Millions of people across the globe enjoy watching Netflix shows and movies. In fact, approximately 220.60 million people pay for a Netflix account. However, Netflix movies and shows simply do not grab viewers’ attention anymore. It seems as if Netflix no longer cares about the content that they release on their platform, but more about their revenue. 

In 2013, Netflix released its first Original series, “House of Cards”. Within the first few days of airing, 670,000+ people binge-watched the series. That number of people made up a whole 2% of Netflix viewers at the time. As of September, Netflix contains over one thousand original shows and movies. Over the course of a decade, Netflix essentially evolved into its own film platform releasing over one hundred Netflix Originals per quarter. 

However, Netflix struggles to keep the plethora of subscribers and popularity that it boasted about in its earlier years. In Netflix’s first quarter of 2022, the platform lost 200,000 subscribers and lost 50 billion dollars in value. Although Netflix still holds its spot as one of the top movie and tv show streaming services, its future in the streaming world looks quite gloomy. The increase in Netflix’s cheesy rom-coms and uncanny sci-fi movies can take the blame for this dilemma.

“Honestly I don’t even watch Netflix that much anymore because I find it so difficult to find good movies and shows. I recently watched a good movie there but besides that, I don’t watch Netflix as much as I used to,” magnet senior Jerrica Arnett said. 

As of last month, the shows that graced Netflix’s list of Top 10 shows included “Echoes”, “Partner Track”, “Selling the OC”, “The Sandman”, “High Heat”, “Mo”, “Stranger Things”, “Never Have I Ever”, “Virgin River” and “Glow Up”. The list of Top 10 movies included “Me Time”, “Look Both Ways”, “Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist”, “Day Shift”, “Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee”, “Sing 2”, “Uncharted”, “The Next 365 Days”, “Untold” and “The Rise and Fall of AND1”. Almost all of these movies and shows spent less than 8 weeks on the top 10 list with the exception of only two. This implies that the majority of these films rarely hold their title in the top 10 list without another film quickly replacing it. It seems that Netflix only releases its own shows and movies to quickly and easily gain high ratings.

The content quality also adds to the list of reasons for Netflix’s subpar shows and movies. Across all 3,104 Netflix Original films, the average rating stood at a 5.9 out of 10 in 2021. This substandard average reflects the lack of time and energy put into Netflix Original films. Even if a show does rank higher than the average, viewers worry whether Netflix will remove the show from its platform. Based on the film’s popularity and license agreements, Netflix might remove a show only a month after its debut on the platform. This results in losing subscribers and viewers who anticipated watching the show on Netflix.  

“My favorite show on Netflix was definitely The Vampire Diaries. Sadly it left in early September. Even though I’ve watched it like a thousand times I still wish I could watch it there,” magnet senior Rylan Klein said. 

Nonetheless, Netflix still contains a myriad of shows and films that everyone loves and enjoys. High-rated movies such as “Clueless”, “Mean Girls” and “To All the Boys I Loved Before” make up the thousands of movies that viewers still watch months after their release. However, if Netflix does not break its habit of releasing low-rated films, viewers might decide to try a newer, better streaming platform.