Netflix Monkeyhammered 20% Lower On Catastrophic Earnings, Sees Loss Of 2 Million Subs In Q2

Recent earnings reports from streaming giant Netflix had been a volatile rollerocaster: the stock tumbled just over one year ago when the company reported a huge miss in both EPS and new subs, which at 2.2 million was tied for the worst quarter in the past five years, while also reporting a worse than expected outlook for the current quarter.

We cut the cord with cable programming several years ago and have been streaming exclusively since. Netflix was the first streaming service we used even before we completely ditched cable and satellite. At first streaming was a free add on that was provided when you subscribed to Netflix’s mail-based DVD rental service.

Our first dedicated streaming device was a Roku, then we got a first-generation Chromecast stick, and a Blu-ray player with Netflix streaming built in. When we first started streaming exclusively... an AppleTV box was included for “free” when we signed up for “DirecTV Now”. When “DirecTV Now” was first introduced the same programming as cable was much less expensive and we were able to get it all at two different houses with only one account.

We ended up switching to Amazon FireTV and FireTV sticks after the AppleTV was repeatedly targeted by people using them to mine Bitcoin. It would start running slowly and getting hot.

It sounds like a lot of money spent on streaming devices but actually they saved so much money compared to cable that they typically “pay for themselves” within a couple of months. This is partially because we use the same accounts and services at two houses and also share with my elderly parents. My parents didn’t like them at first compared to the cable box but every time Comcast kept jacking up the price and taking away channels that they liked my dad would call me and whine about it, so they made the switch and have been doing fine with it for a couple years now. The only problem that they have had is that they used to leave a couple TVs on basically 24 hours a day. If you do that with a high definition streaming service it eats up so much bandwidth that Comcast will charge extra.

We dumped Netflix the last time they jacked up the price... again. It is no longer competitive with some of the other similar services available. It is strange to me that the high paid fools that they hire to run these companies believe that they can just keep raising the prices and no one will notice that other services are now a better value. It isn’t rocket science.

I would note also that “DirecTV Now” which was a streaming service designed to directly compete with Cable TV programming suffered a similar fate. They started out with very competitive prices and features but some annoying glitches. Their initial customers like us were actually bargain hunting beta testers. As soon as they started getting things ironed out they began jacking up the prices after initially promising early adopters that they would not.

This caused people like us to shop around for newly introduced similar services and they lost millions of customers. Their valuation and stock prices which were based on continued growth... plummeted. AT&T which had bought out DirecTV was sued for manipulating subscriber numbers by various questionable means.

Talk to a cable guy who serviced the “inner-city” or a college town about the rats nests of spliced cable they would locate.

They never sought compensation or criminal charges for the theft of the service.

When a technician came out to unhook all the illegal splices as soon as they would leave people would be up on ladders “reconnecting” everything.

I think now you have to use a return signal to the company (for ordering stuff/streaming etc) so it is probably a lot harder to steal cable but I don’t know. Have not subscribed to any TV in 8 years and dumped Netflix a few years ago.

Password sharing induced by bidenflation.

The “premium” Netflix plan now allows 4 devices to stream at once for $15.99 + tax in our area. This was coming to around $18 a month for us. Other services have similar allowances. “Password sharing” to fully utilize an account is not a “problem” it is a feature of various services, and they know the effects of adding the allowed number of devices very, very precisely.

There is only my wife and I left in our household, so of course we partner up with my parents. We have been doing this for years, long before “bidenflation”. Streamers have become more savvy. Netflix has priced themselves out of what has become a very competitive market with a lot of price conscious consumers.

I think now you have to use a return signal to the company (for ordering stuff/streaming etc) so it is probably a lot harder to steal cable but I don't know.

I also assume that the way most cable TV programming is now distributed that thievery is now almost non-existent. Comparing friends and family sharing account access within the limits established by the services themselves to thievery is silly. We use the basic Amazon Prime music streaming service. If you try to listen to it on more than one device at a time it will either ask if you want to disconnect the other streaming device or just not work depending on the device. The same is true of other types of streaming services. The premium Netflix service allows 4 devices at a time to stream content, the basic allows just 1. We subscribe to a premium "Sling TV" plan which allows 3 devices at once to stream. We share this with my parents. Cheaper plans allow only 1 device to stream at a time. We pay extra to be able to share... it is a feature; I have not spent a lot of time reading through the constantly changing user agreements, but this was discussed with customer service and was suggested to us by one of their representatives when trying to decide on the best plan for us.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.