[autokad]

the earnings report was interesting. HUGE beat on subscribers (7.66m vs 4.57m exp), yet missed on revenue (7.85b vs 7.9b expected).

if we are heading into a recession like many expect (if not in one already), then companies will cut back on ads, so it will be a challenging time to implement that new strategy.

[goldcd]

Unlike a lot of tech companies, I still like Netflix. From "DVD in the post" to "We need to make/own our own shows" was a massive pivot that paid off for them, and launched dozens of wannabes. I genuinely can't think of another company that managed anything so large.

Previous peers like spotify are still struggling to get out from under their publishers (still no HD music available) and they had to side-step to podcasts to own their own content.

Apple's got some good stuff they've paid for handsomely, but a lot of shit. Disney came in with a huge catalogue and had to buy Fox, and aside from a few star-wars spin-offs, hasn't managed to grab the zeitgeist and Marvel seems to be slowly dying.

Netflix is sitting on so much content and so many subscribers, they could cut back on new programming and introduce cheaper ad-supported tiers, and ride out the recession on their back-catalogue. Plus (and maybe uniquely amongst the streamers) they've got franchises like "Nailed it" that are cheap to make but will keep fans watching. And as my final "Netflix is going to win" point, they've successfully commissioned local programming and got the world to watch it. I can't think of any equivalents to say Money Heist, Squid Game or RRR from any of the other streamers. I mean just the other day I wandered into the living room and found my wife engrossed in "some turkish zombie series".. only on netflix.

[rektide]

> Unlike a lot of tech companies, I still like Netflix. From "DVD in the post" to "We need to make/own our own shows" was a massive pivot that paid off for them, and launched dozens of wannabes. I genuinely can't think of another company that managed anything so large.

It's also been a massive pivot that, over time, has radically reduced availability of what they can show.

And far more massively, has destroyed the broad ability consumers & services once had to get hardcopy mediums they could own or share. Netflix very clearly, somewhat accidentally, begat the end of DVDs of everything.

It is a crowning achievement of destructive innovation. It served very convenient ends, but was a forefront in ruining ownership. Netflix used to acquire media like anyone else: by buying disks. Now the market is far more politically foibled & less clear, about how content is acquired & kept.

I'm in no way saying it's not a huge achievement. But the long term repercussions seem almost all bad for almost everyone, to me. Constant re-negotiation of rights to stream media is much more complicated than simply having disks. We can look at latter decisions like Aereo, where a company bent over backwards to try to appease media-consuming constraints, by giving each consumer literally their own over the air antenna + timeshifting in the cloud, and trace the path back to Netflix, who started the shift away from ownable media, to a new content-holder regime.

We are very early in. Still, the various networks each having their own media-production arm is very much a byproduct of what Netflix hath wrought, of the dark times Netflix created when they replaced good old fashioned fungible media. Literally the only way to have leverage, to be able to be a streaming service, is to literally make your own media too. Old Netflix ran by a playbook of the world that was much simpler, a modified Blockbuster+distribution model that was far less complected, that didn't constantly run off the rails, that could endure itself.

[i_am_jl]

I'm curious how many of those 7.66m created an account, binged a few target shows, then cancelled when they'd watched what they wanted to watch. It's become a more common tactic in my circles, and it could explain the mismatch between hitting revenue and subscriber targets.

[ar_lan]

You know - I do this too, but I've suggested it to so many people and they simply don't/won't do it. Usually it comes down to either of the following:

* They forget, and then retain a monthly subscription charge. * They end up watching some small thing casually and it just remains forever.

The first point, especially, is a big part in why subscriptions work, I believe. Hell, it's definitely why Crunch Fitness is still in business (because they make it impossibly hard to cancel).

This is totally anecdotal, but I'm curious how many people actually set out to sign up, binge, and then immediately cancel.

Also - an aside. I'm pretty fed up w/ services that charge a monthly subscription, and make it totally unclear what happens when you cancel. Some completely shut you off immediately (which is just about the scummiest thing ever, since you... paid for the month already). Others let you finish out your month. This is super anti-consumer IMHO.

[viewtransform]

Warning on franchise fitness gyms: the document you sign for payment is usually with a 3rd party bank not the gym. The gym gets paid by the bank and you owe the bank not the gym. The gym has no incentive to let you cancel. If you complain - it's between you and the bank.

[ar_lan]

I switched to home gymming, so fortunately, this is no longer an issue for me.

[danaris]

I do this with some other services (particularly Hulu), but retain my Netflix subscription because there's (almost) always at least some shows/movies that I want to be watching on there every month.

[bigB]

This is where I am headed this year too, in the bid to save money Ive got an agreement with the kids...1 video subscriber service only at a time, between Disney+, Netflix and Paramount+. We watch what we want to on one, then cancel and switch. Hoping I can stick to it to save some dollars. Netflix is just ridiculously expensive now

[zoklet-enjoyer]

The Last of Us just came out on HBO Max. One episode every Sunday until March. I'm thinking it's to prevent people like me from getting a subscription for a month, binging the one show I want to see, then canceling.

[Alacart]

Also because one of the best ways to become part of the zeitgeist is to force people to have time to talk about it, anticipate it, and generally stretch things out. You don't get the Lost/GOT/etc cultural phenomena nearly as strongly if you release them all at once.

[MuffinFlavored]

from reddit

> I got this somewhere on the internet:

While revenue was up 1.9% year over year, the company’s profit for Q4 came in well bellow Netflix’s own projection of 36 cents per share. The streamer attributed that to “a $462 million non-cash unrealized loss from the F/X remeasurement on our Euro denominated debt as a result of the depreciation of the U.S. dollar vs. the Euro during Q4 ’22.”

So investors probably aren't attributing the earnings miss to anything NFLX did wrong. They just got FX-d. Happens sometimes especially lately with currencies all over the charts.