Netflix might be adding a new tier, Netflix Ultra and it might be bad for premium users

[QBtech]

Okay lets play devil advocate for a minute. The fact is the increased competition in the online streaming market has probably led to a rise in license fees for Netflix. These licenses have also been negotiated with the assumption that one user = one household. From a 2016 interview with Hasting:

Quote

"We expect that Netflix is a household level purchase, and that sharing with members of the household is a reasonable thing to do," he said.

....

"The terms of use is sharing within the household and that's our expectation," he added.

"I don't think we are obsessed with enforcing compliance with a one-household-per-account constraint. Because, in reality, it's a high-value programme, so that's what people are going to do."

  Now we all know people that don't exactly follow the one household per account rule, and for netflix it would be rather easy to figure out. Personally I would use a query excluding all mobile sessions, list IPs with more than 4 monthly sessions in the last 3 months, and count every user with more than 3 IPs as a "violator" (just not to be a d*ck). It would be a very rough estimate of the amount of people that break the one-household-per-account constraint and I can think of multiple scenarios that would result in a violation but still.

 

The best way to enforce this constraint is to limit the number of screens, so fair enough. You can still share your account with 3 friends for a price far below 4 separate accounts.

 

The thing that bothers me is the UHD shift to premium tier as I do not see the direct causation. The only added cost is bandwidth as nothing else really changes. Am I missing something? Or is it just letting demanding people pay a premium to cover cost in an effort to keep the base tier cheap(er)? Now I get bandwidth on that scale isn't cheap but still.

[ThreePinkApples]

On 04/07/2018 at 12:29 PM, Spotty said:

 

The 25Mbps recommendation for Ultra HD is just so that you have some headroom left when streaming UHD. UHD tops out at 15.7~Mbps. While FullHD tops out at about 7.5~Mbps (This is at least what the stats shows on my TV, and from what I've read elsewhere when I've been researching, but that's a while ago)

I don't mind a higher price for Netflix, I've always expected the price for Netflix to increase over time, as the current price is actually quite low for the amount of content you get, not much higher than a Spotify Premium subscription. 

What I would love, is increased bitrate though, say FullHD could go top 15Mbps, and UHD could go to 25-30Mbps. Then I would be even more happy to pay for "Ultra"

[Morgan Everett]

I'd pay more for a significantly higher bitrate.

[mynameisjuan]

Some are more than happy to pay $150+ for cable but not $17 for netflix? The fuck is wrong with people. 

 

$17 is more than reasonable. 

[jagdtigger]

3 hours ago, QBtech said:

and count every user with more than 3 IPs as a "violator"

Since the retarded ISP's depoying CGN it would be a rough ride for netflix.....

 

/On topic

Call me when they allow 1080p and 4k on linux.... (And they ditch that retarded decision to ban rooted phones.)

[Aprime]

 

I think a big problem Netflix has is the amount of simultaneous users on the platform. It's fairly common for people to share accounts and that makes it harder to extract capital out of the user base. I don't know anyone that hasn't shared their subscription. I couldn't say the same about SpotifyGPM/etc and family plans.

There are many other ways they could monetize the platform or content further but I don't think they know better than to play with the sub fees.

1 hour ago, aerandir92 said:

I've always expected the price for Netflix to increase over time, as the current price is actually quite low for the amount of content you get, not much higher than a Spotify Premium subscription. 

 

If you're looking at it from a dollar for dollar, the music streaming platforms, particularly Google's, are a much better value proposition than Netflix... At least to me. GPM is a repository of my old songs on top of all the new stuff I buy or stream and I don't even have to pay for that feature. The algorithm is fantastic at finding content for me to listen to and I spend a lot more time listening to music than I am watching movies.

I'm also not aware of either platforms discontinuing content, which Netflix regularly does, on top of dumping a ton of garbage that disinterests me from the platform, kinda how I slowly came to stop playing video games during the Humble Bundle peak period.

 

[corsairian]

That's why I stopped using Netflix. That and the awful selection of content they have. 

[QBtech]

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

Since the retarded ISP's depoying CGN it would be a rough ride for netflix.....

 

/On topic

Call me when they allow 1080p and 4k on linux.... (And they ditch that retarded decision to ban rooted phones.)

Forgot about ISPs not giving people a static IPs, my bad. New idea: stamp every install with a unique ID

 

Regardless spotify premium only allows one stream at a time, and so do other platforms. Netflix has been very generous up to now and people seem to forget corporation owe them nothing. If you dont like the change, vote with your wallet and stop your subscription.

 

Fyi im pretty sure im running 1080p on my ubuntu installs running chrome

[mynameisjuan]

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

Since the retarded ISP's depoying CGN it would be a rough ride for netflix.....

I mean you can call it retarded but we passed that finite number of IP years ago. 

 

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

Call me when they allow 1080p and 4k on linux.... (And they ditch that retarded decision to ban rooted phones.)

1080 and 4k on linux, yes please......not allowing on rooted phones is understandable. 

[jagdtigger]

10 hours ago, QBtech said:

Forgot about ISPs not giving people a static IPs, my bad. New idea: stamp every install with a unique ID

 

Regardless spotify premium only allows one stream at a time, and so do other platforms. Netflix has been very generous up to now and people seem to forget corporation owe them nothing. If you dont like the change, vote with your wallet and stop your subscription.

 

Fyi im pretty sure im running 1080p on my ubuntu installs running chrome

Nope, amythong that isnt IE(and its newest reskin edge) or the official app only gets 720p...

[jagdtigger]

10 hours ago, mynameisjuan said:

I mean you can call it retarded but we passed that finite number of IP years ago. 

And we had the solition even before that, but they opted for the cheapskaze solution....

[Ginger_]

Sonarr/Radarr still has one tier: free