>

I think a lot of people are misunderstanding what's actually going on here.
As far as I know, Netflix are still planning to roll out the limitations of account sharing globally.
The mistake they are referring to is that the account sharing rule changes were posted publicly on their web pages before being finalised, and thus the rules have been removed as they were posted in error / too soon. They have said that they would never simply update their web pages with new rules without making an actual announcement to the users in that country. 
However, I believe they are still intending on rolling out the account changes during 2023.
/u/Magemonster (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
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^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards >

It wasn't to get people talking about Netflix, it was a trial balloon to see how the market would react to such a change.  They likely got the data they needed (cancellations, social media dunks, etc) and acted accordingly. >

This i can actually believe as an alternative. They was never going to go through with it, but as a test for future policies or a pr stunt is both believable !delta >

You jumped the gun.
Netflix already does this in multiple countries and has had plans in place for this for the last year. This is public information.
Nothing about this was a trial or stunt, it's a policy already in use being expanded. >

What countries is it already in use? >

Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru. >

Thanks. I take it these are their test countries to see if it works >

Yup. He's saying "oh they already do it in those countries therefore this isn't a trial" as if them doing it in those countries hasn't been explicitly stated by Netflix to be trials to see how the policies work out. Why wouldn't they also do a test in other regions to see how they'd react before rolling out a finalized policy? >

They did it in countries where if it backfired it wouldn't hurt as much. >

Yes I'm aware. And then the policy leak earlier this week was them testing to see how people in larger more important markets would react to the change >

Completely agree. >

The unfortunate reality is that they were almost certainly entirely sincere about this, and this is a very common tactic with large corporations.  
1)  Come up with an idea that will make you more money, but will be unpopular.
2)  Announce the idea.  
3)  Observe the response.
4a) If the response is minimal, proceed with whatever exploitative bullshit you had planned.
4b) If there's public outcry/response that makes this idea cost more than it produces, cancel it and deflect to some excuse.  "This was posted in error"  "This wasn't the final product and was released for public feed back". 
Netflix would have happily implemented this change, had the entire community of users not raised such an outcry about it.  The idea that it's a PR stunt is just one layer of deflection from the fact that they were making a legitimate attempt to do this. >

While I didn’t cancel my account, I did change my plan to a cheaper one as soon as the news came out. I was originally paying extra for more screens to share, now they’re calling it the ultra 4k plan. No thanks. I wonder how many other people did also. Enough to make them backtrack I’m guessing. >

I think you are confusing primary motivations with a silver lining. Sure, maybe the execs can comfort themselves with the idea that even after a failed attempt to squeeze more money from their customers at least people are talking about the platform. 
If you think they are rubbing their hands together while saying mission accomplished I would have to disagree. >

The question would be: why?
It's not like Netflix isn't unversally known. They constantly have controversies regarding their shows - they really don't need the additional attention, at the very least not at that price. >

The Why is easy, Streaming giants make more ads nowadays than ever now that there's so much competition, HBO max, Amazon prime etc, not even talking about the regional services, where i live there's at least 3 other competing services.
The same way everyone know what coca cola is, yet they still pump out loads of ads everywhere.
And this PR stunt didn't cost netflix a dime, they didn't go through with it, i don't think a substantial amount of people unsubscribed from netflix because they will remove password sharing in the future. i would think most of the people using this, including me would want to ride the wave to the end. >


And this PR stunt didn't cost netflix a dime, they didn't go through with it

I doubt that... I could see there being plenty of people for which this was "the final straw", even if it did not actually come to pass.

The same way everyone know what coca cola is, yet they still pump out loads of ads everywhere.

The major difference here is that ads at that level are aimed at improving the standing of the brand over other brands. If your standing worsens from your ad campaign, more people might switch to a competitor. >


I doubt that... I could see there being plenty of people for which this was "the final straw", even if it did not actually come to pass.

I do not agree with you on this. I don't think a substantial amount of people think like this.

The major difference here is that ads at that level are aimed at improving the standing of the brand over other brands. If your standing worsens from your ad campaign, more people might switch to a competitor.

I do agree that these are different kind of ads, but i don't believe all publicity a brand gets has to be positive in nature to gain a positive effect. >

Has there ever been a brand the size of Netflix to intentionally produce negative advertising aimed at themselves?
The fact that doesn't happen should put yet another nail on the coffin to the myth "there's no such thing as bad publicity" >

I think that negative publicity like this could be intentional and very well planned as well. One of the basic principles of gaining attention is to just rile up emotions in the audience, once they are emotionally invested then manipulating those emotions is much easier. 
Netflix could now come up with a bad plan or a price hike that initially would have garnered a lot of bad feedback but now people would be okay with the decision, why? Because people will now think "This isn't as bad as the thing that they were bout to do before".
TLDR: Negative publicity can be used for personal benefit if done rightly >

You're misinterpreting the link you've shared, saying "it's all off the table" isn't correct, the link you posted states that it was because "they aren't applicable to the US yet" but as far as we know the plan is still the same, and iirc the changes are live in certain markets
You say that "its a PR stunt", and that's where your view needs to be changed, its not a stunt it's just PR, until they fully backtrack we have nothing to show its not just bad PR
It's not a good decision, but the doesn't make it a stunt >


You're misinterpreting the link you've shared, saying "it's all off the table" isn't correct, the link you posted states that it was because "they aren't applicable to the US yet" but as far as we know the plan is still the same, and iirc the changes are live in certain markets

Surprised there isn’t more comments on this. I’m not interpreting that they’ve abandoned the idea at all. They could be tinkering with it so that they can sell a slightly neutered version and pretend it’s a “win” for subscribers, or they just are holding off to ride out the current negative reactions. Maybe they’ll delay it for a while longer in the U.S. but they can’t unring the bell that they’ve implemented it internationally and it’s the direction they want to go. >

Thank you! u/Magemonster is holding a view that is fundamentally incorrect and I want my first delta lol >

How can a company be so out of touch? Very easily. Companies constantly make dumb decisions which are motivated by greed. They hope they will be able to get away with it/people won't care 
Just look at wizards of the coast for their recent reversal in planned policy thanks to mass consumer protest and withdrawal of money >

How is trying to get people to pay for your service greed? That’s what all business do. 
People are freeloading, Netflix is trying to convert freeloaders to paid customers, simple as that. >


That’s what all business do.

Right, greed. >

So everything should be sold at cost? >


So everything should be sold at cost?

That's hardly what I said. I just pointed out the fact that businesses are greedy. I didn't say anything about whether they're too greedy or whether that's bad, or whether they should entirely give up all forms of greed and become charities. I just think it's funny that you don't want to call businesses greedy when greed is their entire raison d'etre. >

The issue is, there is a difference between self interested and greed. Greed implies an immoral amount of self interest. Companies inherently look out for themselves, pretty much everything everywhere does too. The difference is a company that is greedy takes without providing extra value. Netflix is effectively doing theft and loss prevention, especially as the streaming game is squeezing companies like Netflix to spend insane amounts of money on new product to keep value intact. 
Airbnb for instance, had a net profit margin of 42% in Q4. That’s more like greed. The product has not changed or improved, but they’ve implemented new fees and raised existing fees (on both consumers and their property “partners”) without raising quality of service. In doing so, they’ve screwed over partners who take all the risk with their assets. >

I don't think I've ever met a company beyond a certain size, say a dozen workers maybe, that isn't greedy to the core. >

I’m honestly asking here, do you believe that there are no companies with more than 12 employees, that care anything at all about anyone? That’s your contention? All people who become very successful are greedy people? >

More or less, but to be clear, I just randomly threw out that number for demonstrative purposes, but you seem to be taking it as some empirical claim. I'm also not saying 100% of all companies are like this, that would be silly, it's just that 99.9% of them are, and I don't think the difference between the two values is meaningful.
Also note my original phrase was not "there are no companies", it was simply "I've never seen a company". I really don't know why you're trying to pin this down to some sort of extreme and implausible empirical conjecture when it clearly isn't. >

I completely understand It was merely to throw out a figure for the sake of argument. There are just so many business owners I know who invest so much in their employees and their communities. I guess I’m lucky enough to see it all up close, but I also know way too many companies that are exploitative. My industry has far more than their fair share of exploitative, brokers and team leaders.
I just don’t enjoy blanket statements, and I wanna be nuanced with my verbiage. I reserve the word, greedy for someone that harms others with their self interest, or genuinely doesn’t care about the consequences of how they accrue their wealth. >

If it was just a PR stunt, then why have they actually been implementing this in countries like Costa Rica for years now? This isn't new, they have been trialing it for literal years and I'm sure that the ultimate goal was bringing it to larger countries like the US and UK where most of their market actually is. 
Source: I'm from Costa Rica >


and then after a while you see that they say "it was a mistake" Link And now it's all off the table.

Did you read the article? did you even read the comments from people that actually read the article?

Though the new password sharing rules are only being tested in select countries, they are expected to launch in many more regions by the end of March 2023.

In March is when the changes for password sharing are coming through, they've said that already
the error is that people were informed those changes were happening now, but they're not, because they're schedule for March
it's not off the table, nothing has changed so far. you were mislead by a click bait article shared by someone wanting some karma which ended up make you think its a PR stun as you continue making others think it's not longer happening >

Jokes on them, I actually cancelled my Netflix subscription. Customer of 15 years. Shared my account with my parents (in their 70s) so the grandkids can watch the kids channel twice a year when they visit. I can't remember the last time I actually used it. 
RIP- nobody will notice when you're gone >

So your thesis is that they created a lot of bad press and lost some subscriptions to generate PR?
What PR would netflix need?  What show is being released right now that they want PR?
Who doesn't know of netflix such that they'd need to generate PR? >

It's not a stunt. They are a public company and are held to the standards of a growth stock by their shareholders. 
They've already grabbed about as much market share as possible in terms of viewership, so now they have to find a way to make more money per viewer. >

Netflix had seen that their economic numbers weren't what investors liked so they had to do something. Netflix stock price where falling like a rock. >

Turns out that perpetual growth isn't sustainable... Who would've thunk it... >

You can change your own view by just taking a few minutes to think about it yourself. The only thing they're gonna be gaining this, is a certain percent of their users cancelling their account. No one in their right mind will suddenly see the situation and go "Wow, that company just made it slightly awkward to use their service, i should totally go sign up to use it".
The "bad PR is still PR" thing doesn't actually work in this case as it brings nothing positive back to the company. Yes, people are talking about them, but they're shit-talking and it's causing them to lose customers, not gain them. It honestly seems more like Netflix was testing the waters for a new rule and failed at it.