If I go from playing 1 hour of fortnite a week and 19 hours of Netflix to 19 hours of fortnite and one hour of Netflix you better believe I'm cancelling my Netflix sub. Between 1 and 19 is a flipping point for a significant enough of users that it concerns Netflix.

Not sure what is weird about that.

I doubt server / network costs, while significant for netflix are worth the trade for less viewership or the reduction to being in the mind of their users.

Remember Netflix has ads too..

I'm curious how Netflix seems to have failed to innovate at social media consumption in their platform.

If they're really worried about Fortnite, why haven't they made an effort to actually leverage network effects past cost scaling?

My primary reason to get Netflix if my friends have Netflix is so we can talk about the same (Netflix-only) shows.

But why not offer synced or simultaneous viewing with friends groups? Or per group commenting on episodes? Or anything that offers a truly different viewing experience that I can only get on Netflix?

I mean, Bandersnatch and Bird Box were all over Twitter for a few weeks after they came out, and their particular Twitter account is pretty engaging. I think a lot of us are thankful that Netflix hasn't adopted the Stories feature of most social media platforms. For the most part they follow the Unix philosophy of just doing one thing well.

> Netflix hasn't adopted the Stories feature

Boy have I got bad news for you... https://gfycat.com/FrighteningMassiveHart

Was it just me, or did anyone find Bandersnatch to be meh? I didn’t even finish it and I always liked choose your own adventure stories as a kid.

If only... there were some sort of live streaming website, when thousands of people could get together and watch content at the same time, maybe even with a chat system.

Since the topic is fortnite, perhaps such a streaming website could even include gaming content!

You're right, and I am surprised Amazon hasn't come up with something like that... or at least acquire a smaller company that does it already, if they can find one.

Isn't this what they acquired Twitch for?

Sarcasm :)

Netflix had all those social features, but they dropped them all.

That might not be true, if netflix offers something unique to justify the subscription. Eg a lot of people probably used to have netflix just for shows like house of cards, and the rest was just a bonus.

In the same way that I used to keep an xbox live subscription just for halo; any other game with online was a bonus, but not sufficient to justify subscribing. (CoD would be other reason, if I had ever cared for it)

However, I assume they depend on both, as at this point, the additional arbitrary selection of movies is the only value to me; particularly the fact that although I’ve stopped depending on it for significant screen time, the fact that its been dependable for one-off usage is sufficient value. (Im personally down to probably a single movie or two on netflix per month, maybe even less). But this is only a trait learned over time; any newcomer wouldn’t see this as valuable.

I watch a decent amount of Netflix and have never seen an ad.

There a ton of product placement in Netflix originals. Hell, Bandersnatch had an option to choose whether the character ate Kellogg's or Quaker cereal. (Although it wasn't a paid placement.)

https://adage.com/article/digital/netflix-s-bandersnatch-rev...

What country are you in? I've never seen a commercial on Netflix in the USA, Japan, or a few weeks in Europe. I guess there's probably some product placement here and there, and the auto-playing trailers are almost as obnoxious as ads?

Product placement is pretty common in Netflix's own shows, however they do it well so it doesn't feel like an ad. For example KFC in Stranger Things and Dunkin Donuts in House of Cards.

You could say they've come a long way from the infamous Playstation Vita placement in House of Cards: https://www.giantbomb.com/playstation-vita/3045-129/forums/h...

I'm surprised that is the one people mention, I remember seeing coke in every other episode. They got pretty sneaky about it eventually.

An old guy playing PlayStation vita (especially out of character) is more jarring than anyone drinking Coke.

Whereas Fortnite is itself just a big ad for their in-game purchases.

That ignores the reason you spent 19 hours on Netflix in the first place.

If you are still finding content that you are interested in, you will likely keep your subscription; even if you spend significantly less time using it.

You don't need to binge watch a series of events day to find value to keep the subscription.

On the other hand, how many people playing Fortnite for 19 hours a week pay for their own Netflix subscription vs using someone else's?

Nobody seems to have posited the real reason, in my opinion: High screen time turns users into dedicated evangelists for Netflix content who in turn promote the service to their friends and family.

Growth is fueled by assimilating otherwise normal people into the Netflix zombie botnet.

Case in point: 'Netflix and chill' is now a relatively established term. You don't become part of people's vocabulary if you're not an ingrained part of culture.

That may have been true 10 years ago when netflix's sole focus was growth, but they are pretty much a dominant player at this point. Once you get to a certain saturation level or market share, it's more about customer retention than growth since there is less room to grow and it's more costly.

The problem is that there is a fixed amount of time in a day and people's focus is a zero sum game. If more people are playing fortnite, less people are watching netflix. If more people are watching youtube, less people are watching mainstream tv.

There are only X amount of watch time for this world. The battle between all media companies is over that share. It's the cause of tension between traditional media and social media and why traditional media has been so forcefully demanding a privileged place within social media. There is only a finite number of hours for people's attention.

To propose a less cynical alternative, high screen time means users are deriving a lot of utility from the service and are unlikely to end their subscriptions.

I've heard from Netflix employees that retention stabilizes once a certain number of hours per month are watched on an account.

I think that optimizing for time watched is genius for Netflix for exactly the reason stated above. Of course it helps drive retention, but the ultimate benefit is netflix-izing our culture so that a subscription is just necessary for our social life.

Has Netflix, or other stabbing services, increased screen use overall? If Fortnite is a competitor doesn't that show to some extent that viewers limit screen time: or is it only natural limits (job, school/work, hours in a day) that are in effect?

+1. Adding two thoughts.

1. I assume screen time translates to a stronger position in the market. Revenue-wise it might be negative, but I assume they have metrics showing that the less screen time a subscriber incurs, the more likely they are to cancel their subscription.

I'd suppose there is a ceiling to this. I personally would imagine it's just as likely for someone to cancel their subscription if they watch 5 hours a week then if they watch 20-- they probably won't, but I'd suppose at some point is just about holding a strong position? Forming habits? Someone who watches 5 hours a week might be watching one or two shows, will run out of things to watch, and might will jump ship if they find that next show somewhere else. Or they might have enough things to do outside of Netflix they'll just do more of that after they are done watching.

2. Which brings me to my second thought. In general, in my opinion it's wrong and creepy that Netflix has this wide view of what it's competing against. Including sleep [1] and now Fortnite is getting kind of borderline "anything that people do with their free time" at this point.

Sleep: it's general economic downtime. It's time everyone could spend doing something else, but you don't see KFC competing against it. Imagine-- "People are sleeping too much! That slows digestion, so they get less hungry. We gotta compete against that!"

Videogames: Not saying Fortnite is the healthiest of activities, but sheesh, not all screen time is the same. Sometimes I get tired of passive consumption and want to do something that will at least require me to press some buttons and strategize a bit.

[1]: https://www.recode.net/2017/4/17/15334122/netflix-sleep-comp...

>minimize screen time while maximizing subscription retention

Gyms essentially do this. The number of people with memberships will be 20x the gym's physical capacity, in part because people get memberships and then never show up. Some gyms target that kind of customer.

Negative, ghost rider. ;)

They would be very happy to sell you 100% of your screen time for $13/mo. The server costs are manageable.

In the long run, Netflix wants as much of your attention as they can have because no one quits a service they use every day and love.

There's a pretty strong, profitable correlation between high content consumption and high subscriber retention.

On top of that, the net promoter score would be higher.

Netflix wants to maximize lifetime value. Why optimize for less screentime when it could just minimize cost of content?

Netflix makes money from more than the subscription fee; for example product placement.

If you never use your Netflix subscription, why would you keep it?

Because for many, Netflix subscription is a shared good. E.g. I pay for the highest plan, and let my wife, my mom & my siblings use it. I'm not going to ask all of them every month if they're using it; I just pay $15 and everyone can watch whenever they feel like it.

There's a lot to be said for reliability factor too. I could pay for just the middle tier and handle occasional collisions (more people wanting to watch at the same time than the service tier allows). But it's easier to fork out extra $5 and avoid the issue altogether.

I rarely use mine but keep it for 2 reasons.

1. I "feel" like there might be something I want to watch at some point. Just kinda in the back of my head.

2. Its 10$/mo that I'm not even going to notice missing.

As their price increases I'll likely cancel. There is something about being at or under 10$ vs being over that triggers me to reevaluate even if I still wouldn't notice the extra couple bucks.

This is me as well.

At $10 I’m not even that bothered about content quality.

These days content is spread out over a bunch of providers, some much more expensive due to movies, sports and live events.

I’m paying for four separate streaming services, and at $10 netflix just defaults.

At a higher price quality content will have to increase.

I'm not saying they're not related, just not linearly so. For one, screen time is scalar and subscription is binary. My screen time only needs to be high enough for subscription binary to remain active across time. It's possible that screen time is simply the most highly correlated and easiest to track metric they use, which is likely. Another possibility is that they do recognize that screen time probably has logarithmic falloff as it correlates to subscriptions, Fortnite is eating enough of the screen time away that it's in the range that is highly likely to influence whether or not they keep their subscription.

Like this

https://i.ibb.co/khfR4FQ/Notes-190119-221151-309-1.jpg

Same reason as gym members?

Yeah, neither of those make sense to me. You can easily cancel netflix online and the last gym membership I just called and cancelled because I was moving. I've heard about gyms "requiring" you to cancel in person but I feel like a threaten to do a charge back would get them to cancel over the phone.

Why are people paying for subscriptions they don't use?

Laziness

Also excessive optimism. "I will finally start excercising next week, I swear!"

I mean I use my gym membership, but I think the analogy is wrong. People don't use their gym membership because it's just an office to do (body)work in. Netflix is entirely consumable for the purchaser, not much work involved. Laziness might still be the answer in common.

Some get it for free, like certain T-Mobile customers.

"I don't know where I'm going with this." LMAO