Survey shows Netflix is losing more long-term subscribers

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

According to a report from The Information, more people are canceling their subscriptions. 13 percent of subscribers who had been with the service for more than three years were canceled in the first quarter of 2022, according to survey data viewed by the outlet.

The Information says it got its data from a firm called Antenna, which gathers data from 5 million Americans who share their streaming subscriptions anonymous. In the past five quarters, 2.5 million people have been canceled, but in the last quarter, 3.6 million people were canceled.

The Information reports that new users are accounting for a smaller share of the canceled users, which is an indicator that the company is struggling to retain users for longer periods of time. 70 percent of people who canceled in the second quarter of the year were people who had only been on the platform for a short time. Older subscribers made up 60 percent of the cancellations last quarter.

Many of my colleagues at The Verge have given up their memberships in the past, and are considering doing the same. I don't find myself watching it as much anymore due to its selection of shows and movies, some of which I can just as easily find on other services. Archive 81 was one of the few shows I enjoyed watching on the internet.

After all of the rate hikes over the years, the price of the service has risen out of the default subscription range.

The first year of the service has been rough. In the first quarter, the streaming giant lost 200,000 subscribers, the first time in over a decade it has lost subscribers. In the second quarter of 2022, the company expects to lose another 2 million subscribers. It has 74.58 million subscribers in the US and Canada.

There are a number of factors that contribute to the wavering subscriber count. Around one million subscribers were cut off in Russia due to the war on Ukraine, which led to the suspension of the services from Netflix. The basic plan, standard plan, and premium tier all went up in price.

We will likely see a number of changes from the platform within the next year or so, as the platform reportedly told employees it plans on launching a cheaper, ad-supported plan sometime this year. Reed Hastings has been cracking down on password sharing.

The service is testing a feature that will allow subscribers to add sub accounts for anyone using the service outside of their homes at a lower price. Comedy specials are one of the things that is being worked on byNetflix. It might want to do that soon if it wants to keep up with Disney Plus, which added 8 million new subscribers last quarter and already has an ad-supported tier in the works.