>Netflix can grow by getting more users by offering attractive services and features instead of advertisements.
I wasn't suggesting that it was desirable for Netflix to show ads. I was replying specifically to the "growth for growth's sake" because it's misleading.
As for "Netflix can grow by getting more users by offering attractive services and features", that's circular reasoning. They need growth to help pay for new attractive services and features.
>Even if they stop getting new users, and just maintain their current user base,
The problem is that their none of their existing user base signed a 30-year irrevocable contract to always pay $11.99 for the next 360 months. Consumers have free will and their preferences change which is why Blockbuster couldn't count on their old customers to keep walking into their stores to rent DVDs.
In other words, the "just maintain their user base" doesn't mean anything because customers have their own agenda of how they make changes in spending discretionary entertainment dollars. E.g.:
https://www.google.com/search?q=netflix+lost+subscribers
> As for "Netflix can grow by getting more users by offering attractive services and features", that's circular reasoning. They need growth to help pay for new attractive services and features.
Growing is exactly what investors money is for, besides their monthly revenue that allows them to grow a bit every period of time X.
> The problem is that their none of their existing user base signed a 30-year irrevocable contract to always pay $11.99 for the next 360 months. Consumers have free will and their preferences change which is why Blockbuster couldn't count on their old customers to keep walking into their stores to rent DVDs.
That's a problem for when netflix loses users at a rate that will damage profit rates unacceptably, not before.
They lost market share because Disney+ has exclusive content Netflix doesn't and some users preferred to only maintain one service, there's nothing Netflix can do about it besides trying to make their product _more_ attractive, not less.
You could argue that maybe they could regain market share by making the product cheaper, but I doubt they will ever achieve a cheaper enough price where people would be willing to pay for both Netflix and Disney+/Other streaming website with more attractive content for them or switch back to netflix because it's become trash without an interesting catalogue and full of ads for being so cheap.
Even if they stop getting new users, and just maintain their current user base, what is so bad about that? Nobody is going to go broke from that.