Netflix got wiped out on Wall Street, plunging 35% — and losing about $50 billion in market value — on Wednesday after reporting its first decline in subscribers in more than a decade.
The streaming giant is now looking for ways to stop the bleeding. It aims to crack down on password sharing will probably introduce a lower-price, ad-supported service tier.
But the subscriber losses are the key issue. Netflix says it lost about 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter and could lose 2 million more this quarter.
Ouch.
That raises the question of whether Netflix is now too pricey as many consumers economize amid soaring costs for food, gas and other necessities.
The company’s standard plan runs $15.49 a month. Is that fair value? Not according to a new survey.
Fandom’s second annual State of Streaming report, released Tuesday, finds that nearly two-thirds of survey respondents think subscriptions for streaming services are too costly.
A fair average cost for video streaming, they say, would be closer to $7.50 a month.
But there’s some wiggle room.
The survey finds that, on average, people would be willing to pay $10.60 a month for Netflix.
They’d pony up about $9.30 for HBO Max or Disney+, $8.60 for Hulu or Amazon Prime Video, and about $6.90 for Apple TV+ or Paramount+.
Maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Or maybe that’s an increasingly competitive marketplace making its voice heard.
Personally, I think $10 is a reasonable monthly cost for most top-tier streaming services, dropping to $5 a month for services with less-awesome content.
But with the heavyweight streaming services investing billions of dollars into original content, it seems safe to say prices will keep going up.
And the canceled subscriptions will increase.