Netflix Loses 600k Customers In Q3, Things Likely To Get Worse

[Callisto]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Higher....html?x=0&.v=8

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.

It will mark just the second time in 12 years that Netflix has lost subscribers from one quarter to the next. The last downturn occurred during 2007 when Netflix lost a mere 55,000 from March through June.

The current hemorrhaging exacerbated fears that Netflix is losing the magic touch that increased its stock 10-fold in the three years leading up to the company's July 12 announcement about its higher prices.

Since then, Netflix has turned into Wall Street's equivalent of a box-office flop. Its shares plunged $39.46, or about 19 percent, to close at $169.25 on Thursday, leaving Netflix's stock price more than 40 percent below where it stood before the company unveiled the higher prices. The cost to shareholders so far: more than $6 billion in paper losses.

Now where I think they might be in trouble:

It could get uglier if the worst-case scenarios play out. Netflix suffered another setback earlier this month when Starz Entertainment ended talks to renew the licensing rights to a key part of Netflix's video library for streaming over the Internet. The fallout from that decision will hit in March when Netflix will no longer be able to stream the popular mix of recently released movies and TV shows that it got from Starz, raising the specter of another onslaught of customer defections.

Absolutely everyone I know who decided to dump one of the two options when Netflix separated instant/DVD pricing went with the instant, because they can just use RedBox for DVDs. Anyone who has ever used instant stream knows that a massive chunk of their content was from Starz, in the early goings it was probably over half of the shit that they had that anyone actually cared about watching.

I know my g/f already cancelled the DVD subscription for us, and they've gotten a pretty decent chunk of new content that isn't from Starz in the last few weeks, but if they have a licensing issue with one or two other groups they'd be left with jack shit for content. Curious to see how this will pan out, and if cable providers will pounce on the chance to grab a bigger market share with their on demand services.

[Salodin]

I'm only worried because I don't want 10 different companies trying to get me to pay subscriptions for the content netflix lost during all this. The moment this happens, I'm taking my 10 bucks a month and putting it towards higher bandwidth to torrent; tried to do the right thing but it's just getting ridiculous.

[Delirium]

I cancelled both because I was pissed they upped the price and separated the two. The bigger question is what percentage of their total users is 600k? the number sounds like a lot, but Id be willing to guess it is like .5%?
If they are unable to provide a good enough selection on streaming, I could see that number going up quickly, however.

[Callisto]

Their last formal announcement of membership was around 24 million, that was back in April though. That'd be about 2.5% of that number, but I'd expect they still had a raise in members from April til July.

[Xno Kappa]

Its almost as if these companies are begging us to torrent everything.

[Penthesilea]

Yall are a bunch of whiny faggots who cancel over such a minuscule amount of money. You're all to blame if netflix goes under.

[Vandole]

sharing a MU account with qalbert is much cheaper than me paying for netflix. wut wut

[Rhinox]

Wonder how long before ksandra and the other Netflix white knights come in and say good riddance

[Correction]

Yall are a bunch of whiny faggots who cancel over such a minuscule amount of money. You're all to blame if netflix goes under.

Do you own stock in Netflix or something?

You act like this is some national tragedy, or shooting Bambi's mother. Sometimes businesses close. Often, if the market remains after the business dies, another rises to take its place. Netflix built a business around distributing other people's content, and now those rights holders think they can do a better job themselves. If it all collapses into a heap and nobody is making any money and everything is being pirated, welcome back to 1997. Capitalism ho.

Wonder how long before ksandra and the other Netflix white knights come in and say good riddance

late

[Rhinox]

Yeah

[Drunkenmonk]

thier streaming selection sucked dick with starz, can only imagine how worthless it will be without, glad i cancelled a couple months ago

[Cail]

where do i go to change my options with them? can jsut do it on the site i assume, but is their links to it anywhere or do they try and hide it?

[Rhinox]

thier streaming selection sucked dick with starz, can only imagine how worthless it will be without, glad i cancelled a couple months ago

Uh oh you've done it now.

[Melena]

Meh with all the complaints, a lot of people forget that a lot of content providers are wanting 4-600% price increases for netflix to stream. Hell Starz is demanding that Netflix start a premium service just to stream Starz content. Can't really blame netflix on this. Blame the movie industries for not realizing how popular streaming was going to get a few years ago and now demanding a kings ransom. I'm sticking with netflix for now, but if they wind up with no new content to stream, I may have to just make a media center box for my tv and just start torrenting.

[Ayn]

The Starz thing worried me. I went down to streaming only, because when the semester's underway and I'm busy grading/planning, my DVDs sit around forever before I get around to watching them.

I'd have kept my 2 DVDs deal going honestly..but I just don't watch enough for it to be worth it. $8 for instant stream's pretty nice, though.

As someone who studies communication, though, I wonder if the backlash would have been less severe if the message behind the change in pricing was delivered..I dunno, more smoothly?

[Melena]

Probably not. People see price increase and they freak the fuck out regardless of the reason.

[Cleverness]

Not surprised, doubt it'll have them reevaluate their prices but good it happened for that bullshit plan change they instituted.

[Pharaun]

Probably not. People see price increase and they freak the fuck out regardless of the reason.

I know the reasons and I still thought it was a bullshit move so I cancelled my netflix account.

The thing that Starz and many other companies don't get is that services like these work best when there is a centralized location for all providers to put their content. As consumers we don't want to have to go to 10 or 20 different sites to get all the programming that we want, and I know I sure as fuck won't pay for 10-20 different sites. I hope that once some of the places try to go it on their own and see how little money they make at it they will go back to the Netflix/Hulu model and make it convenient for consumers again.

[Melena]

Agreed, I won't go the multi provider route for that shit either. Worst case scenario in February, if Starz decides to continue being greedy bitches and screwing netflix users, I'll just dump netflix streaming and make a MC box and hook that up to the computer and start torrenting. Main issue is going to be ripping all my American Dad and Family guy seasons onto it.

[TacoTaru]

Maybe someone who's more knowledgeable of this can educate me on this, but why does NBC/ABC/FOX allow any of their programs to be put on Netflix? With things like The Office, 30 Rock, etc available to me on Netflix, I have 0 incentive to even consider a subscription for Hulu Plus. Aren't they shooting themselves in the foot by competing against themselves, especially when they probably stand to make more money out of Hulu Plus?

Or is it just a contract thing that's yet to expire and when it does it'll get yoinked?