r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • 16d ago

News Apple Losing Over $1 Billion a Year on Streaming Service

https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-losing-over-1-billion-year-streaming-service-information-reports-2025-03-20/
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u/hardy_83 16d ago

People in some countries are getting poorer, you're going to see a lot of subscription services start to suffer cause of this.

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

It’s not like in the US the economy is getting any better. People are struggling to make ends meet everywhere. Keeping a streaming service with somewhat good overall content is a very high commodity.

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u/dabocx 16d ago

Netflix is still growing without issue. And that’s with them raising prices a lot

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u/rustyphish 16d ago

Guarantee you Blockbuster executives said this same thing during their run

Everyone is invincible until they’re not

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u/Yourfavoriteindian 16d ago

Ehh, not the same. Blockbuster was a domestic focused business, with years of stagnation and loss, and fighting a losing battle against new technology (streaming vs dvd/vhs).

Netflix doesn’t have those problems, as it is international, hasn’t ever suffered stagnation, and is the forerunner in streaming tech and innovations.

It sucks for us consumers, but Netflix won’t fail unless the other streamers really step their shit up or something catastrophic happens. We’re stuck with them, meaning they can continue to keep jacking up prices and people will still stay because there isn’t a real alternative.

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u/rustyphish 16d ago

You're completely missing the point lol

the point is, you can't just look at what's happened so far and decide "since nothing bad has happened, nothing bad will ever happen!"

Every successful company "hasn't suffered stagnation" until they suffer stagnation for the first time. There's never "a real alternative" until there is one. Just because that hasn't happened so far, doesn't mean it will never happen if they keep encouraging it to lol

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u/Suitable-Answer-83 16d ago

But how is that at all relevant here? Blockbuster was a company on decline and things got worse and worse. Netflix is a company doing very well that is doing better and better. Could something new come in and destroy them? Of course. But you're not even speculating what that disruption might be. You're just saying maybe Netflix will fail, but not actually contributing anything to the discussion.

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u/rustyphish 16d ago

Blockbuster was a company on decline

what were they before they were on the decline?

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u/Suitable-Answer-83 16d ago

Again, I'm not saying that Netflix could never fail. I'm saying you're not making any point at all. Someone tried to compare Apple's streaming struggles with Netflix, but Apple has never made a profit from streaming while Netflix has. Then you chimed in to say "well maybe someday Netflix won't make a profit." To which I responded, what is your point? You saying that something could come along destroying streaming subscriptions altogether as a business does nothing to contribute to a discussion where someone saying Apple is struggling to make money in a business where others have succeeded (and other major companies have failed).

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u/rustyphish 16d ago

I'm saying you're not making any point at all.

I am absolutely making a point, you just keep trying to go backwards.

My point is, you can only increase prices and degrade quality so much before the switch flips. People are responding to that by saying "but the switch hasn't flipped yet so you're wrong!!!"

It is completely irrelevant that they're "not in decline" to my point, literally no company is in decline before they're in decline. That's you saying nothing lol

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u/Suitable-Answer-83 16d ago

Thank you for finally making a point. I think it is a very reasonable point to say that there is only so long that they can increase prices and degrade quality before they will reach the point that customers will turn away. However, Blockbuster is completely tangential to that point, because they didn't fail due to a change in prices or quality, but by a new type of service that destroyed Blockbuster and all of its competitors.

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u/Yourfavoriteindian 16d ago

I have to disagree. Blockbuster didn’t fail overnight as you are implying. Netflix didn’t come in overnight as you are implying.

It was over years and years of slow decline and stagnation from blockbuster, and new tech developing.

Companies do not fail overnight. If they do, please provide examples.

Never once did I say or imply “if nothing bad has happened it will never happen.” What I am saying is that Netflix isn’t in the same situation as blockbuster, and trends are showing that it is not on the same downwards trend. It’s why I said that this can still happen, but it would take another industry changing innovation, which is still unlikely as Netflix is still the industry leader in revenue and innovation while every other competitor is struggling.

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u/rustyphish 16d ago

Blockbuster didn’t fail overnight as you are implying. Netflix didn’t come in overnight as you are implying.

Please tell me where I implied that

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u/keepfighting90 16d ago

Reddit desperately keeps praying that Netflix will fail but I think they're going to be heavily disappointed.

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u/EdwinMcduck 16d ago

I wouldn't say without issue. There's a reason they're pushing this "minutes streamed" nonsense instead of just accurately reporting their viewership. Do the math on some of those numbers they put out (consider how many episodes of the show they're talking about were made, how many minutes each episode is, do some basic division). With a few exceptions, most of their "hits" are getting less viewership than peak CW show viewership. In general television viewership for individual shows is garbage compared to what it was even ten years ago, and Netflix is largely responsible for that. I'd say one of their biggest challenges will be coming up when they eventually flatten out on subscriber growth and want to see more revenue from their ad based tiers. Why would the advertisers pay more for ads on shows that aren't actually getting eyeballs, and will subscribers stay if they heavily push ads? Tubi is probably better positioned as an ad based service with its free model, and Tubi is getting just as much big studio stuff on their platform as Netflix. As streaming turns into being just TV the market will likely shift to the free ad based services (just like how network television consistently got more views than even basic cable).

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u/HumansNeedNotApply1 16d ago

There's no actual benefit for Netflix to give away the clean numbers in regards to actual viewers, but we do know based on statistics the calculation is close enough to the real number. Netflix doesn't publish in minutes anymore, it's only watched hours. As ads goes, according to their financial reports they are expecting 3.2 billion in advertisement revenue this year. Tubi generated 900 million in 2023...

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u/hardy_83 16d ago edited 16d ago

I think at the moment, people aren't doing what I suggest they are going to do, but consolidating subscriptions and choosing what they think is the most valuable to save money. Then if things get worse, I expect even more of that to happen or to the point I suggest where people cancel subs all together.

Netflix I imagine will suffer the least until it gets really bad as most probably view that service as the best quality or most quantity.

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u/WeWantLADDER49sequel 16d ago

Their numbers are misleading. They showed an increase in subscribers last quarter but people fail to realize a ton of people paid for a single month of netflix just to be able to watch the christmas NFL games. Lets see how their numbers do throughout this year. They will come down at some point

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u/Janky_Pants 16d ago

It’s going to drop off like a cliff though. People don’t weed themselves off of these services. They just drop them.

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u/IndyMLVC 16d ago

Some countries like the US.

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u/No-Island-Jim 16d ago

Argentina, with poverty around 54% and whose economy suffered a huge "adjustment" (again) in early 2024 is still growing in Netflix subscribers according to their released data.

Yes, people got poorer, netflix raised prices to match the devaluation and did not suffer subscriber count

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u/the_pwnererXx 16d ago

doesn't matter as people in poor countries are still adopting the internet faster than rich countries lose subscribers