Igneous Quill

These are interesting days for Netflix, but not necessarily good ones. The company has expanded its offerings internationally, including into Brazil, but is receiving very poor reviews in that market. At the same time, due largely to a roughly 60% price hike for subscriptions it will be reporting a loss of around 1 million subscribers for Q3.

As I said, all I'm seeing are poor reviews of Netflix in Brazil. Here's one (poorly translated through Google) that pretty much expresses the complaints I've been hearing (click here for the original Portuguese). The selection is limited and most content is dubbed, rather than subtitled. It isn't worth it to Brazilian subscribers. Not yet, anyway. Considering the relatively limited access to residential broadband in many parts of Brazil, though, it does seem a bit early to me for people to be declaring Netflix's failure there. As the infrastructure improves and licenses are signed for more content the service will likely improve. If it can survive long enough to reach that point, of course.

Here in the United States folks (like me) are already beginning to wonder if even the streaming-only option is worthwhile. I haven't seen any quality new content added for a while now, and with news that Starz won't be renewing agreements with Netflix beginning early next year, the prospects are bleak. I will be dropping our household entirely off the streaming + DVD plan before our next billing cycle, and if the content doesn't improve dramatically in the next couple of months I won't see any reason to keep even streaming going. Apparently, I'm not alone in this evaluation.

See Also:

Distribuição de filmes e séries online ainda é patética (tecnoblog)

Netflix To Lose U.S. Subscribers in Q3, First Loss In Over 4 Years (Business Insider)

Netflix to lose Starz, its most valuable source of new movies (Los Angeles Times)