this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2024
389 points (99.5% liked)

Technology

59689 readers
2702 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Disney+ Drops 1.3 Million Subscribers Amid Price Hike, Streaming Loss Shrinks by $300 Million::Disney+ lost 1.3 million subscribers in the final quarter of 2023 amid a hefty price hike that went into effect last fall

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 124 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Love positive news like this.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Not sure where the positive news is, unless you're a Disney shareholder. They dropped subscribers and are now losing less money. They care about the money, not really the subscribers. This pattern will likely continue.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Their greed backfired and they lost money as a result. Music to my ears. Arrr.

[–] [email protected] 76 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

The wording is confusing but they are making more money from the price hike. They were losing money, they are now losing less money.

Streaming Loss Shrinks by $300 Million

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (3 children)

As a non-native English speaker, I thought the same exact thing. That they lost revenue of 300M.

So unfortunately they are gaining revenue? I wish more people would get into Piracy honestly.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Good point. Thanks for that. 👍

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Unfortunately, no. They were already losing lots of money. They are now losing less money than they were before even after people left. Which is generally what happens if you're losing money for every subscriber and then subscribers leave.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (2 children)

"see this chart here? We lose money for every subscriber! We'll never make any money until we get rid of all of theml"

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Found the Management Consultant

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Murdoc 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Might lose even less money if we started paying them to watch! Yay, math!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Now we’re losing negative money

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (2 children)

How do you lose money per subscriber? Surely the subscription fee each subscriber pays is enough to offset the server, labor, etc costs, right?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

By making up more costs.

More seriously, by evaluating what you could be making by letting someone else run the streaming service and pay you for the rights, instead. It's still a pretty imaginary number, but it does come from something real.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Also, for a business other than Disney, licensing fees for the content they show can be a pretty large cost that needs a lot of subscribers to offset.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Not your fault, it's a shitty headline

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 59 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Do they mean 1.3 Million subscribers dropped Disney+ ?

If that's what they meant, english would actually let them say that.

[–] snugglesthefalse 4 points 9 months ago

I think they mean it that way as in their numbers dropped. Disney+ dropped (by) 1.3million

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

I can be pretty pedantic, but that seemed clear to me. Thinking about it, I regularly here "Disney has x subscribers" and much less frequently they "x people subscribe to Disney." So following that convention, saying that Disney has dropped subscribers makes perfect sense.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 43 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (6 children)

I wouldn’t have necessarily minded a price hike, at least not enough to drop D+ over it. It was the shitty writing that made me drop it, specifically Secret Invasion. That was the shitshow that made me go, “I’m done being angry at stupid, lazy-ass writing, I’m walking away.” And I’ve been fine. I haven’t even felt the need to pirate anything, I just don’t care anymore at this point.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

They killed fucking Maria Hill, and not even in an epic way. Just poof, dead.

Unforgivable.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You wouldn't mind casually paying more for a service that ostensibly costs the same to deliver to you?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I would obviously prefer not to, but if it was delivering a quality product that I liked I might. Prices go up all the time, sometimes I'll pay, sometimes not, it just depends. With D+ though, I really wasn't using it for anything in their extensive library, it was really just the new shows coming out. With the quality being as bad as it's been from the get-go, I was just tired of the Marvel/Star Wars writers treating their audience like they're idiots. It was frustrating going from one contrived scene to the next with the barest of logic applied to anything, things only happening just to get to the next scene, without any regard for what would actually make sense for the characters. The constant character assassination and cheapening of their franchises.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I can hear the groans and cries on the docks ..... YAHHARR!! ARGGGGG!! AYE MATIES!!!!! YAHAAR!!! YAHAR!!! ARGGGGHH!!! YAHAAR!!!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

THERE IS TREASURE TO BE FOUND ON THE SEVEN SEAS!

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago

I’ve shared it with my very young nieces and nephews for a few years. We do Simpsons and Star Wars, they do everything else. Now that Disney is pulling a Netflix, I don’t see a reason to double my cost for probably less viewing. For the price of a year’s sub, I can get a lot of movies or box sets. Over the years, I can get even more and never worry about losing access. Assuming Disney continues to raise prices, I can probably buy more and more for the sub price (although buying power will also drop). I can never share my access with my family any more. I can share box sets. Guess which one makes my nieces and nephews happy when they come visit.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

They said it themselves, "yo-ho, altogether, hoist the colors high."

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

When greed backfires it’s glorious! Plus the more streaming services pop up, the more people will pirate; we’ve regressed back into the cable TV era all because the suits are greedy bastards and deserve to lose every subscriber.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Disney+ lost 1.3 million subscribers in the final quarter of 2023 amid a hefty price hike that went into effect last fall, but managed to narrow its streaming business’ losses by $300 million during the October-December period.

That doesn't really sound like it backfired to me. They lost subscribers but made more money.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I don't even know what it means to "narrow" ones losses.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Suppose one year you spend $60k, but only earned $50k. You lost $10k.

The next year, you spend $57k, and earned $53k. You lost $4k, and your losses narrowed by $6k.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

They lost less than the year before

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

I am one if the 1.3 M. I not gonna pay 80 bucks per year to watch Grogu.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

That's funny, I dropped them last week right before they announced the price hike because I own everything I want to watch and now that I have my OTA DVR set up I don't need Hulu so I said "see ya round like a big old doughnut."

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

It's getting ridiculous. I am starting to consider dropping Prime. I don't need free shipping that bad and I don't even watch anything on it anymore. And when I do want to watch something I have to watch ads!? Yeah....

Yarrr me hearties! It be time to raise the Jolly Rodger!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

I'm calling it now:

Eventually these streamers are going to run out of runway, and they're already placing the blame on piracy. They're going to start pushing for more intense legal action against piracy and self-hosted options. Likely they'll push for broader enforcement of copyright and criminal charges, but i think they'll also litigate against plex and other self-hosted software and services as enabling/dealing in pirated content. Worst-case is that they start placing restrictions on VPN's and proxies, and they'll maybe couch it in a 'concern for national security'. FOSS has been having a moment the last couple years, but I'm very nervous about the attention their attracting.

I'm not sure what this will look like, but Netflix and others have already started putting out foreboding OP eds and statements addressing the market impact of pirating, and the digital media market sector is simply too big for legislators to ignore. The more companies like Disney and Netflix take on losses, the more pressure will be placed on legislators to act.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

I was paying for a year at a pop. After the price hike, I was going to cancel entirely. It just happened to coincide with the shitty Disney/hulu ad price. Which got my kids off my back for not having it and it’s only like 36 bucks for the year. If I feel inclined to watch something on those two then I watch on desktop and ad block the ads.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

I'm sure the strength of Disney's back catalog will more than make up for picking fights with the talent that create their new content while simultaneously breaking their mobile app experience with DRM and buggy software that drives their paying customers to learn about piracy.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Supply and demand, bitches!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

In my country the price increased like 400%. I don't see anyone will continue to subscribe

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Whoa. That's Disney going out of their way to kill an entire market. A 5x increase in price is bonkers.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Yup, I cancelled my D+ account, but not over the price hike. I cancelled it because I only care about Disney/Pixar/old Fox shows, and I already own all of those shows and movies physically now. The Marvel shows are absolute fucking trash, and Star Wars has been utterly murdered by the mouse. Aint nothing left for me on D+ so buh bye.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago
load more comments
view more: next ›