20 ms·

Cue up people shouting about how this is horrible and that they're totally going to cancel, only to be followed by Netflix making even more money next quarter.

iAMkenough 6mo ago
Also, more people getting into pirating their content.
- GenerWork 6mo ago
  I've been out of that scene for a long time, hasn't Netflix implemented a bunch of anti-piracy methods, or are people just recording HDMI/DisplayPort output and saving it?
  - GrayShade 6mo ago
    It's easier to torrent stuff than to get 4K in Netflix on Linux.
    - boelboel 6mo ago
      Even the 4K you get can hardly be considered 4K, awful bitrate. Too bad most people are okay with this so it's never gonna change.
      - monkpit 6mo ago
        If people were not okay with it, it still wouldn’t change anything unless there was competition. There’s no incentive.
        boelboel 6mo ago
        Apple tv is quite a bit better than the other streaming services. If people truly cared they would either watch blu-rays or Apple tv. But few actually care.
    - bonyt 6mo ago
      Can't even get 4K on most streaming services on macOS now... It's not just Linux anymore. Netflix lets you in Safari[1]; Disney+ limits you to 1080p[2]; and Hulu limits you to 720p[3]. [1]: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/55764 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/55764 ("Mac computer with an Apple processor or Apple T2 Security chip"). [2]: https://help.disneyplus.com/article/disneyplus-video-quality https://help.disneyplus.com/article/disneyplus-video-quality ("Please note 4K streaming is not available on computer browsers"). [3]: https://help.hulu.com/article/hulu-video-quality https://help.hulu.com/article/hulu-video-quality ("Hulu.com streams in quality up to 720p").
  - lelandbatey 6mo ago
    Reading around a bit, yes to Netflix adding anti-piracy measures, maybe to folks recording HDMI/DisplayPort. Apparently, Netflix is using steganography/content watermarks in their 4k content itself to trace users who are pirating. This is from a totally unsourced Reddit thread[0] but they do reference a real company which claims to do this watermarking[1]. The claim is that in addition to Netflix requiring 4k content to be available only on platforms with Trusted Execution Environments[2], Netflix also encodes each ~10 second "chunk" of the video stream into at least 2 different versions: an Y and a Z version. Then, they serve each customer a unique series of chunks when that customer streams their content, e.g. YYZYZZZYZYYZYZYYZZYZYYZ. Then when content leaks, Netflix can examine each chunk of the leaked content to extract the ID of the user who streamed the content. Apparently, Netflix can encode a lot more than just the userID, they can also encode stuff like the individual device ID, the TEE key ID, etc. I know you might be thinking "I could do something to defeat that" and you're probably right (e.g. take streams from multiple users and intercut them so that the bits of the watermark through time are being constantly shuffled), but I'll also bet that there's many layers of steganography we don't know about, and unless you get them all, you'll not escape scot-free. [0] - https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/1rqkyjg/with_a_lot_of_people_waiting_for_pirates_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/1rqkyjg/with_a_lot_... [1] - https://irdeto.com/video-entertainment/irdeto-anti-piracy https://irdeto.com/video-entertainment/irdeto-anti-piracy [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_execution_environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_execution_environment
    - edgyquant 6mo ago
      I can’t lie It’s a pretty neat way to track who’s recording
    - tombert 6mo ago
      Not that I would ever pirate a movie because I'm a good boy, but I remember the Cinavia DRM that affected Blu-ray players thirteen years ago. I'm not 100% sure how it worked, but I guess it could do a similar kind of steganography-style thing to the audio track, where they would embed keys silently and the blu-ray player would check against that. I'm not sure if anyone actually ever managed to defeat it, I think they just stopped implementing it in streaming boxes.
- hbn 6mo ago
  Pirating is honestly, by-far the least painful experience to watch things. I recently started watching a series, and I figured I'd check if it's on any streaming services I have access to. I found it on Prime Video, but when I clicked into it, it needed some other separate subscription to a service I'd never heard of to watch it. And even then, it had like, seasons 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, and 8 of the 9 total seasons. If there was any chance I'd subscribe to watch it before, I definitely wasn't now. I couldn't even figure out where the remaining seasons are available to be watched legally. It's especially hard to find this information in Canada because searching "X where to watch" just gives you results of where things are available in America, which has completely different licensing deals. So I found a torrent for the complete series and I've been watching it pain-free. Piracy tends to be my default now. It even has the advantage that I can frequently find a Bluray rip rather than a reduced bitrate internet stream. Anything I really like and I want to support the creators, I purchase a physical release, or official merchandise or something.
  - stronglikedan 6mo ago
    > Pirating is honestly, by-far the least painful experience to watch things. No it's not. It's just the cheapest. Except for a few outliers like you describe, streaming is an order of magnitude less painful.
    - brailsafe 6mo ago
      Only if you don't know about it, but otherwise it's literally two clicks, not even sign-in required
      - milkytron 6mo ago
        Yup. If my gf is streaming something and an ad appears, I'll trigger the download for it during the first ad break, and then when the second ad breaks, it'll most likely be finished downloading and then we switch to JellyFin. The only use we have for streaming apps is finding what we want to watch.
        6mo ago
cyanydeez 6mo ago
You do realize capitalism can continue as long as there's at least 1 customer and they keep buying?
jmyeet 6mo ago
Speaking from experience, I had Netflix for years without thinking about it, starting at $8/month. At that price I didn't care if I watched it or not. Then it went to $10, $12, etc. Once it got to $15-16 (I forget), I cancelled it. I now sign up for 1-2 months a year to catch up on shows I like and just rotate which streaming services I have. Yes, this is anecdotal. It's hard to find data on how common rotating streaming services is. I would guess not common. I found this from 2021 showing the number of streaming services the average US household has [1]. It's worth noting that this was based on lockdown-era data. The number if still quite high. I still have 3-4 mainly because my ISP gives me 1 and Amazon Prime bundles it. Were it not for those, I'd probably stick with 2. This is imperfect data because is it the same 4 or are some or all of these rotated? We just don't know. Most of the data around this is how streaming is cannibalizing satellite and cable. But at this rate Netflix will cost $30+ in 10-15 years. Will it still have growing revenue and the same subscriber numbers? There is price elasticity here. [1]: https://www.thewrap.com/u-s-households-with-4-streaming-services-doubled-in-the-last-year-chart/ https://www.thewrap.com/u-s-households-with-4-streaming-serv...
- silisili 6mo ago
  This makes sense to me as a strategy for most users. I cancelled a year or two ago, but not for the price changes alone. I didn't like the new interface much, and I found myself endlessly scrolling through the same things looking for stuff to watch. I'm not sure if Netflix vastly removed most of its content, or they just made discoverability a nightmare, but it felt often like I 'ran out of stuff to watch.' It's hard to justify 20 something a month for what is essentially a few 6 episode shows that will last one season, and maybe 4 or 5 passable movies in a year. It seems rather silly to me to pay for that all year.
- mattbrewsbytes 6mo ago
  I think this is a lot more common and I suspect people decide to do monthly and that they'll cancel after catching up on shows ... and then they don't cancel. So I'm sure the streaming services don't care that people do this because they might come out ahead anyways.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
goldenarm 6mo ago
Customer resentment is slow to build up, but once the inertia is visible it's usually too late.
- gdulli 6mo ago
  I just don't think that's true anymore. Netflix isn't going anywhere. Twitter and Reddit have taken highly visible user-hostile actions since back in 2023 and people stayed. People have become too passive and docile to switch anymore. The portion of the population that's discerning enough to leave is small.
  - goldenarm 6mo ago
    Google trends show a 15 and 30% decrease that is still going https://trends.google.fr/trends/explore?date=all&q=Reddit,Netflix https://trends.google.fr/trends/explore?date=all&q=Reddit,Ne...
epistasis 6mo ago
Well they'd have to lose a huge percentage of people for this not to be profitable quarter over quarter. But it likely cuts in to future growth substantially. And with what seems to now be an unavoidable economic storm as in-transit tankers dock and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz starts to be felt, there might be a larger than normal amount of people looking to cut costs in the coming year. Or maybe not, people seem to have stopped responding to economic pressure by cutting costs in the US! When vacations got super expensive, people still spent, and increased their complaining. We will see what happens in 2026.
- jedberg 6mo ago
  Netflix, cable, etc. and other at home subscriptions tend to be the last things cut because people generally stay home more when the economy is bad so they want their in-home entertainment.
- yibg 6mo ago
  Netflix is more resilient to economic downturns than you'd think. For many people it's a higher ROI for entertainment when compared to a lot of other alternatives. e.g going to bars / restaurants / movie theaters.
dogleash 6mo ago
Do you think they think they're going to meaningfully effect Netflix's bottom line? Or are they just trying to chat online about the purchase decision topic at hand?
DaRaam 6mo ago
I canceled about two years ago. Most of the stuff on netflix has already been watched. The new content is hit or miss. Better off paying for Disney and downloading the rest.

iAMkenough 6mo ago

Also, more people getting into pirating their content.

GenerWork 6mo ago
I've been out of that scene for a long time, hasn't Netflix implemented a bunch of anti-piracy methods, or are people just recording HDMI/DisplayPort output and saving it?
- GrayShade 6mo ago
  It's easier to torrent stuff than to get 4K in Netflix on Linux.
  - boelboel 6mo ago
    Even the 4K you get can hardly be considered 4K, awful bitrate. Too bad most people are okay with this so it's never gonna change.
    - monkpit 6mo ago
      If people were not okay with it, it still wouldn’t change anything unless there was competition. There’s no incentive.
      - boelboel 6mo ago
        Apple tv is quite a bit better than the other streaming services. If people truly cared they would either watch blu-rays or Apple tv. But few actually care.
  - bonyt 6mo ago
    Can't even get 4K on most streaming services on macOS now... It's not just Linux anymore. Netflix lets you in Safari[1]; Disney+ limits you to 1080p[2]; and Hulu limits you to 720p[3]. [1]: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/55764 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/55764 ("Mac computer with an Apple processor or Apple T2 Security chip"). [2]: https://help.disneyplus.com/article/disneyplus-video-quality https://help.disneyplus.com/article/disneyplus-video-quality ("Please note 4K streaming is not available on computer browsers"). [3]: https://help.hulu.com/article/hulu-video-quality https://help.hulu.com/article/hulu-video-quality ("Hulu.com streams in quality up to 720p").
- lelandbatey 6mo ago
  Reading around a bit, yes to Netflix adding anti-piracy measures, maybe to folks recording HDMI/DisplayPort. Apparently, Netflix is using steganography/content watermarks in their 4k content itself to trace users who are pirating. This is from a totally unsourced Reddit thread[0] but they do reference a real company which claims to do this watermarking[1]. The claim is that in addition to Netflix requiring 4k content to be available only on platforms with Trusted Execution Environments[2], Netflix also encodes each ~10 second "chunk" of the video stream into at least 2 different versions: an Y and a Z version. Then, they serve each customer a unique series of chunks when that customer streams their content, e.g. YYZYZZZYZYYZYZYYZZYZYYZ. Then when content leaks, Netflix can examine each chunk of the leaked content to extract the ID of the user who streamed the content. Apparently, Netflix can encode a lot more than just the userID, they can also encode stuff like the individual device ID, the TEE key ID, etc. I know you might be thinking "I could do something to defeat that" and you're probably right (e.g. take streams from multiple users and intercut them so that the bits of the watermark through time are being constantly shuffled), but I'll also bet that there's many layers of steganography we don't know about, and unless you get them all, you'll not escape scot-free. [0] - https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/1rqkyjg/with_a_lot_of_people_waiting_for_pirates_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/1rqkyjg/with_a_lot_... [1] - https://irdeto.com/video-entertainment/irdeto-anti-piracy https://irdeto.com/video-entertainment/irdeto-anti-piracy [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_execution_environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_execution_environment
  - edgyquant 6mo ago
    I can’t lie It’s a pretty neat way to track who’s recording
  - tombert 6mo ago
    Not that I would ever pirate a movie because I'm a good boy, but I remember the Cinavia DRM that affected Blu-ray players thirteen years ago. I'm not 100% sure how it worked, but I guess it could do a similar kind of steganography-style thing to the audio track, where they would embed keys silently and the blu-ray player would check against that. I'm not sure if anyone actually ever managed to defeat it, I think they just stopped implementing it in streaming boxes.
hbn 6mo ago
Pirating is honestly, by-far the least painful experience to watch things. I recently started watching a series, and I figured I'd check if it's on any streaming services I have access to. I found it on Prime Video, but when I clicked into it, it needed some other separate subscription to a service I'd never heard of to watch it. And even then, it had like, seasons 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, and 8 of the 9 total seasons. If there was any chance I'd subscribe to watch it before, I definitely wasn't now. I couldn't even figure out where the remaining seasons are available to be watched legally. It's especially hard to find this information in Canada because searching "X where to watch" just gives you results of where things are available in America, which has completely different licensing deals. So I found a torrent for the complete series and I've been watching it pain-free. Piracy tends to be my default now. It even has the advantage that I can frequently find a Bluray rip rather than a reduced bitrate internet stream. Anything I really like and I want to support the creators, I purchase a physical release, or official merchandise or something.
- stronglikedan 6mo ago
  > Pirating is honestly, by-far the least painful experience to watch things. No it's not. It's just the cheapest. Except for a few outliers like you describe, streaming is an order of magnitude less painful.
  - brailsafe 6mo ago
    Only if you don't know about it, but otherwise it's literally two clicks, not even sign-in required
    - milkytron 6mo ago
      Yup. If my gf is streaming something and an ad appears, I'll trigger the download for it during the first ad break, and then when the second ad breaks, it'll most likely be finished downloading and then we switch to JellyFin. The only use we have for streaming apps is finding what we want to watch.
      - 6mo ago

cyanydeez 6mo ago

You do realize capitalism can continue as long as there's at least 1 customer and they keep buying?

jmyeet 6mo ago

Speaking from experience, I had Netflix for years without thinking about it, starting at $8/month. At that price I didn't care if I watched it or not. Then it went to $10, $12, etc. Once it got to $15-16 (I forget), I cancelled it. I now sign up for 1-2 months a year to catch up on shows I like and just rotate which streaming services I have. Yes, this is anecdotal. It's hard to find data on how common rotating streaming services is. I would guess not common. I found this from 2021 showing the number of streaming services the average US household has [1]. It's worth noting that this was based on lockdown-era data. The number if still quite high. I still have 3-4 mainly because my ISP gives me 1 and Amazon Prime bundles it. Were it not for those, I'd probably stick with 2. This is imperfect data because is it the same 4 or are some or all of these rotated? We just don't know. Most of the data around this is how streaming is cannibalizing satellite and cable. But at this rate Netflix will cost $30+ in 10-15 years. Will it still have growing revenue and the same subscriber numbers? There is price elasticity here. [1]: https://www.thewrap.com/u-s-households-with-4-streaming-services-doubled-in-the-last-year-chart/ https://www.thewrap.com/u-s-households-with-4-streaming-serv...

silisili 6mo ago
This makes sense to me as a strategy for most users. I cancelled a year or two ago, but not for the price changes alone. I didn't like the new interface much, and I found myself endlessly scrolling through the same things looking for stuff to watch. I'm not sure if Netflix vastly removed most of its content, or they just made discoverability a nightmare, but it felt often like I 'ran out of stuff to watch.' It's hard to justify 20 something a month for what is essentially a few 6 episode shows that will last one season, and maybe 4 or 5 passable movies in a year. It seems rather silly to me to pay for that all year.
mattbrewsbytes 6mo ago
I think this is a lot more common and I suspect people decide to do monthly and that they'll cancel after catching up on shows ... and then they don't cancel. So I'm sure the streaming services don't care that people do this because they might come out ahead anyways.

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

goldenarm 6mo ago

Customer resentment is slow to build up, but once the inertia is visible it's usually too late.

gdulli 6mo ago
I just don't think that's true anymore. Netflix isn't going anywhere. Twitter and Reddit have taken highly visible user-hostile actions since back in 2023 and people stayed. People have become too passive and docile to switch anymore. The portion of the population that's discerning enough to leave is small.
- goldenarm 6mo ago
  Google trends show a 15 and 30% decrease that is still going https://trends.google.fr/trends/explore?date=all&q=Reddit,Netflix https://trends.google.fr/trends/explore?date=all&q=Reddit,Ne...

epistasis 6mo ago

Well they'd have to lose a huge percentage of people for this not to be profitable quarter over quarter. But it likely cuts in to future growth substantially. And with what seems to now be an unavoidable economic storm as in-transit tankers dock and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz starts to be felt, there might be a larger than normal amount of people looking to cut costs in the coming year. Or maybe not, people seem to have stopped responding to economic pressure by cutting costs in the US! When vacations got super expensive, people still spent, and increased their complaining. We will see what happens in 2026.

jedberg 6mo ago
Netflix, cable, etc. and other at home subscriptions tend to be the last things cut because people generally stay home more when the economy is bad so they want their in-home entertainment.
yibg 6mo ago
Netflix is more resilient to economic downturns than you'd think. For many people it's a higher ROI for entertainment when compared to a lot of other alternatives. e.g going to bars / restaurants / movie theaters.

dogleash 6mo ago

Do you think they think they're going to meaningfully effect Netflix's bottom line? Or are they just trying to chat online about the purchase decision topic at hand?

DaRaam 6mo ago

I canceled about two years ago. Most of the stuff on netflix has already been watched. The new content is hit or miss. Better off paying for Disney and downloading the rest.