Netflix Review 2023: Netflix is appealing, but it’s not a good cause. It has a library with thousands of books and a trophy room with Oscars, Emmys, Grammys, and Golden Globes. I have a lot of other monthly bills to pay, but Netflix gives me unlimited access to movies and TV shows, so is it worth it?
That depends on your budget, how you like to stream, and whether you already have a Netflix subscription. You can only decide if Netflix’s wide range of shows is worth paying for. Before making a decision, here are some things to think about. Free cookies on Netflix in 2023.
Netflix is the best streaming service.
As of September 30, 223 million people were signed up for Netflix. This makes it by far the most popular streaming service. The No. 2 service, Amazon Prime Video, has only 200 million paying subscribers. This is tens of millions of subscribers less than the No. 1 service. In July, third-placed Disney+ said it had 152 million subscribers. Nielson data show that more than 20% of all streaming in the United States comes from Netflix.
Netflix meets the standard of the business world.
- Netflix meets a lot of the requirements for a streaming service. With Netflix
- You can change your plan anytime, and you can downgrade and upgrade.
- You can download movies and TV shows when you’re not online.
- No contracts or agreements exist, so you can leave whenever you want.
- Netflix content can be streamed on almost any device with the Netflix app or a web browser that works with Netflix.
- Depending on your chosen plan, you can watch as much as you want on up to four compatible devices simultaneously.
It’s a light streaming service only.
CNBC says that Netflix’s selection is carefully chosen and has a huge range. There are prestige dramas like “The Crown” and game shows like “Floor Is Lava.” There are also documentaries about junk food like “Tiger King” that is very popular.
On the other hand, Netflix is not for people who want to get rid of their cable and live TV. There are no live broadcasts, including news, sports, the Christmas tree being lit, the Thanksgiving Day parade, the Super Bowl, the Academy Awards, or channel-surfing.
Price Increases: Is Netflix Still Worth It?
Before the start of the new year, Netflix raised its prices by $2 for its standard and premium plans and by $1 for its cheapest plan. It does happen sometimes. Due to inflation, everyone had to raise their prices around the same time that Disney+ and Hulu did. On the other hand, CNBC says that Netflix has been able to keep its low subscription prices over time by steadily bringing in new users.
There are four levels of subscription:
- Basic with ads: $6.99 monthly, one standard high-definition stream coming in November 2022. (720p)
- Basic: One stream, standard high definition (720p), $9.99 per month as of November 2022
- Standard: $15.49 a month, two streams at the same time, full HD (1080p)
- Premium: $19.99 a month, four streams at the same time, ultra-high definition/4K (2160p)
Remember that the definition is limited by what your device can do. For example, if you want to stream in 4K, your device must be able to show a 2160p resolution. Costs for subscriptions are also based on each home. As GOBankingRates has already said, Netflix will start charging extra fees in 2023 for people who share their passwords with people outside their homes.
As prices went up, the catalog got smaller.
Even though the price of a Netflix subscription went up, subscribers now have fewer titles to choose from than they did in the past. Still, that’s sometimes a good thing.
Protocol, a tech and media magazine connected to Politico, says that Netflix’s selection is getting smaller on purpose. When Netflix first began, it had to use bulk catalogs to license hundreds of titles simultaneously. Now that Netflix is a much more developed service, they have cleaned up the mess, switched to a “quality over quantity” mindset, and let many bulk licenses no longer needed expire.
The number of movies on Prime is bigger, but the size is only part of it.
Regarding movies, Amazon Prime is far and away the best streaming service. JustWatch says that Prime Video has more than 26,000 titles, more than all of its major competitors, like Netflix. But it’s not fair to compare the two. Only Prime Video supports self-publishing, which makes it possible for independent studios and almost everyone else to do business. There are a lot of bad tutorials and other things on Prime Video that aren’t really “movies” and would never, ever be on Disney+, Hulu, or HBO Max. Free cookies on Netflix in 2023
After Prime, Netflix is the best of the rest. It has 3,600 movies, which is way more than what Apple TV+ has. It has more than twice as many movies as its closest competitor, HBO Max, which has just over 2,000 movies.
Netflix’s list of TV shows is just as good as its list of movies.
Regarding TV shows, Prime is also the best, but only by a little. Prime Video has over 2,700 TV shows, while Netflix only has about 1,800. Hulu has more than 1,300; then it goes down to just 580 for HBO Max before going further.
In the end, Prime Video is not a fair comparison because people can publish content from their basements and call it a movie, while Netflix has many more movies and TV shows than all of its competitors.
It has, by a long shot, unique shows.
Comparitech says that Netflix has made and put out more than 1,500 of its TV shows and movies. Given that the No. 2 service, Amazon Prime, only makes a small portion of that and that no other streaming service even comes close, that is a huge number.
Netflix has spent more on original content because shows like “Stranger Things” and “The Crown” cost $30 million and $13 million per episode, respectively. Netflix Originals make up half of everything on Netflix in the U.S.
Statista says that Netflix will spend $18 billion on content in 2022, which is $1 billion more than in 2021.
Lots of awards are given for that content.
In 2013, a Primetime Emmy went to a web-based TV show that could only be watched online. This was a brand-new thing that would have been thought to be impossible before. The show was “House of Cards,” The streaming service in question was Netflix. Its director beat the directors of “Boardwalk Empire” on HBO, “Homeland” on Showtime, “Breaking Bad,” and “Downton Abbey” on PBS.
It was a big change.
In that year, Netflix was nominated for 13 Primetime Emmys. In 2016, three years after 2015, Netflix got 160 nominations.
It was more than just “House of Cards” or the Emmys. In the following years, Netflix made movies and TV shows that were sometimes nominated for Golden Globes, Grammys, and Oscars and sometimes won them. Here are some of them:
- “Bridgerton”
- “Irishman”
- “Story of a Marriage”
- “Mudbound”
- “The Orange Is the New Black”
- “Popes Alike”
- “Making a Murderer”
- “Stranger Things”
- “The Gambit of the Queen”
- “Ozark”
- “Great British Baking Show”
It can take a lot of work to get around.
Much of Netflix’s content is only available in certain parts of the world, so if you travel outside the United States, your library and streaming options may change. Worse still, you may find some or all of your content hidden. If you think using a VPN to make Netflix think you are still at home will solve the problem, think again. Netflix doesn’t like it, and its technology is good at finding most VPN services.
You Can Still Rent DVDs If You’d Like
When Netflix began in 1997, it was a DVD rental service that you could sign up for and get through the mail. Even though it may seem old-fashioned to wait for an envelope with a disc to come in the mail, you must remember that Blockbuster Video was the main competitor at the time. The way that business worked was that you had to go to a store in your neighborhood and rent whatever was there.
Most people no longer use that format because of high-bandwidth streaming. Many hundreds of thousands of people still sign up for the DVDs. Netflix still offers three different levels of DVD mailer subscriptions through DVD.com:
- Simple: It costs $9.99 monthly to rent one DVD at a time.
- Standard: $14.99 per month for two DVDs out at once
- Premium: $19.99 a month to rent three DVDs at once
You can keep your rental as long as you want; if you want, you can add Blu-ray discs. There are no fees for being late or for shipping, and you never have to pay to cancel.
Netflix has secret codes for searching.
Netflix has a hidden search feature that lets users look through the site for their favorite TV shows and movies in depth. You can get too much great hidden content using numerical codes. Netflix has a lot of subgenres, but it’s only possible to find them with secret codes. Pick your favorite subgenre, put the number that goes with it in the search field, and prepare to be amazed.
Here’s how the genre/subgenre model works, but there are too many codes to list them all:
- There are 6548 comedies, 5475 romantic comedies, 869 dark comedies, and 3519 teen comedies.
- Thrills and chills: 1365, Action and adventure movies set in the military: 2125, Spy movies with Action and adventure: 10702, Movies with crime, Action, and adventure: 9584
- Documentaries: 6839, Science and nature documentaries: 2595, Historical documentaries: 5349, Social and cultural documentaries: 3675
Is Netflix worth what you pay for it?
Netflix costs a lot, but it’s worth it for the more than 200 million people who pay for it. Even though Netflix just raised its prices for 2022, the prices are still low, and the company is even starting a new budget plan for people willing to watch ads in exchange for $3 off the standard plan. Except for Amazon, Netflix has more movies and TV shows than its main competitors. But, unlike Prime, the Netflix library is curated, clean, and organized on a platform that is easy to use.
Its original content is the best in the business. It has everything from stand-up comedy to original horror series. Netflix shows often win awards that, until recently, were only given to HBO and the big Hollywood studios.
But there are some bad things about it. Netflix doesn’t offer live TV, so it’s only a bonus for people who like to flip through channels the old-fashioned way. People who don’t want cable can’t use it as a replacement because it’s only a stand-alone service.
Prime Video is one of the many services with the standard Amazon Prime membership. Hulu’s live TV streaming service has its shows and a large library of other shows. So, anyone who already pays for Prime, Hulu, or another streaming service with similar content may need help to justify an a la carte Netflix subscription when looking to save money on household costs.