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Netflix Stock Price Tanks As Customers Quit Over Higher Prices (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Netflix released its earnings report (PDF) for the second quarter today, where it reported $1.97 billion in revenue and net income of $41 million. The company did however report only 1.54 million subscribers, which is below its projections of 2.5 million new subscribers. As a result, stock is down around 14 percent in after-hours trading. "Our global member forecast for Q2 was 2.5m and we came in at 1.7m. Gross additions were on target, but churn ticked up slightly and unexpectedly, coincident with the press coverage in early April of our plan to ungrandfather longer tenured members and remained elevated through the quarter," Netflix wrote. "We think some members perceived the news as an impending new price increase rather than the completion of two years of grandfathering." The company defended its price hikes, writing that "while ungrandfathering and associated media coverage may moderate near term membership growth, we believe that ungrandfathering will provide us with more revenue to invest in our content to satisfy members, thus driving longterm growth." In the past, Netflix gained 13 million new subscribers in 2014, and 17 million in 2015. Comcast will reportedly allow Netflix onto its X1 platform, which may entice more customers to the streaming service.

5 of 460 comments (clear)

  1. I'm about ready to drop by darthsilun · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Not because of the price, but because of the lack of content.

  2. Re:The price hike is minimal... by pr0t0 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    and the dull nature of Netflix original content

    Different strokes. Personally, I'm loving their original content!

    House of Cards
    Orange is the New Black
    Daredevil
    Jessica Jones
    Sense8
    Marco Polo
    Love
    Peaky Blinders
    and now Stranger Things

    I've heard Bloodline is good, and Luke Cage is coming. Some of their comedy specials aren't too bad either. Ali Wong's "Baby Cobra"...I haven't laughed that hard in a while.

    For me, it's been a long time since I've been this happy with video content. I recently ditched cable and I'm not going back. Netflix is, at the very least, doing it as well as most anybody else is and without the support of commercial sponsors.

    How much time do you want to spend in front of a television anyway?

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    I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
  3. Re:It's A Bargain by Jason+Levine · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When we cancelled our cable, they wanted to raise what I was paying from $87 (for cable TV + Internet) to $137. I would be getting nothing extra in return. No faster speeds. No additional channels or features. It was just a $50 price hike for the sake of hiking prices. When I asked about the $99 promotional prices they were advertising, I was told those were for new subscribers, not people who had been with them for about 15 years. When I questioned why the price was so high, I was told that it was actually a "$150 value" so I was really getting a "great deal."

    We canceled cable and now we're paying $35 for Internet plus $10 a month for Hulu. (We were already subscribed to Netflix and Amazon Prime pre-cord-cutting and would have kept those either way so those really didn't factor in.) After factoring in buying more DVDs and VOD content (from Amazon or Google), I figure that we were saving around $70 a month. After a year of cutting cable, our former cable company announced the usual round of large price hikes so we're saving even more now.

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    My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  4. Sense8 by lucm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They do have great content, but for Sense8 I gave up after that scene where they zoom on a dirty dildo. I'm all for creative freedom and I appreciate that they depicted all kinds of lifestyles, but that scene was just a cheap attempt at creating some kind of buzz. I don't mind graphic scenes but I do mind feeling like my "queer sex tolerance threshold" is tested on purpose, I find that insulting and condescending.

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    lucm, indeed.
  5. Re: The price hike is minimal... by teg · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hulu having that content is the reason why Netflix doesn't have it... It's exclusive. They were willing to pay more.