Are subscriptions services about to escalate in price?

Subscription services surround us everywhere; businesses are even encouraged to incorporate them as a form of passive income—where you create content once and sell it many times over, 24/7.

I must admit, until recently, I’d never seen a flaw in this model. I figured, as long as a provider continued to offer quality content, people would continue to subscribe. However, Netflix may be about to prove me wrong.

The company recently announced increases in the price of its subscription service, and it’s fair to say the organisation received some backlash as a result. And not just angry rhetoric across social media, but customers actually cancelling their Netflix subscriptions in protest. For the first time in ten years, Netflix lost more subscribers than it gained. Its Chief Executive, Reed Hastings, admitted that the company lost 200,000 subscribers just in the first quarter of 2022.

This loss caused Netflix’s share prices to plummet. Some well-known investors even chose to sell their shares in the company for a loss, such was their concern. Netflix blamed a number of factors, including the war in Ukraine, increased competition, and users within the same household sharing accounts. The latter is an ongoing headache for Netflix; the company has been trying to crack down on account sharing for a while, particularly in South America, and it has introduced various measures to try and force individuals into having their own accounts.

I share my account with others in my household. I use Netflix at home and will continue to use the same account when I go to university. I also allow my grandparents to use my account; technically, you could say it’s shared over three households—but let’s not forget that I pay for this privilege. A subscription of £10.99 per month allows two users to watch the service simultaneously, so why shouldn’t I use what I’ve paid for?

It's been more than two years since I’ve looked at Netflix’s packages. A basic account is £6.99 per month, which only allows for one viewer at a time. This also doesn’t allow for HD viewing, which is nothing short of an embarrassment in 2022. I also completely forgot about their premium offering; for the princely sum of £15.99 four viewers can watch at once, and in ultra-HD. But is it really worth an additional fiver to view content in 4K?