Posted on 09/16/2011 12:57:06 PM PDT by LibWhacker
Horror show: Netflix losing more customers than expected on price hike, stock plunges 19 pct
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Netflix's decision to raise prices by as much as 60 percent is turning into a horror show.
The customer backlash against the higher rates, kicking in this month, has been much harsher than Netflix Inc. anticipated. That prompted management to predict Thursday that the company --the largest U.S. video subscription service-- will end September with 600,000 fewer U.S. customers than it had in June.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
I’m saying amazon prime comes with unlimited streaming. You won’t even need netflix.
ps— I killed subscription tv a couple years ago. Never missed it for an instant. Totally worthless.
Amazon is delivering a superior product for less money. At least for streaming. I rarely used the DVD side of netflix anyway, because new movies are mostly crap. I think the only movie I rented in the last year was Coen’s “True Grit.” And I can stream that on Amazon prime for NOTHING.
My wife was sold on the free shipping. She absolutely HATES paying for shipping. In fact she flat out refuses to. If everyone shopped like my wife, stuff would be a lot cheaper. lol.
I think Netflix is a bargain at twice the price. Even if it was $30 a month, I’d be a happy subscriber. In fact, they should raise the price to that because then they’d be able to afford a better selection with the instant (streaming) option.
I get the feeling they want out of the DVD business. But they better upgrade their streaming service. Maybe they have something in the works...meantime, hello Amazon Prime.
Then again, I thought McDs was going down the wrong path with "I'm lovin' it" and salads and coffees, etc, and they seem to have done very well. We'll see.
I don't have enough faith in Netflix to buy stock on the dip. Maybe I'll regret it. Who knows?
We went to streaming only and I am shocked at how many movies are no longer available to us. It seems every movie I look for is not available and I get a note that encourages me to upgrade to getting dvds. They are morons.
bump: dump netflix mark
I like that vudu’s stuff is entirely on their servers and you can be sure if something goes ‘poof’ they are going to be in a world of lawsuits. I did a double check and Netflix has improved the Christmas content. I still would like to be able to custome profile a device. As for the gay lesbo stuff its there and it can’t easily be blocked and one of the great things about these services should be customization to tastes and enhanced parental control. Also It’d be cool. I think neflix should have a cable tv channel offerring. It’d expand their brand and help feed their service. There is so much more they could do. They definently need to get into kiosks or some kind of instant rental system. They may not be hurting now but they risk becoming stagnent. The cable tv companies are coming and some of those who they currently purchase rights from will soon be competing. It is going to get tough in netflix land. Even I have found myself not using them as much since my cable options have improved considerably through xfinity. Maybe its just me but Netflix just isn’t exciting any more. Hulu plus would be good for me if they would just duplicate the service they have on the pc but we can thank the funny money way rights are sold for that not happenning. That is low on my list but I’d like to see a bit of reform on how media and intellectual property is treated legally. I’d like to see it become easier for companies like Netflix to acquire rights to media. I’d like to see the law changed so that Netflix could simply purchase 2 million copies of a movie and then be able to offer up to two million streams. Imagine if a car rental company had to license the rights to rent a certain type of vehicle? They have deals but you’d think it were crazy. A dirt lot in the middle of Alabama can buy and rent any vehicle they want why should media be different? We apply strange counterintuitive rules to things that benefits consumers not one bit.
Between their commercials and Progressive’s, I want to blow my brains out!!!!!
I didn’t find that Amazon Prime’s offerings compared to Netflix, because they count each episode of a series as an offering. Maybe I’m looking in the wrong place, but they didn’t have much I wanted. I am going to try the free trial in December, though. Free Christmas shipping and I get to watch the third season of one of my favorite shows, too.
Not sure. Just trying out Amazon Prime, and mostly looking at the free stuff. I don’t watch tv shows, so I can’t really help you there. They have lots of free movies, and you can pay to view a lot of premium movies for a few bucks if you don’t feel like schlepping to redbox. Their movie selection is definitely better than Netflix, at least in the classic department.
I’m really rethinking Netflix, not because of the price hike as much as they just reneged on a promise to make subtitles available on Roku. I just bought the top-end Roku a few months ago, only to find out that I will never get the subtitles I was promised, but have to buy a new “Roku 2” to get them.
I tried to watch a bunch of older British shows, including All Creatures Great and Small, and I gave up because I was missing so much dialogue.
The itunes model works, though it may be too heavily balanced in favor of iTunes. Content owners get up to 70% of the fee, 30% goes to iTunes for delivering it. Content onwers in this case could be shared, e.g. production company gets some and “US distributor rights” gets some, depending on the deal they struck originally.
At some point something close to standard will emerge and then it won’t matter who is providing the content, the content owners will be happy knowing they get the cut whether sold on Netflix, Google, Hulu, Itunes, NBC, Amazon, Comcast, Time Warner etc etc etc.
What the owners need to work on is how to keep the audience interested when so much on demand is available. It becomes a marketing challenge. They won’t want to break the model of Theatrical Release, as that is where the most noise is made, and the costs recently incurred and they want to recoup it Selling a movie 10 years after it is released out is a different economic model, and iTunes actually showed music people how to make more money by abandoning the previous line pricing, and allowing singles to sell from as much as $2 to as low as 39 cents, when previously it was all $1 a song and $9.99 an album.
Content owners will be able to determine how much to charge, and Netflix will be able to offer first run or second run movies for an upcharge. Older content will be sold in a licensed package.
I did the same thing and never looked back.
I’ve had the service for several years now, and after about 18 months, I tried the DVD service once just to see how slick it worked. I’ve got to admit, it was pretty slick. None the less I didn’t use it again.
Streaming to my iPhone or iPad works great, and I’ll probably pick up a device to play the Netflix videos on our HDTV in the future.
I’m also enjoying HBOGo and MAXGo.
wow didn’t know about MAX GO thanks!
I know - I have kids - and so the compexity of organizing all their shows etc.
Plus - history intl, science channel, notso bad. Plus - real HD.
I will have to check out Amazon Prime again - last time I checked it didn’t work well - weak interface, trying to have me rent movies.
Glad to hear my post was of help to you.
The HBOGo and MAXGo both have graphic interfaces for selection, but be sure to check out their movie lists which are much more extensive.
There’s a lot of movies available with those two portals.
You may already be aware of this, but just in case...
Take care.
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