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Is Netflix still worth subscribing to?
June 19, 2025
It’s almost hard to remember now, but in 2013, whenNetflixput out its first original series — House of Cards — some people thought the company was crazy. The first season alone cost tens of millions of dollars, and suddenly thrust Netflix into competition with cable channels like HBO and Showtime. The bet paid off, however, and today Netflix is debuting an original show or movie nearly every week.
In the pro-Netflix corner
Just on the basis of Netflix Originals, there’s a lot to watch exclusively on Netflix. While House of Cards may have fallen out of favor due to Kevin Spacey’s involvement, there are still solid shows. You can choose from Stranger Things, Black Mirror, Castlevania, The Punisher, and The Witcher, to name a few. Quality can vary drastically, but there’s often something worthwhile in any given genre, except perhaps current affairs programming like Vice or PBS Frontline on other services.
The company’s movies have had mixed success critically, but there are still solid and occasionally award-winning fiction titles like Okja, Roma, Beasts of No Nation, and The Trial of the Chicago 7. Arguably, some of the best films on the service are documentaries. These include Ava DuVernay’s 13th or Werner Herzog’s Into the Inferno — which, once again, you may’t watch anywhere else.
Related:The best documentaries on Netflix
Netflix is easily worth subscribing to if you’re into sketch or stand-up comedy. Doing a Netflix special is practically a cliche in the comedy world. It puts people in good company with headliners like Patton Oswalt and Amy Schumer.
Third-party content varies from country to country — in the US, people can watch shows like Breaking Bad, Community, and Star Trek: The Next Generation, even if other favorites like The Office are now maddeningly out of reach. Movies cycle out even more frequently, yet there’s usually something worth watching on any given weekend. Some choice cuts in August 2021 include Terminator 2, Django Unchained, Inception, and Team America: World Police.
What’s holding the service back
One major issue is that Netflix is quick to cancel Originals that don’t achieve Stranger Things levels of success. An infamous example isThe OA, which, despite a cult following, had its second and ultimately final season end on a cliffhanger. Tuca & Bertie — the animated show starring Tiffany Haddish and Ali Wong — was canceled after just one season, yet was popular enough to find a new home on Adult Swim. Netflix is not a service you’re able to count on to complete story arcs, or sometimes even keep a good show alive.
A bigger concern, however, is that the rise of new services has robbed Netflix of popular third-party content, with (sometimes) more consistently appealing selections offered elsewhere. If you want to watch Friends on-demand for some reason, you may have to pay forHBO Max. The Office is walled up behindPeacock. Most if not all Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars titles have been moved toDisney Plus.
People with niche genre tastes may likewise have better options.Shudderis the best service for horror fans, and arthouse lovers are going to pick something like The Criterion Channel or Mubi. Aside from comedy, Netflix doesn’t specialize in much except being Netflix.
What can Netflix do to keep people onboard?
Movies should be greenlit with an eye towards repeat viewing, rather than just getting people in the door for a month with marquee names. Yes, Extraction is a decent film with Chris Hemsworth. But it’s not something people are going to regret losing if they cancel. A Tolkien fan will think twice about dropping HBO Max, since they’ll lose the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies — if they haven’t already bought them of course, but that’s an expensive proposition.
New business deals might help, too. Netflix is already included with some T-Mobile plans, and offering similar bundles elsewhere would hook as many viewers as possible. The company should also be spending big to license popular movies, although it may not have much more to choose from given that studios are hoarding exclusives for their own platforms.
Is Netflix still worth subscribing to? For people with a limited budget, the answer to the question is probably no. The explosion of services in the past two years has fractured content to the point where you need multiple subscriptions to get a good swath. And there’s simply more bang for your buck elsewhere, at least in terms of instantly attractive content. Low-intensity streamers may even be content withAmazon Prime Video, which is weaker in some ways, but still has things worth watching at a lower price. It’ll be the only place to see the upcoming Lord of the Rings TV show too, speaking of Tolkien.
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