Netflix Deflects Rage Over Price Increase

oxide7 writes "Netflix provoked an unprecedented outpouring of backlash across the Internet as the company unveiled plans to raise prices on its movie-rental services. The company said it would raise the Internet-plus-DVDs-in-the-mail plan from $9.99 per month to $15.98 per month late Tuesday sparking protests and rage across the subscriber base. Netflix brushed off the criticism however. 'We knew there would be some people who would be upset,' company spokesman Steve Swasey said. 'To most people, it's a latte or two,' he added."

Comments

No rage, just a lost customer.

[Kenja]

Canceled as soon as they sent email with their new pricing scheme. Simply not worth that much money, especially with competition from Amazon and Google in the works.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Let them drink Latte...

My god! The stunning arrogance of the McMansion aristocracy.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[rwven]

The fact is that shipping through the mail is just really expensive compared to streaming. Netflix needed to make this decision sooner or later, and I don't blame them for doing it. They've been talking about how expensive the mailings are for a long time now.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[neurocutie]

"Simply not worth that much money, especially with competition from Amazon and Google in the works." But the writing is on the wall that the content providers are going to be driving up the prices on ALL such online streaming services. Netflix just happens to be the first and biggest. As articles have said, Netflix USED BE just a "left overs" service, at least from the view point of the content providers (studios, etc). That is, the studios thought that MOST people bought DVDs and saw movies in theaters and Netflix was just there to "mop up" the small fraction of the market that didn't pay through the other channels. But now the studios see that Netflix is rapidly become a MAJOR if not THE predominant channel for customers to view content. So as revenues drop fro DVD sales, the studio EXPECT Netflix, Apple, Amazon, Hulu, Google, etc to raise prices to make up for the shortfall elsewhere. Point is, short of piracy, don't count on finding low cost channels for content from the studios to last forever.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[Dunbal]

So expensive that they were able to build a huge company on it but now, suddenly, it's not profitable. Wake up and smell the cash grab.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[jimbolauski]

There must have been a little emotion because the change doesn't happen until September 1st.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[localman57]

At some point it probably doesn't matter that much. Netflix is likely to keep enough people to be able to keep the lights on. And the price they pay for content will likely be proportional to their number of users, as will their bandwitdh costs, so their single biggest costs will scale up or down with their user base, keeping the margin per user relatively flat. If they can increase their margin by 200% at a cost of 30% of their users, that's a win.

Personally, I think it's a smart move. Netflix has had by far the greatest success monitizing the content delivery business (excluding the wire-to-your-house providers like comcast or AT&T). Google and Hulu still have to figure out the business plan (Youtube is popular as shit, but hard to make money on). This gives netflix a chance now to try and raise margins, in order to try and gain enough capital clout to fight with their likely ultimate rivals for exclusive content, Comcast, AT&T, etc.

The need to shoot for the moon now and try to get to the point where they can square off against the 800 pound gorillas, or they'll end up like Tivo.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[OldeTimeGeek]

The cash grab is coming from the content providers. Netflix has become a major player so they want a bigger share of the pie.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[alostpacket]

Part of me wonders how much of the cash grab is coming from the content providers/movie studios though. Now that they see netflix is the path to the customer they decided to try and play a bit more hardball. That's just my speculation though, impossible to say for sure.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[rwven]

Because you might stream 50 movies a month, but you're not going to rent more than about 15 through the mail in a given month, and that's if the stars align and USPS has a two day turnaround....

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[deains]

Happy Bastille Day everyone.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[Sir_Eptishous]

From what I've read, NF is going to get pounded by renegotiated contracts with the studios next year. So this move appears to be preparation for "paying the piper". I don't think it was a cash grab.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[localman57]

I think that's the other elephant in the room for them. Saturday delivery is going away soon. And we'll be seeing 2 day a week delivery sometime in the next decade, so the USPS can use half as many carriers and trucks to hit the same number addresses on weekdays. That effectively kills their mail-order business.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[bkr1_2k]

You're aware the USPS shipping costs have increased about 25 percent in the time Netflix has been in business, aren't you? That makes a huge difference in profits, especially when you're trying to expand your market.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[jellomizer]

Economy of scale often takes into place. As Netflix grows bigger Mailing becomes less profitable to a point where it cost more to ship a DVD where it use to be their bread and butter.

A typical Manager can directly manage 8 people effectively. So every 8 people hired they need a new manager. every 8 managers there needs to be a new upper manager and we continue.... We can assume that each management level will get paid more then the one that is under them. So as the business grows you get more bureaucratic. Now this is often balanced due to the fact the more you produce the better prices you can get in bulk. So depending on how the numbers work out you could see that that DVD mailing past a particular size will not scale well and become unprofitable at the current rate.

When they switch to streaming the problem still exists however a human can normally manage 25-100 computers which allows the business to grow with less bureaucratic problems.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[sneakyimp]

Mod parent up. This is definitely about the content providers wanting more money. The reason the Sony movies were removed is because they had hit a contractual cap and Netflix was unable to offer them anymore until a renegotiation followed. At the renegotiation, the content providers are all too aware of the soaring Netflix profits and stock price and are demanding more money. My actor friend in Hollywood (an armchair industry analyst) has been moaning for months about how the studios let Netflix get away with the content too cheaply.

I'll be canceling my account too for a variety of reasons:
1) The streaming selection has been awful lately. Like really awful.
2) The site redesign really sucks. You have to hover over a movie to see the rating.
3) The recommendations for me are ghastly. Maybe it's because my girlfriend has been watching too many movies.
4) I've received scratched DVDs and had streaming movies drop repeatedly (despite my 10Mbps connection). I have yet to receive any compensation or even an apology for these service failures.
5) No video rental on demand? WTF??
6) Yes, the price increase.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[localman57]

If you can't afford a 5$/mo increase you probably shouldn't have a Netflix account in the first place.

I disagree with this. Of the utilities I would drop for economic reasons, cable would be first, before my high-speed internet. Netflix makes that internet a lot more valuable in terms of entertainment content. I can get a huge amount of quality programming from netflix for a month for less than going to a first run movie with my wife.

People with money tend to bitch and moan a lot when they hear about poor people with cable TV or an XBOX, but the fact is those things become very valuable and provide a good return on investment if you don't have cash to do other things, money to get transportation to get to places like libraries, parks, etc. A $25 pawn-shop PS2 and a pile of 5 year old games goes a long way in terms of entertainment, when you have no other options.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[Jim Hall]

For me, it's a math problem. I moved a year ago, and we decided to drop cable TV. Instead, we subscribed to Netflix, and regularly use Amazon Instant Video and PlayStation Network.

Look at it this way: Looking at the cost of cable TV (at our old house, but it's about the same here) it was about $80 per month.

But without cable TV, we're watching (mostly) the same shows from Amazon and PSN for $2 per episode. We watch movies and catch up on series (that we didn't watch the first time around) using Netflix. Streaming is great for shows and some movies, but they don't have everything available on streaming, so DVDs are a must-have for us.

Now the cost of Netflix is $16 per month. That's $64 remaining per month to spend on Amazon and PSN. Assuming 4 episodes per month of a current show, we're spending $8 per month per show on Amazon or PSN. That works out to 8 shows per month until we break even with the cost of cable TV. And that's a lot of TV, we just don't watch that much TV.

So at our house, we looked at the price increase as a measure of how that impacts our Amazon and PSN viewership. And so far, we're not unhappy with the price increase. Still less expensive to use Netflix + Amazon + PSN, rather than cable TV.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[Maestro4k]

From what I've read, NF is going to get pounded by renegotiated contracts with the studios next year. So this move appears to be preparation for "paying the piper". I don't think it was a cash grab.

Netflix is still handling this atrociously from a PR standpoint. If it's due to the studios demanding more money (reports are it'll be considerably more, not a small amount more) then they need to tell their customers that. "Sorry, but licensing costs are going up as we have to renegotiate streaming deals with the various studios so this price increase has been forced on us from outside." Then consumers will direct their anger more at the studios, instead of Netflix. Saying something idiotic about the price increase being "a latte or two" is more or less guaranteed to make the PR situation WORSE. Much, much worse.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[mitgib]

Right, with the 3 out at a time plan I am able to get a DVD in the mail everyday the mail runs. So about 25 a month, or about $1 each with the current plan. I've very torn as I do watch some streaming content, but not enough to pay about $5 more for it which is the increase I will face. With 45tb of storage I have a very healthy library already. No, the extra money will not mean much to me, but the data point to the Hollywood execs of another in the pile who won't pay $X for streaming is worth it to me. I'd rather take that money and give it to someone worthy at Vodo.net where an extra $5 month could make or break something getting made.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Wake up and smell the cash grab.

Heh yeah, back in my day big successful companies were philanthropic.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[hal2814]

Whatever. Just eat one fewer of those tiny spoonfuls of caviar or drink one less glass of Dom. Or if you don't want to skimp there, light your Cuban cigars with $1 bills instead of $5 bills now. You can cover the difference with the change left in your swim trunks after swimming in your money bin. Why are we complaining about such a small price increase?

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[TopSpin]

don't count on finding low cost channels for content from the studios to last forever

Don't count of the value of the studio's assets to remain high forever. When cable appeared the legacy networks found themselves competing with new content that emerged exclusively on the new medium. Today the old networks are just slots in the basic cable lineup.

Streaming is a true a la carte platform, far more liberal than cable/satellite. Anyone can knock together a Roku channel, contract with a CDN and deliver broadcast quality content to the world. No cable company need be dealt with. No big content gate-keeper gets a cut. That is an irresistible temptation to entrepreneurs.

Eventually new and popular content will emerge that is exclusive to streaming. Competitors for staple cable channels will appear. Note that you can get live Al Jazeera on a Roku, but not CNN et al. The old cable staples will never truly make the transition. They'll have to be bought by those who do.

Streaming is absolutely fucking excellent. The ultimate potential of streaming is way better than anything the traditional cable/satellite model offers, and it simply doesn't need Sony/Time Warner/Disney to succeed. As the big content owners of the world realize that consumers are happy with what has independently emerged on streaming media they'll have to compete with it. That is when the prices will be rationalized and the big content libraries get commoditized.

In the immediate future the big content owners will play their games and try to squeeze the new medium for all it's worth. All they're really doing is creating opportunities for competitors. Streaming dominance with endemic competition is an inevitability. It will be the premier platform inside of ten years and all else will be legacy prizes lined up for the auction block.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[lbgator]

I read a theory yesterday that under the $9 grouped pricing scheme the mail-orderers and the streamers got counted together for their streaming costs. This move will likely split people into streamers or mailers. That shrinks the pool of potential streamers which lowers their costs.

As I understand it, at least some of their contracts with the content industry force Netflix to pay some amount multiplied by the number of potential streamers. They are trying to save money here.

I'm just repeating a rumor though - so.... you know....

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[HermMunster]

A couple latte's cost from you, $40 more to fill the tank every week, an increase in the cost of food because they are using corn to make fuel, the price of education rising dramatically...after a while you miss a car payment or a house payment because you don't have the cash or you are forced to put this stuff on credit which costs even more in the long run. Then what? And what's the increase in value for the extra cost?

At least a latte has some nutritional value and coffee had a reported medicinal value. What?

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[Zenaku]

Until recently they had no competition. Did you mean Blockbuster? Please. A traditional video rental store is no competition for Netflix, at least not anymore than the yellow pages are competition for Google.

They are only now facing real competition, from Hulu, amazon, google, and on-demand services offered by cable companies.

I'm not happy about the price increase, but I am hopeful that it allows them to work out better content deals.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[cayenne8]

Because you might stream 50 movies a month

Trouble is....their selection of movies to stream is pathetic. I would find it VERY difficult to find 50 of them I'd be interested in watching from the streaming collection.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Scrooge McDuck? Is it really you?

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[secretcurse]

You're very misinformed. They haven't dropped the X number of DVDs at a time service. They are offering a new $4.99 service that limits the number of DVDs per month to 2 and includes 2 hours of streaming.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[hal2814]

McDuck?! That filthy cheat is too cheap for caviar and fine cigars!

Yours truly,
Flintheart Glomgold

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[ThanatosMinor]

Wait, so competition increases prices for the consumer? Sometimes I wonder what the Invisible Hand is doing while I'm watching the other one take my money.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[jojoba_oil]

My god! The stunning arrogance of the McMansion aristocracy.

I don't know if it's arrogance or just plain ignorance. They figure that since they drink a latte every morning, everybody does... "Right? Right guys?"

Remember the /. story about how 'most people love our new website redesign'?

If I was a Netflix customer, I'd drop them. If I was a Netflix shareholder, I'd drop them -- not because of the price increase, but because of the sweeping generalizations that seem completely untrue "most people this" and "most people that". There's a serious case of out-of-touch-with-consumers there. Maybe someone who runs a marketing/consumer-research firm has a jackpot just waiting for them...

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[scharkalvin]

They want to do that but there is a lot of outrage. And if the post office cuts back to less than 5 days a week there will be legal problems elsewhere since overdue bills that come late in the mail can't be overdue by government decree.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[Doctor Faustus]

That is, the studios thought that MOST people bought DVDs and saw movies in theaters and Netflix was just there to "mop up" the small fraction of the market that didn't pay through the other channels.

That was true for me for a long time, but they stopped that themselves when they came out with Blu-Ray at much higher prices. I didn't want to buy Blu-Rays for twice as much, but I also didn't want to buy DVDs when there was a Blu-Ray, so I turned my NetFlix account back on.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[shermo]

What I hate is how movies appear and disappear and the movies I really want to watch are nearly impossible to find online.

Of course there's always other options... It's always nice when the illegal option is both cheaper, more convenient and a better product.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[CrankyFool]

(I work at Netflix)

When I was underemployed a few years ago, I made a game of trying to get as many DVDs from Netflix as possible. I figured out at some point that the maximum possible number of DVDs you can get in an average 30-day month is 10*X, where X is the number of DVDs you can have out at a time. So the best-case scenario for a 3-at-a-time plan is 30 DVDs a month.

(I mentioned this when I had my second interview here. The person I was talking with confirmed, and noted we had 8-at-a-time subscribers who were going through close to 80 DVDs a month).

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[TheGratefulNet]

Of course there's always other options... It's always nice when the illegal option is both cheaper, more convenient and a better product.

I'm a babyboomer (ie, not a kid by any means) and I have been renting NF for about 8 yrs now. I choose to rent and pay a bit of money since it seems somewhat fair. I could have chosen to not pay and download, instead.

fastforward to today. I'm feeling less and less hospitable toward MPAA guys and everyone connected to it. push me further and my goodwill will disappear.

Re:No rage, just a lost customer.

[jordan_robot]

Frankly, I am surprised that so many of my fellow geeks who are presumably my age or even younger are throwing such a fit over fucking DVDs in 2011.

Clue up buddy. That's probably because many people find the streaming selection to be anemic. Also note the constant swapping of available streaming content (not adding to, but swapping). Netflix knows many people will be split between an instantly available (but crappy selection) stream and slow to arrive (but great selection) dvds. They're betting on more than half keeping both services so that Netflix at least breaks even, I'm sure the goal is that more than half will keep both services.

Myself, I'm quitting NF, partially because of the money, but mostly because they blatently lied when they announced the fee hikes. Fuck that, we've got enough to deal with in life without adding more liars to the mix.

Marie Antoinette

[naroom]

And Swasey said, "Let them drink lattes..."

Re:Marie Antoinette

[Anonymous Coward]

A misattributed, misunderstood literary anecdote used to draw a supposed parallel between starving peasants and Netflix users? Ah, Slashdot, you never cease to disappoint me!

It is still Cheaper than Cable

[Reverand Dave]

and I don't have to sit through a lot of idiotic commercials.

Latte Defense

[Gr33nJ3ll0]

Why are so many things justified with the already unjustifiable cost of a Latte? Just as two wrongs don't make a right, two prices that are too high, don't make the second any cheaper.

Re:Latte Defense

[RajivSLK]

Because in my little corner of the planet (Victoria BC) there is a 10 person deep line up for a latte at every single one of the hundreds of espresso shops every morning. That's why.

Justified or not people buy lattes.

Re:Latte Defense

[ArsonSmith]

Exactly, I've found that if i cancel my healthcare I can afford cable and netflix, and still get a daily latte.

The update does not make sense

[Superken7]

Most people are probably not really angry because of the money increase, as there are few good rivals (not for long, I hope), but because nothing of value was added to the service to justify the increase.

I bet most people would be happy if the price increase would have arrived with a 100% streaming coverage so people can stop relying on DVDs, or maybe some new cool feature.
Instead, the UI has been somewhat degraded for some, and now the service is almost twice the price. It's not just "some people", I'm sure _most_ people are not happy with the "update".

Re:The update does not make sense

[wpi97]

A price increase does not have to be justified by value added at all. It only has to be justified by enough demand to keep the company profitable. This is very simple really. If enough people cancel their subscription as a result of this, Netfilx will either fold, or lower its prices. On the other hand, if enough subscribers eat the increase, so much the better for Netflix.

Re:The update does not make sense

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet most people would be happy if the price increase would have arrived with a 100% streaming coverage so people can stop relying on DVDs, or maybe some new cool feature.

If you want 100% streaming coverage, $7.99 is way too cheap. Most people are simply being irrational here. The cost of doing business is going up for Netflix, so the cost to pay for the service is going up with it. Netflix gave us all way too good a deal for way too long which has caused most consumers to turn into spoiled little brats.

Re:The update does not make sense

[gorzek]

Yeah, $8 a month for unlimited streaming is a fucking steal. Assuming you watch only an hour a night, you are paying all of 26 cents an hour for your entertainment, a better deal than just about anything else out there.

Re:The update does not make sense

[Idbar]

I said this somewhere else, but I think is worth mention here.

I'm a netflix subscriber, and I sincerely don't care paying more for their services. What I think motivated the rage, was rolling out a price increase as a "feature". Instead of just saying they will be increasing the prices ("The $10 plan will be now $16, BUT you have the option of going only streaming or only DVDs for half the price"), they went "Hey! Great news, we are splitting the plans so everyone is happy! Your plan will no longer exist and you'll have to pay extra! BTW, Everyone must switch over in September".

If there's one thing you don't want to do you your customers is making them look like idiots, and tell them to pay more with ultimatums. That was sort of 3 strikes on their single blog post.

Re:The update does not make sense

[hazem]

Yeah, $8 a month for unlimited streaming is a fucking steal.

Indeed. I've been streaming for a year with Netflix and keep thinking, "I can't believe this is only $8/month."

I'm not bothered by the increase in price, since for me it would be worth a higher price. I am, however, bothered by the change in the UI. My computer is not a TV and I expect to be able to do more with my computer (since i have more input options than just a remote control). I also don't like not being able to see the titles and ratings any more.

And they need to work on their PR and understanding the difference between "inside voice" and "outside voice". The latte thing is the kind of thing you say in an internal meeting because... well, you can see all the comments here about it. The "outside voice" should have been something along the lines of, "The content owners are raising our costs. We still want to offer the best content possible, but to do that, we have to charge a bit more."

Re:They don't get it

[master_kaos]

so a third of a poll says they are going to cancel. lets take that at face value. Double price.. third leave.. well looks like it is still worth doubling the price! Of course when push comes to shove, I am betting 1/2 of the people who say they are going to cancel, won't cancel.

Re:They don't get it

[Nemyst]

If 2/3rds of the user base stays with a 50% price increase, then they've increased revenue while decreasing expenses (less bandwidth usage).

Question is whether it'll stay at just a third leaving.

It's not that the price increase is so great...

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

...it's the non-uniformity of it. If you currently have a streaming-only plan, there's no price increase. If you only watch DVDs and never stream, you could even save yourself $2. But if you do both, you could be paying 60% more. It doesn't really make sense to pay double the price, because the DVDs and streams are competing uses of the customer's time--if I stream a movie this evening, I'm probably not going to also watch a DVD. Ultimately the service isn't that expensive and if they just want to charge more then it's no big deal. But the new scheme seems designed to punish people who only primarily use one half of the service but occasionally use the other. If you most just stream movies but occasionally there's a DVD not available for streaming that you really want to see (and isn't at RedBox), or if you mostly just watch DVDs but someone visits your house and you'd suddenly like to watch a movie without waiting a couple days for it to arrive, then you have to pay a lot of money (relatively) just to dip a toe into the other half of the pool.

Anti-competitive behavior

[digitalderbs]

What irks me about the price increase has nothing to do with the price of lattes or the fact that we're not necessarily getting anything more in return. It's the anti-competitive behavior. I suspect that the margins on their current pricing were set to be small enough to snuff out Blockbuster. Now, without real competition (incl Amazon's service), they can reap the fruits of their 'sacrifices.'

Re:Anti-competitive behavior

[xtracto]

Yeah, I bet you did no bitch when they introduced more movies, or the ability to stream films without increasing the price uh?

"Why did you add more features without charging me more??!!!!11111"

I would pay the 10 Euro without hesitating if a service like netflix (and not the joke that is LoveFIlm) was avialble here in Europe.

culture of incompetence

[tverbeek]

Their public relations people clearly have the public relations skills of engineers.

Hardware engineers.

It's not the dollar amount, it's the percentage!

[BitHive]

As a percentage of the old price, the new price is outrageous. This is like charging $0.75 instead of $0.15 for text messages and then defending it by saying that "to most people, it's like getting extra cheese on their burger".

Re:You're just a consumer ...

[royallthefourth]

Oh grow up, it's just garbage entertainment. When you're really abused is when your food prices start going up, or the bank charges a mysterious fee, or you suddenly can't find work. Or, for that matter, when your wages stagnate while the cost of living continues to increase over the course of decades.
That's when the real overlords laugh the hardest, knowing that your children will consider it a privilege to serve them their own siblings' flesh after you're gone. Netflix is just a sideshow.

Re:How to destroy your internet based business

[frosty_tsm]

Netflix is trying to put the DVD side with a price to adequately cover its costs (which are substantial), and trying to push as many users as it can to the streaming side. I've been expecting this for a long time, and I think it was a good decision.

While I knew they were going to emphasize streaming over DVD, I wish they had treaded more carefully. They won't admit it, but their PR department is (or should be) in damage control mode.

Re:How to destroy your internet based business

[The Great Pretender]

I'm confused to where this double the price comes from. My old plan was 3 DVDs a month (with blu ray) and streaming was $23. The equivalent new plan would be $28, which seems to me to be a 21% increase. Now did they give me anything different, nope. In fact as we always seem to have a DVD sitting around for a month, I dropped the 3 DVDs to 2 DVDs and am going back to $23/month. When they first bought in streaming it was 1 hour for every dollar you spent on a plan, I was on the $18 plan and got 18 hours of streaming. You paid for unlimited streaming separately, I can't remember how much. Then they wrapped unlimited streaming into all packages. Now they've gone back to paying for unlimited streaming. I'm not really sure while people are getting their entitlement knickers in a twist over this. I pay for stuff on VUDU, Amazon at the moment and use Hulu plus and playon. (I dont have cable TV, haven't had for 5 years). Once the economics breakdown, Netflix will loose my business, really that simple, but the economics, given what we watch is still pretty good for us.

Re:They don't get it

[frosty_tsm]

If 2/3rds of the user base stays with a 50% price increase, then they've increased revenue while decreasing expenses (less bandwidth usage).

Question is whether it'll stay at just a third leaving.

At the same time they lose market share, which hurts their long-term prospects. It makes it harder for them to grow revenue and easier for their competitors (iTunes, Amazon, Hulu) to grow strong.

Most investors would see a 1/3rd paying user-base leaving in this span of months as very bad. Revenue isn't necessarily going up; there are lot of households who will stay but go from 2 DVDs to 1.

I don't get the rage

[barra.ponto]

I'm a long time Netflix costumer. I started with the 2 or 3 DVD at home plan and later moved on to the 1 DVD at home plan.
Sometime along the line they gave me free streaming, but it is Windows (them Mac) only. I didn't ask for it
I mostly run linux at home so I don't bother. I get the DVD, dump stream to my disk, watch it later on demand (no sharing with anyone, delete the file later).
I get 2 to 3 DVDs per week, build a huge backog, suspend my membership, resume it later.
They raised my monthly fee a couple of bucks, now they want to recoup the money for the streaming part, and they're given me my couple of bucks back.
I stopped the streaming immediately and for $9.99/month I get to eventually see 8 to 12 movies a month.
Seems reasonable.

The Thank You Economy... NOT!

[Kamiza Ikioi]

You're damn right! Latte? Latte? Arrogant little shit, people (like me) are pinching pennies cancelling even basic cable in the tight economy already trying to keep a "normal" life going with a $10 spot to Netflix. I can go to Redbox, Steve Swasey, you little asshole and get almost 3 DVDs a week! Netflix was mostly to keep my CHILD entertained with kids shows, but fuck it, it's just a latte to you, right?

Sorry for the cursing, but that mother... needs to read The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk and get some goddamn manners! This is a less for how NOT to conduct business when everyone has a direct line to 500 friends on Facebook, Twitter, G+, etc! What a retard! I hope the fact that he is spokesman for Netflix will make future employers go, "Ah, so I guess I don't have to ask why you're now looking for new employment. Well, we don't find you qualified for spokesman, but we do have janitorial."

Re:The Thank You Economy... NOT!

[Anonymous Coward]

I cancelled basic cable three years ago, cancelled my phone last month and had my slow 5 mbps cable modem downgraded to 2mbps to save even more.

Only rich pricks can afford to waste $3 on a fucking drink in 2011. That Netflix guy is completely out of touch with reality.

Re:The Thank You Economy... NOT!

[tverbeek]

Netflix is showing signs of not-quite-competence all over the place. Not-so-bright UI design on the new web site, bad usability testing on the new design, and inept PR spin "all our testers liked it, what's wrong with you?" in response to the complaints. Now there's this huge price hike that they're trying to spin as "lowest prices ever" (as if we wouldn't notice that only applies to much less service), and this "let them stop drinking latte" nonsense. If I'm ever in a position again to review job applicants, and I see a significant stint at Netflix on someone's job history, I'm going to have assume that they didn't know how to do their job, either.

Re:The Thank You Economy... NOT!

[Danse]

If I'm ever in a position again to review job applicants, and I see a significant stint at Netflix on someone's job history, I'm going to have assume that they didn't know how to do their job, either.

Just what we need, yet another retarded manager. If you can't be bothered to evaluate the person rather than jumping to conclusions based on extremely tenuous circumstantial evidence, your company would be stupid to have you reviewing any applicant.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Just Bizarre

[pavon]

$7.99 is way too cheap.

To me that is the most bizarre aspect of this price change. If what you want is just streaming or just DVD, the new plan is very inexpensive. AFAIK, it is the lowest price that Netflix has ever offered. But if you primarily use one and occasionally supplement it with the other, having to pay double the price isn't worth it. So the natural reaction of everyone I know personally, and the vast majority of posts I have seen on the internet is to drop one of the two. It is like Netflix is begging us to give them less money, and presenting it an a manner that is pissing everyone off.

What is even more mind-boggling, is that this ability to supplement one with the other is the one of the biggest advantages that Netflix has over it's competitors, and they just completely threw it out the window.

I understand that the price for streaming would have to increase over time as Netflix renegotiates deals, and the selection increases. I never expected it to be included as a freebee with the DVD service forever, just during it's teething years. But I can't believe that the average person who signs up for both DVD and streaming would use both just as much as the average person who only signs up for one or the other.

If they really believed that the majority of people would keep both plans at the higher price, then their market research people need to be fired.

Re:It still has no live news or live sports

[geek]

Get some rabbit ears and get your live sports in HD for free

You are not looking at the NetFlix I am looking at

[Chibi Merrow]

They're getting all Star Trek series. They have almost all of Bablylon 5. They have every episode of every Stargate series. They have Lost. They have every episode of Futurama through Season 5. They have all but the current season of Doctor Who (2005 series).

WTF NetFlix have you been looking at?