Most Netflix Customers Don't Realize Prices Will Increase Next Month

“But that doesn't mean they'll cancel their subscriptions.

Millions of Netflix customers are about to start paying more to stream their favorite movies and TV shows—and chances are, they don’t even realize it.

In May 2014, Netflix raised the price of its standard streaming plan for new subscribers, to $9.99 a month. However, the price hike did not apply to existing customers, who were grandfathered into their current rates of $7.99 a month for a two-stream, HD plan, Business Insider reported.

Unfortunately, the good times are about to end for this customer base, which analysts estimate at about 17 million people, or 37% of Netflix’s U.S. subscribers. In May, all grandfathered customers will be required to fork over $9.99 to continue to watch Netflix.

Even worse, about 80% of those who will be affected by the price increase did not realize it was coming, according to research from JP Morgan. Despite the unexpected bad news, however, UBS estimates that 4% of affected subscribers at most will cancel their subscriptions as a result—though about 41% claim they will do so. Of those surveyed by JP Morgan, 15% said they will nix their subscription in response to the change.

Affected customers’ reluctance to cancel their subscription may be logical: Netflix costs customers 9 cents an hour they spend streaming videos, while a traditional pay TV package runs about 30 cents per hour of viewing. Netflix’s new monthly rate is still cheaper than a commercial-free Hulu subscription, which runs customers $11.99 a month, but is now more expensive than an Amazon Prime subscription, which costs $99 annually.”


Source: Time.com

Android and iOS Are the Last Two Standing

Last week, WhatsApp announced in a blog post that it will stop supporting a number of mobile operating systems starting in 2017. Among those platforms scrapped by WhatsApp are Nokia's mobile platforms, Windows Phone 7.1 and most notably BlackBerry. 

More on Statista:

https://www.statista.com/chart/4431/smartphone-operating-system-market-share/

Net Neutrality passed back in February, but did anything change?

Of course not, nothing has changed. Actually, several ISP are appealing of the decision, and it may take years before a settlement is reached.

Don't be in a hurry though, because your internet access bill might increase if Net Neutrality is applied for what it really means. No user have priority over the other. All pay the same amount, and have equal access to web ressources. No paid highways for some and slower roads for others.

That sounds fair, right? But it also means that users like Google will pay the same amount for using the internet as you do. And Netflix will have the same priority to deliver your streaming movies than any users downloading their emails. As in, all roads have the same speed limit for every users, highways and rural streets alike. Do you think country roads will have a 70mph speed limit to match that of highways? Reality is more like highways would be slow down to 30mph.

That, of course, is not something you read everywhere on the web. Because, see, the web shows you stuff that is good for their business. Your searches are performed by Google, and Google would LOVE to pay the same amount as you for using the internet! It's interesting to see all people out there protesting against the FCC and CRTC to get net neutrality, firmly believing they will get the same priority as Google. Fact is it's Google, Netflix and friends who will pay the same amount as you to use the web.

More in-depth information on this Forbes article.

MPAA confirms its responsibility for shutting down PopcornTime

"The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has claimed responsibility for the shutdown of the main Popcorn Time fork, PopcornTime.io, and torrent site YTS.

PopcornTime.io shut down late last month due to what was reported as internal conflicts between developers, fear that an upcoming paid service could land them in legal trouble and various hosting issues.

The MPAA, however, has now come forward with news that several of its member studios filed a lawsuit in the Federal Court of Canada on October 9. A week later, they obtained an injunction to shut down the service. As The Hollywood Reporter notes, the statement of claim was under seal until today."

Full story on The Hollywood Reporter.
Federal Court Statement of Claim here.

Watch Hurricane Patricia - Live Cam Broadcast

I've placed below a couple of live cams, so you can witness hurricane Patricia in action, as it will hit Mexico in the next hours.

NOTE: Live cams occasionally go down and back up again. Refresh the page if the stream is broken!

Ixtapa Guerrero.

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Puerta Vallarta.

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Colima, south of Puerta Vallarta. Expected to take direct hit from the hurricane.

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Guadelajara, 90 miles inland, still in the path of Patricia.

And this spectacular photo sent via Twitter by astronaut Scott Kelly, commander of the International Space Station:

Hurricane #Patricia looks menacing from @space_station. Stay safe below, #Mexico. #YearInSpace pic.twitter.com/6LP2xCYcGD

— Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) October 23, 2015

Does Netflix Makes Money? Sure, But Not As Much As You'd Expect.

On the digital planet, we're all used to see big numbers and big figures. We rarely see the real numbers behind the success stories. It's all kept hidden.

I just stumbled across this Netflix report. We all know Netflix has millions of paid subscribers, and they make billions in revenues. But how about the operation expenses? Right now, Netflix is not even convering their share of bandwidth usage across content distribution servers, but let's take a look at their current (2014) numbers.

• $3.4 billion revenues, 62.3% of the total, from domestic streaming business.
• $1.3 billion revenues, 23.8% of the total, from international streaming .
• $765 million revenues, 13.9% of the total, from domestic DVD business.
  

Of the $5.5 billion of Netflix total revenues in 2014, $3.8 billion represent the cost of revenue. Say, the operation expenses.

This results in $1.7 billion of gross profit and a gross margin of 31.8%. Netflix spent $607 million, $472 million, and $270 million on marketing, technology and development, and general and administrative expenses respectively.

This results in $403 million of operating profit and an operating margin of 7.3%. After interest and other expenses and taxes, Netflix had a net profit of $267 million and a net margin of 4.8%.

That's $267 million profit, it sure ain't bad.
But it's out of a revenue of $5.5 billion.

Read more detailed infos right here:
http://revenuesandprofits.com/how-netflix-makes-money/

Black Flag TV System Update - Stream Offline

Folks, I'm updating software on my broadcast server!

Black Flag TV and all sister channels are offline for a moment. Hang on there, channels will be back later today!

Thanks for your understanding.

Sv