OPED: Netflix Changes and Policies

After a drastic drop in Netflix stocks by 35.1%, Netflix has begun to make drastic changes to their streaming service. As a result of Netflix making the assumption that the drop in stocks was due to password sharing, they’ve begun to track the amount of people using an account while limiting the people using it at one time. In order to make up for their losses, Netflix is starting to add an additional charge to the monthly subscription for accounts with multiple people. If more than two people are simultaneously watching Netflix on one account, Netflix won’t allow a third watcher unless the subscriber upgrades their account to allow four people to watch at the same time for an additional $4.99 a month. 

An old Netflix post that now contradicts its current policy.

Though Netflix thinks this new policy will gain back their losses, it will result in a greater loss down the line. Subscribers have been enraged by this new policy and started to express it on social media platforms. With Netflix’s faults now becoming a trending topic in the media, there has been a significant amount of people unsubscribing from Netflix. It’s been reported that over 200,000 subscribers canceled their subscriptions in the first quarter of 2022. 

Even though this raise in price and change in policy is getting a lot of media attention, this isn’t the first time Netflix has pulled similar stunts. When Netflix launched in 2007, it had a starting subscription plan of $7.99 a month. Over the years, Netflix has added extra subscription plans with varying prices, each time increasing their prices overall. Just in January of this year, the average plan of $13.45 a month increased to $15.49. 

There have been millions of subscribers who've been with Netflix since its launch, making it their number one streaming service. However with these changes in policies, a lot of subscribers are beginning to cancel their subscriptions. With more policies coming out in the future (like the addition of ads to Netflix), people no longer want to rely on Netflix as their easy and accessible streaming service. Netflix co-CEOReed Hastings, who once expressed in the past how he strived to make Netflix ad-free, now wants to include ads to combat the drop in stock value. As Netflix continues to change some of their principles, subscribers continue to lose faith in the streaming service. 

By Kayla Beasley