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Most Netflix Customers Don't Realize Prices Will Increase Next Month (time.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Millions of Netflix customers are about to start paying more to stream their favorite movies and TV shows -- and chances are, they don't even realize it. In May 2014, Netflix raised the price of its standard streaming plan for new subscribers, to $9.99 a month. However, the price hike did not apply to existing customers, who were grandfathered into their current rates of $7.99 a month for a two-stream, HD plan, Business Insider reported. Unfortunately, the good times are about to end for this customer base, which analysts estimate at about 17 million people, or 37% of Netflix's U.S. subscribers. In May, all grandfathered customers will be required to fork over $9.99 to continue to watch Netflix. Even worse, about 80% of those who will be affected by the price increase did not realize it was coming, according to research from JP Morgan.
AWS, Azure, Google Cloud etc. are practically giving away capacity to get companies hooked on their services.
I don't know about the others, but AWS is very profitable to Amazon (just in case you missed the news):
Amazon on the whole is famous for operating with razor-thin margins, but AWS is making a good profit. AWS had $7.9 billion in net sales in calendar year 2015 with an operating income of $1.9 billion, according to the company's latest earnings statement. Revenue and profit accelerated toward the end of the year, with $2.4 billion in sales in Q4 and $687 million in operating income. AWS would just need to boost sales to $2.5 billion a quarter to hit $10 billion in 2016.
They're opening the door to competitors who just do the "old Netflix" if they keep it up with their current "let's make original content" kick.
They're doing their own original content because licensing costs are going WAY up from when they first started. A competitor can't do what Netflix did at the prices Netflix charged anymore, because the content owners are asking for more money now.
Hopefully the "family" plan will be better. My wife has her own basic subscription too (she used to be a DVD only person until we got married and I bought her an iPad). I think we could save a buck by combining. eh. She likes the independence and a buck is worth that.
I don't know what "independence" she might be enjoying that is not available in a single subscription - the online stuff can be segregated into different "profiles" (or whatever they might be called) so your "My Little Poney" viewing habits do not pollute her "Serious Cinema" choices. As I recall from our days of DVD Netflix - there are similar features for ordering disks. You could alway cancel your subscription and ask to join her's - give her all the control.