Do you recall which were the streaming services you used in 2012? When we think about it, Netflix has been present in a good part of our lives and for a long period of time, it was our only resource to watch what we wanted and when we wanted. Netflix is, indeed, revolutionary in the entertainment industry, but it doesn’t mean it is always going to be on top, as we can see in the recent news about its downfall in subscribers numbers.
The streaming service announced the net loss of 200,000 subscribers all around the globe, and every evidence points to the direction where it is going to lose over 2 million in the next three months. After the announcement, Netflix lost about 35% on its share price, meaning that approximately $55 billion was discounted of its value.
The Wall Street analysts had an expectation that the home of “Stranger Things” and “Bridgerton” would grow to around 2.5 million new customers. They must have been astonished when they read the headline announcing the first reduction in a decade, meaning that more people canceled their subscription than joined the service.
But, why are we witnessing such a big loss on one of the founders in the streaming format?
Left Russia
First of all, one of the main reasons for so many subscribers losses is the streaming’s decision to pull off its services in Russia, in response to the war, meaning that they lost around 700,000 subscriptions.
Economic situation
Also, the inflation is also one to blame, forcing people to cut off expenses -and entertainment is always one of the firsts things to be cut.
We are experiencing a period of rising global prices, in a post-pandemic scenario. There are also problems related to the drop in supply, mainly of food, energy and industrial goods, due to the war in Ukraine and the lockdowns in China that have lasted about two months.
Competition and loss of content
Netflix has always been the star in the streaming industry. The possibility to watch “Friends” at 2 AM and watch your favorite movie without having to wait for it to be aired on TV made people transition from the traditional “you watch what it is airing now” to “you watch what you want”, and Netflix was the one offering this.
If you wanted to watch “Tangled”, you could count on Netflix. Is “The Office” your choice? No worries, Netflix got your back. However, after some years, Netflix focus shifted from having all the content you do want to watch to content you might want to watch. That gave us series like “Stranger Things”, but meant the goodbye to Disney contents.
Also, Netflix made other companies think “why would I license my content when I can create my own streaming service and profit more?”. Now we have HBO Max, Star+, Disney+, Apple TV+, Hulu and Amazon Prime, just to name a few.. Netflix is the most expensive of them all.
Although the red streaming service had more competition, it still had its original content, right? That didn’t last long, as “Fleabag” and “The Mandalorian” appeared and gained everyone’s heart. So now, the other services had original content too, and sometimes in better quality.
With that said, why would people pay more in something they could have a better version but for less money?
Netflix prices simply don’t make sense anymore for a lot of people. The quality of their products is not the same as it was, and the number of original movies and series is way bigger than the ones that are licensed, so why would people sign up for something they don’t even know they will like? This is the mistake that the OG streaming service made that cost its downfall, and if something doesn’t change, it is only going to get worse.
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The article above was edited by Camila Nascimento
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