Netflix cancellations skyrocket after founder gives $7 million to Kamala Harris’ campaign

Cancellation demands – known as churn among social telecommunications companies – nearly trippled among US customers after his endorsement, Bloomberg reported. Normally, Netflix has the lowest churn rate in this cut throat industry.

US viewers canceled Netflix at a higher rate in July — 2.8 percent — than they did in February when the company announced that it was going to phase out the basic tier and people would need to upgrade to continue to get the service without advertising. But for cancellations to plummet for five days in July was unusual, Bloomberg noted and not attributable to any apparent phenomenon except Hastings’ political preferences.

Hastings, who has been a faithful Democratic supporter and big-time party donar for many years, endorsed Harris on July 22, 2024. a longtime Democratic donor, He posted on X: “Congrats to Kamala Harris – now it is time to win.”

The following day, Hastings told The Information that he had also provided $7 million to a pro-Harris super PAC. That declaration prompted supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to go online and urge fellow Republicans and supporters of the former president to cancel their Netflix subscription. Some even posted screenshots proving they had shut down their accounts along with the hashtag #CancelNetflix. In just three days, Netflix experienced the most cancellations of 2024.

Neither the company spokespeople nor Hastings responded to Bloomberg’s request for comment. The cancellations continued for less than a week and weren’t as severe, Bloomberg noted, as they had been in 2020, when Netflix was running a French-produced film called Cuties, about children participating in drag shows, that many felt promoted pedophilia.