this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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Isn't that price gouging? Isn't price gouging illegal?
No, price gouging has a specific meaning relating to spikes in demand often in conjunction with a disaster, like doubling gas prices during a hurricane.
But raising prices for a non-essential good will probably never be gouging.
also, peak pricing is generally legal, price gouging isn't illegal everywhere, and the definition is sometimes vague due to, you know, how vague the concept is—the definition usually includes some version of "excessive" or "extreme" pricing.
So like, if you have trouble getting food into your grocery store after a disaster, and you have to charge a little more, you're probably safe—the idea behind price gouging ins more what happens when all the grocery store owners quadrupled their prices as they twist their moustaches and laugh, saying, "what are you going to do, not eat?"
It's not really price gouging. There's no particular supply/demand crisis to take advantage of. There's plenty of supply of streaming. Even free stuff enough for a lifetime, so it's completely voluntary to throw this or that amount at some greedy company testing the price limits.
The supply has been cut by the strikes. Viewers want new content, not old content.
I honestly haven't seen anybody complain that there's nothing to watch, have you? Would you really say that people are in shock over the total lack of television available?
I mean, in the past week or so, I've seen new episodes of Only Murders in the Building, Futurama, Bob's Burgers, The Simpsons, Sex Education, Adventure Time, Archer, Tacoma FD, Star Trek Lower Decks, and Tacoma FD. That's just the shows I'm tracking, I'm sure I missed something good. On Thursday, we're getting new seasons of Loki and Our Flag Means Death. and HBO cancelled Winning Time mid-season because they really weren't that desperate for a few extra episodes.
Are subscriptions down? My friends don't seem too upset about the "shocking lack of content" that seems to exist in your head.
Now? No. Because they still have things they can release. When those run out, and they will relatively soon, they will be in trouble.
They've been pacing themselves. They planned for the strike well before it started. It's not going to dry up suddenly the day the actors get back to work.
yeah "price gouging" is not the same thing as "increasing prices a lot" or "increasing prices at a time that makes people think, ooh wee, that's not a very nice thing to do."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging
Price increased. Supply shock due to strikes. Sounds like price gouging to me.
You can’t really price gouge goods with elastic demand though, where demand rises and falls with the price. Luxury goods like streaming services even doubly so because they are in no way, shape, or form necessary things. If people pay the price for a luxury good that they don’t need, then by definition it’s a fair price.
Netflix isnt a necessity. Don’t like the price, don’t buy the service. It really is that simple.
Also, price gouging is only illegal in the US for necessities in declared civil emergencies.
"Supply Shock" is not "oh no, now we have to pay writers a little more" or "we'll have a couple fewer new shows in the next year," it's usually "the city's water supply has been tainted and trucks aren't able to get bottled water in as fast as before, now we can charge eight times as much for bottled water!" or "well, there was a hurricane that took out half the tomatoes in Italy, and for the next few weeks, the people who do have tomatoes have NYC Pizza shops by the balls."
And the price increase usually isn't a few dollars, but like, the prices doubling or tripling or more.
Keyword here being:
Netflix is priced pretty evenly with every other streaming service and have been raising their prices steadily for the past few years. maybe if this was a one-time spike of like 200%, I'd agree with you (probably wouldn't because I don't believe luxury goods can be subject to price gouging), but this is just par for the course by now.
They will have higher overhead from the writers demands, that cost is usually passed onto consumers
Bullshit. What they have to pay to the writers is minuscule compared to their profits. They're giving up less than 1% of their revenue.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/wga-strike-union-estimates-how-much-deal-would-cost-1235493055/
I’m just telling you how it works, man.
Gotta show quarter over quarter growth. You don’t have to like it, but don’t take it out on me
They will still have that growth. Just a fraction of a percent less. And they are using that to justify raising their prices.
Imagine you're the CEO of a publicly traded corporation that is legally required to maximize profits for shareholders. Do you
A) choose an option that will earn less gross profit or
B) choose the option that will earn more?
If you chose "A" because you're a good person and not a greedy capitalist, congratulations. You've just been fired as CEO and the major shareholders just picked a replacement who will choose the second option.
Revenue growth down from 3% to 2% is significant, especially considering that's an even bigger hit to growth in profits. They want to make their investors happy, they have a perfectly reasonable PR cover to raise their prices by a few dollars a month, so they'll do it. What part of this is confusing?
Again, less than 1%. Read the article.
Here, I'll even paste the relevant part:
Are you really going to claim that 0.214% less revenue justifies a price hike?
one of their large investors saying "hey, hike prices" justifies a price hike. A profit reduction equal to .214% of revenue (and other concessions that could hurt the company in other ways) is far more than the amount of justification they need.
I guess your definition of 'justified' is much more capitalistic than mine.
Are you new to the idea of corporations?
Does "corporation does something that isn't illegal" equal "justifiable?"
does "corporation does something @flyingsquid would prefer it didn't do" equal "unjustifiable?"
Am I the only one who would prefer Netflix not raise its prices? Because I'm pretty sure I'm not.
no, but you're the only one who thinks that it's a crime against humanity
When did I say it was a crime against humanity or even imply such a thing?
Please quote me.
Unless that's a lie, of course.
Was it a lie?
well, right up front:
you thought it was a crime for them to increase their prices, and supposedly not a crime against one particular person.
But I was making fun of your dramatic attack on the company as engaging in an "unjustifiable" price increase. You've been incredibly dramatic about nothing, and it's funny.
Making fun of people isn't really lying in common parlance. But I don't suppose you talk or think like anybody else, huh?
This is what you said:
I'd call that a lie. Looks like a lie to me. That you can't support it shows that it's a lie.
You can't even own your own lie. You have to pull the Donald Trump "it was just a joke" card. Kind of pathetic really.
okay, you don't know what a joke is, fine.
no, rhetorical hyperbole is not exclusively used as an after-the-fact justification to explain lies. Anybody unfortunate enough to be reading this deep into the converati
You still went from "it's totally uunjustifiable" and "it's price gouging, that's illegal!" to "Am I the only one who would prefer Netflix not raise its prices? Because I’m pretty sure I’m not." Nobody said we preferred for Netflix to raise its prices. Nobody said or implied that you were alone in that preference. You "lied" -- which is to say, you framed the debate in an incredibly dramatic and silly way to try to make your point, which I addressed in the previous comment, which is that your definition of "unjustifiable" is rooted in your personal preference, and not in any actual concept of justifiability.
You're sad that you might need to spend $2-4 more every month to keep the pretty pictures and sounds coming into your face. I get that, we all are, that's why I posted it. You're being dramatic and weird about it.
I also never said "it's totally unjustifiable." I did not use the word "totally." That is lie number two. I also asked if price gouging is illegal, I did not declare it. I will be generous and group those both into lie #2.
you're calling me a liar because I'm not literally quoting you, but you've been using straw men through the entire thread. Do you know why neurotypical people don't do that?
Yep. I'm calling you a liar because you put things you claimed I said in quotation marks when I never said them.
And are you using autism as an insult really?
No, I'm just trying to help you understand the thing you clearly have trouble understanding.
Jokes are not lies, especially when nobody intends for anybody anywhere to be deceived and nobody is deceived. Your failure to understand that social concept doesn't make you a bad person, but it's a social concept you might want to try to understand instead of just calling people liars.
And you are not entitled to pay the price you want to pay for Netflix. They need no justification to increase their prices.
Yes, I have already heard your Trumpian defense. And yet your "jokes" totally misrepresent me and what I said. Which, I don't know, sound like lies to me.
For example:
I never said I was. And yet you suggest I did. In this case it isn't a lie, but it is dishonest. Let me guess, just a joke, right?
You've been acting very very very strongly as though you are entitled to pay the price you want to pay. You are acting like any price increase ever is "price gouging," and you stuck to that opinion even stronger after multiple people explained to you all the ways in which it was not price gouging. You are acting like Netflix needs to "justify" price increases by asking everybody about their justification and insulting them when they suggest they don't need to justify price increase it. It would be absurd to think that you did all of this without feeling a sense of entitlement to the prices you preferred.
It is extremely dishonest for you to pretend you don't understand what you've said throughout this thread. You actively made yourself sound like an entitled, spoiled child, and now that you're being called out on it, you're saying not that I've misunderstood your point (if you have one, I still don't understand it), not that I accused you of something that you don't feel is true—because I didn't tell you you felt entitled, I told you you weren't entitled—but no, you accused me of lying.
Because you are not capable of processing the meaning of any other person's words. You're only capable of processing your own internal truth, and whether other peoples' words reflect your own truth accurately, and if they don't, that is your definition of a lie.
That's not how neurotypical, mature adults interact with one another. At some point, we learn to socialize by trying to understand what the other person is saying, in good faith, instead of assuming the least coherent version of it, and using that assumption to further assume bad faith.
Until you learn to do that, fuck off, nobody wants to hear from you.
All of that is a lie. I didn't bother reading further. I'm tired of your lies.
Edit: Actually, the word 'neurotypical' caught my eye. This is the second time you've used autism as an insult. I'm flagging both instances.
You wanna run it by anybody else in this thread, see if anybody else disagrees with my characterization of your comments?
Do you want to clarify which point of my characterization of your comments you disagree with? Do you want to describe a price increase that you don't think is price gouging? Do you want to admit that Netflix doesn't need to justify its price increases?
You're taking it all personally, but that's what your comments say to the people reading them. if you meant something else, you should have found a different way to express it.
I am not insulting you. I'm trying to help you. Don't commit yourself to misunderstanding the social cues you don't know how to process.
I asked if it was price gouging. I asked if it was illegal. They were questions.
And the idea that you can "help" an autistic person is disgusting and insulting to them. I am not autistic, but I have very close people I love who are ASD and you are acting like there's something seriously wrong with them. There isn't. And I hope the mods take care of you and your disgusting ableism. This is my last response.
They read like rhetorical questions at first, but if you read my comment again, you'll see where I pointed out how, after we explained why it wasn't price gouging, you insisted that it was.
The idea that they are beyond help sounds much more insulting to me, but what do I know?
By the way, the opposite of "neurotypical" is not "autistic," but it's convenient that you zeroed in on one particular form of neurodivergence due to your own ignorance.
No, I don't know them. There is something seriously wrong with you, though. Not because you don't understand basic social cues, but because you revel in your refusal to understand social cues, and refuse to consider alternate perspectives. There's nothing wrong with missing social cues, the problem is stubbornly insisting that anybody who says anything you don't quite understand is a liar, even after you figure out what they're saying.
Good riddance.
Dude, you should probably go to sleep or take a walk around or something if you're this heated over absolutely nothing.
I'm not heated.