Opinion
Netflix: charging users for sharing accounts? A pointless undertaking
by Luca Fontana
Advertising, fees and sports: New directions for Netflix?
20.4.2022
Translation: machine translated
Viewer numbers are falling at Netflix. The stock market reacts with shock. The streaming giant is therefore considering ad-financed streaming and has announced its intention to fight account sharing.
The reason for this is said to be increasing competitive pressure and Russia's war in Ukraine, where Netflix cancelled the subscriptions of all 700,000 Russians in response. The management had originally expected 2.5 million additional customers. It now predicts that the loss of subscriptions will accelerate to two million.
The shock is deep-seated, also among investors. At times, Netflix shares lost over 25 percent in the after-hours trading. Netflix founder and co-CEO Reed Hastings, of all people, reacted promptly: for the first time ever, he openly talked about ad-financed streaming and sports, after years of speaking out against it. And: Hastings wants to fight account sharing much more resolutely than ever before.
Netflix wants to change: With fees, ads and sports
How serious Hastings is about coming changes, he expressed in the video to the quarterly figures so:
«Wir arbeiten daran, Account Sharing zu monetarisieren. Wir denken schon seit ein paar Jahren darüber nach. [...] Über 100 Millionen Haushalte haben sich für Netflix entschieden, ohne dafür zu zahlen. Sie lieben den Dienst. Wir wollen einfach nur in einem gewissen Mass dafür entschädigt werden.»
Another strategy to counter the subscription and revenue decline is ad-supported streaming, as Hastings says in the video above. Netflix can't force revenue growth forever by constantly raising subscription prices - most recently last March - the CEO said. That's why he'd even put up with that taboo-breaking:
«Es stimmt, dass die Einführung eines werbefinanzierten Angebots für das Unternehmen eine grosse Umstellung bedeuten würde. [...] Aber für jene, die einen niedrigeren Preis wünschen und werbetolerant sind, könnte das Modell sehr viel Sinn machen.»
«Ich sage nicht, dass wir nie Live-Sport machen werden, aber wir müssen neue Einnahme- und Gewinnquellen finden.»
Luca Fontana
Senior Editor
Luca.Fontana@digitecgalaxus.chI write about technology as if it were cinema, and about films as if they were real life. Between bits and blockbusters, I’m after stories that move people, not just generate clicks. And yes – sometimes I listen to film scores louder than I probably should.
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