Up until now Netflix has been the darling of the DVD and streaming video world. In the past 5 years they have only had one price increase.
Starting September 1st of this year the company will initiate their second increase for their already subscribed customers, and it will be a whopper of a price hike. Their price increase has already gone into effect for any new customers wanting to subscribe. If they have gone overboard in their efforts to begin charging for their online streaming service, how many customers will they lose?
Netflix began the streaming part of their business back in 2007. People love it. When it first became available there were no extra charges involved. If you've paid any attention to the news lately, you know that they are receiving a lot of pressure from movie studios. The studios are anxious to get their piece of the pie. They are forcing online streaming services to seek higher pricing. If you read Mashable, you may have seen one of their articles that makes the point of how the price of content is skyrocketing. So who is being the greediest?
The Mashable reader comments themselves are also interesting to browse through. Many people are willing to drop their long time movie provider. But the alternatives are still not really cheaper. Who would benefit from a mass exodus from Netflix? Hulu is probably the closest competitor for online streaming. Yet they don't offer DVD rental. They charge $7.99 for their service, so there's no winning if you go that direction. Other companies like Amazon and Google charge per movie for streaming.
Mashable also did what they termed as a " non-scientific poll." In their poll supposedly 37% of the respondents said they would cancel their service. How many people they polled was not disclosed. They did mention, to their credit, that it was a "non-scientific" poll. Only time will tell how disgruntled customers really are about this price increase.
It makes you wonder if Netflix is planning on doing away with its DVD service. After all, when you go to their internet site, the only thing it shows is that they are offering a free one month trial of their streaming service for $7.99. There isn't even a mention of their DVD rentals on their main landing page. If you dig a little deeper you will find that during the sign up process you will be given a choice to also sign up for DVD delivery.
If you now subscribe to two unlimited DVDs, you pay $16.04 including tax per month. Until September 1st you still get streaming at no additional charge. After September 1 Netflix will charge you $19.98. With tax that will bring your total bill to $21.40. That's around a 34% increase or $5.36 more a month.
You have four choices; 1) you can cancel your subscription, 2) you can cut your DVDs to just one, 3) you can accept the increase, and 4) you can drop one of the services, and pay just $7.99 for whichever service you decide to keep. With the second choice your fee will only increase by .99, and with the fourth choice you reduce your subscription fee. You're still getting a good value for your money when you compare it to cable and satellite fees.
There will be plenty of people who will opt for choice #1. People are angry and who can blame them. Should you be angry at Netflix? Maybe, but no matter how you look at it prices are going up. Each person will have to decide whether they want to cancel their subscription, but Netflix still seems to be a good deal.
Photo provided by Author
recommend
Facebook
Twitter
bookmark 
print
Comments: 23
I could just do Pay-per-view with my cable provider at $3.99/movie and be limited to their new releases only. But I don't think so. $15.00 for Netflix's service is still fair!
Netflix has been an innovator, that offers a great product reasonably cheap. They deserve some loyalty.
ps- Also, as someone who is more interested in foreign or classic movies, and not just new releases; blockbuster or redbox isn't much of an option. Try finding a Bela Tarr film in either.
I could make up some of the difference by buying one less microwave popcorn package and pop the old fashioned way.
And we just went to the real movie theatre with 4 of us. After popcorn and matinee tickets, it was over $60 - 4 months of Netflix service! There still is nothing like that movie theatre experience, but we limit it to about twice a year.
Texting, talking, kicking the chairs and all in all being disturbing. Then they are also rude in the parking lot and drive badly. We do still have two theaters that are OK, but the ones where everyone goes are irritating.
Is it worth the increase? It depends on how many movies you watch. We don't watch enough movies to make it worth our while. We changed our one-at-a-time plan to streaming only. If we want to see a new movie, we will just rent it. We were only watching about 4 movies per month, just not worth the increase.
I am subscribed to the online version, and the price is right. I don't think they changed it did they?
I have no interest in the DVD product, but there are some DVDs that are not online yet, and that bugs me.
I found what I like which is tons of documentaries ...
but looking at the movie offerings it is amazing how many bad movies there are out there.
Robert, I've read a lot of the comments you've written and for once, I can say we are in agreement sir.
And, like MaryBeth W., I don't understand the outrage this rate hike is causing. I was taken a little aback when I saw the increase, but if they keep expanding, Netflix is worth a few extra dollars so I can watch freaky Asian horror movies, documentaries on just about any subject and other stuff you can't find (almost) anywhere else.
After all the people crying because they want something for nothing. They will come quietly back. Netflix is still the best deal out there.
I can't really afford a 60% increase right now at least. I really should just quit it altogether, but I think we'll probably be one of the ones quitting our 1 DVD at a time service and just stick with the streaming - since we purchased a Roku, we've probably been using the service 4x as much as with just DVDs. Netflix will get $2 less from me and if I have to get a DVD, we'll set aside and buy it.
What's sad is that I like anime and foreign films - and quite often, the streaming version is only available in dubbed. I like to see it in the original language first. Oh well, Crunchyroll.com has a free streaming channel on the Roku as well, guess I'll be depending more on that (there's also a paid version with more available).
By the way, something for nothing people? Netflix is not free; I don't consider the $10 a month (or $120/year) I was paying nothing. Yes, it may have been forced on them by the studios, but I don't know of anything where if you raised the price by more than half, very suddenly, people wouldn't make a stink. And as this article says, one alternative is to just quit all of them and quit worshipping the damn glowing rectangle. I probably won't, but there it is.