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Netflix raises prices as password boost fades (www.bbc.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Netflix is starting to raise prices in some countries as growth spurred by its crackdown on password sharing starts to fade.

The film and TV streaming giant said it had already lifted subscription fees in Japan and parts of Europe as well as the Middle East and Africa over the last month.

Changes in Italy and Spain are now being rolled-out.

In its latest results, Netflix announced that it had added 5.1 million subscribers between July and September - ahead of forecasts but the smallest gain in more than a year.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Specifically, the Board and thus the CEO must maximize company VALUE not profit.

There are other ways to increase company value that do not necessarily result in Q/Q / Y/Y profit increases.

But in the 1970s you get a guy named Milton Friedman who comes along with the concept of shareholder value in a 1970 essay for The New York Times, entitled "A Friedman Doctrine: The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits".[5] In it, he argued that a company has no social responsibility to the public or society; its only responsibility is to its shareholders.

So there's been a lot of argument against it since esp as of late, but the economic hegemony still adheres to Friedman's economic principles.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

There are other ways to increase company value that do not necessarily result in Q/Q / Y/Y profit increases.

Can you name some examples? I'm not very familiar with economics.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

A bigger market share (or just market size if it's something new-fangled) at the expense of current profit, because that can turn into future profits. See most modern tech companies, which make a loss but still have value. For example, Uber just made a profit for the first time, and since they're everywhere that's a great position for a shareholder. People bought in in the past in hopes that this would eventually happen.

OP is a little off, BTW. US law - and it's probably the same elsewhere - says that the C-suite has to work in the interests of shareholders, who they represent as fiduciaries. It's just that there's only a few things a million APPL shareholders have in common, so in practice that interest is value and dividends. In a privately-owned company other things might factor in, for better or for worse.

IANAL