You will probably remember, just a few days ago we told you that Netflix had lowered, by surprise, the prices of its plans in several Latin American countries, more specifically in Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. A movement that we find very interesting, since Latin America was also the geography chosen by Netflix to carry out its first tests to make an extra pay per user profile for accounts for non-cohabitants.
Since the beginning of last year, when the company presented quite worrying economic results, its managers have made every effort to try to improve the monetization of the service. But, in my opinion, some of the steps taken ignored the conditions of its market, in which competition is increasing every day, and that both the increase in rates and the hacking of shared accounts could end up turning against them. The drop in prices in Latin America seemed, finally, an acknowledgment of receipt in this regard by the company.
The surprising thing is that, unlike the pace of decision-making to which the company has accustomed us, something that we already explained in detail when talking about the story of the double thumb, it seems that on this occasion they have chosen to act much more quickly, something that can be a sign that the current combination of prices and limitations of the platform may be leading many of its users to choose other services.
I am talking about speed in decision-making because if last Sunday we talked about the drop in prices in Latin America, today The Wall Street Journal tells us that Netflix is lowering its rates in more than 30 countries. Among them are those already mentioned from South America, but also from many other geographies such as Eastern Europe, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and more. More specifically, the countries of the old continent that have lower rates for the first time are Croatia, Slovenia and Bulgaria.
The big doubt is Is this a response to dropped subscriptions or a preventative action to prevent this from happening? but, in any case, we must understand it as an acknowledgment by Netflix, in which it acknowledges that its rates are currently off the market in many geographies, something that would still have a pass if it acted more laxly in relation to the shared accounts. However, with its current model in Spain (it is the most expensive service and, at the same time, the one that imposes the most limitations on its users), it is only a matter of time before said model fails.
In any case, there is something that I do not quite understand, and that is that Netflix has chosen some countries for price drops and others for the end of shared accounts. I suppose that they will want to assess the number of people who decide to pay the extra on behalf of non-cohabitants, but they should take into account that in this way many users may decide to make the leap to other services and, perhaps, when the price drops arrive at our country, it is too late.
