In the Internet-consuming age, it seems as though Netflix has become as synonymous with normal living as eating dinner or taking a shower. Phrases like “Netflix and chill”–despite its meaning–and “binge-watching”–which almost always has to do with the catalog of shows Netflix has, or puts out, like Orange is the New Black–show just how deep the streaming company has sneaked its roots into the modern norm.
That’s why it should come as a surprise that Netflix isn’t feeling so well. The streaming service has only grown its American subscriber base by 160,000 this year, which is significantly less than the 900,000 it added this time last year, Buzzfeed reports. As a result of that shrunken number, the amount of US customers signing up with Netflix has ground to a practical halt.
What this means is that Netflix has fallen extremely short of its projected new subscriber count, which they expected to be 700,000. Now, having only attained little more than a seventh of what they were expecting, the money’s turning sour too. Within an hour of the company announcing that fewer people are paying to binge series like House of Cards and Gilmore Girls, Netflix’s hold on Wall Street–aka, its stocks–plunged in worth by 15% as presumably traders quickly moved to purge what seemed like less valuable commodities.
That doesn’t mean that Netflix is suffering immediate financial turmoil. The streaming service continued to make more and more money this quarter, rolling out a $41 million profit to add onto their $26 million profit from last quarter in the second half of 2015.
The drying-up well of new Netflix junkies might have something to do with money, unfortunately enough for those benefiting off the company’s profits. Recently, the company upped the cost of its services from $7.99 to $9.99. The rise of cost is likely what is turning new customers away (after all, a cent away from double digits is a little less appealing than staying comfortably below $10 a month). And the spiked price is causing a bit of an exodus in the existing subscriber base too; while Netflix is not actually going to raise anyone’s bill if they already have Netflix for the next two years, the promise of more money to be paid has caused flocks of existing subscribers to pick up and leave.
The low numbers aren’t just a US problem for Netflix either. While the service expected to receive far more international subscribers this quarter, Netflix only acquired a little over 1.5 million new customers from across the globe–a number investors are cringing at. After all, Netflix just made its services available in every country but China (due to the nation’s strict Internet policies). Therefore, there should have been a flood of all of these new people who have been waiting hungrily to be able to join the Netflix world. Instead, there was relatively a drizzle.
As of today, Netflix still has 83 million subscribers, and counting. The question is now, for how long?