When it comes to the best streaming services to subscribe to, Netflix remains one of the leaders of the pack. After Taylor Swift made a big impact on voter registrations, Netflix apparently took a hit over the summer when co-founder and executive chairman Reed Hastings publicly threw his support in for Vice President Kamala Harris to win over former President Donald Trump during this fall’s United States election.
Reed Hastings Made A Presidential Endorsement Over The Summer
Back in July when President Joe Biden decided to drop out of his bid for reelection, his V.P. Kamala Harris stepped in as Donald Trump’s opponent for the 2024 election from the Democratic Party. Following the news, Hastings took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to say the following:
Congrats to Kamala Harris -- now it is time to winJuly 23, 2024
Hastings also reportedly donated $7 million to a super PAC supporting Harris’ run for president. The post, which has earned over a million views from the social media outlet, led to a ton of political comments toward Hastings. But above all else, a ton of people announced that they would be ending their Netflix subscription. One wrote “I’m breaking up with you” while a ton more announced they’d cancelled their monthly membership. New data shows a lot of people did in fact part with the streaming service.
According To Data, Three Times More Netflix Subscribers Axed The Service The Same Week
Reed Hastings tweet was published on July 22, and per new data (via IndieWire), Netflix saw a 2.7x uptick in subscribers cutting the service from July 25 to 29. This was in comparison to date from the two prior weeks. Plus, it was reported that July 26 was the overall most popular day of 2024 for Netflix subscribers to break up with the service.
However, following the number of cancellations trending upward during the week of Reed Hastings’ Kamala Harris endorsement, the amount of people saying goodbye to the service leveled out to normal and remained so since. So while the Netflix co-founder stating his political leaning did put a dent into business, we don't know how big of a hit it was. It seems to be rather minor overall, but seemingly in correlation to Hastings' comments and donations.
Taylor Swift’s Kamala Harris Endorsement Had A Massive Impact On Voter Registration
The data gathered by Antenna showcases how public figures getting political can impact business, but it’s hard to forget the reach Taylor Swift had last month when she endorsed the same candidate after Kamala Harris’ first debate with Trump. Here’s what she posted on Instagram:
After Taylor Swift threw her support in for Harris, the singer reportedly drove nearly a half a million people to Vote.gov to register to vote. 283 million people follow the singer, surely mostly to keep track of the upcoming Taylor Swift projects. Swift’s political endorsement got a huge reaction!
Despite the new Netflix data, it’s going to take a lot more than that for the streaming service to stop going strong considering there were around 277 million global paid subscribers as of June 30, 2024. You can decide whether the service is for you by checking out 2024 Netflix movie and TV release dates here on CinemaBlend.
