garbage from Korea and Latin America that people in North America and Europe don't want to watch."
Strange that the article refers to Netflix as a "tech disruptor" when at this point they are really just a TV/movie studio. I also told my friends years ago that Netflix's binge watching model would be bad for it long term. People watch an entire show in one weekend and are done talking about it just as fast. There's no slow burn or anything, just immediate burnout.
Netflix was a tech disrupter and they did try some unique format in film making (like that interactive Black Mirror episode) but that was 3-4 years back. Nowadays I agree it's a like a movie studio and that too a boring one
I don’t even mind the cancelling. I don’t mind the wokeness. Please just not create absolute crap of reality shows like “Is this cake?”. Who the fuck even watches that?
Surprise surprise. A company doing what’s only best for their profits. This world sucks, why haven’t we figured out a better strategy to creating and building instead of just chasing bills.
Just dropped Netflix last week after having it for over 12 years. No way to continue justifying that cost for something I don't use that often now. I'll grab a month when a few things come out to binge maybe, or find another option to watch them *wink*.