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Most Netflix Customers Don't Realize Prices Will Increase Next Month (time.com)

Posted by msmash on from the shelling-out-more-bucks-for-streaming dept.

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.

8 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. Danger Will Robinson! by kamapuaa · · Score: 5, Funny

    Holy shit, after two years they plan on charging customers $2 more per month!

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    1. Re:Danger Will Robinson! by Cito · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Thing is since 2008 Netflix streaming titles have shrunk by 53%

      And the once epic Anime section all gone but a few.

      Because once they got popular and net neutrality debated "fast lanes" and filtering Netflix, to try and kill it 15 studios pulled all their content off Netflix

    2. Re:Danger Will Robinson! by j-beda · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

  2. Netflix by the_Bionic_lemming · · Score: 5, Insightful

    2 years ago, Netflix sent out an email explaining all of that, and avoided a backlash. I thought is was reasonable that they would wait two years to increase the cost to current customers, and in doing so gave me a lot of time to decide what, if anything I would do.

    This isn't a story. If anything it was one of the first times that Netflix changed things the right way for once.

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  3. And we'll all happily pay it... by jasno · · Score: 4, Interesting

    to continue to have access to their mediocre collection of content.

    Hulu Plus with adblocking is far and away a better return on investment... that said, I cut the cable, so I'll happily throw $10 at them so I can keep myself busy browsing their catalog for something to watch. That activity alone eats up hours of my time every month.

    On an unrelated note... Does anyone else feel like we should be able to pay for access to content separately from the UI? I know solutions like TiVo allow you to search multiple content providers, but you still have to use a different user interface for each provider. I'd rather have a single UI(don't mind paying for it) and just pay Hulu, Netflix, Vudu, etc for access to their content. I don't need 5 streaming apps, each with it's own quirky UI.

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  4. Still worth it by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Still way cheaper than cable TV which not only costs more out of pocket, it has tons of brain-rotting commercials.

  5. Question is how fast the next increase follows. by ErichTheRed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One of the things with any cloud-based service (video streaming, AWS, etc.) is that prices are artificially low right now. AWS, Azure, Google Cloud etc. are practically giving away capacity to get companies hooked on their services. At the same time, all the VC-funded startups are subsidizing this cloud build-out so they can continue operating. Netflix and Hulu are pouring money into original content to get more eyeballs a la 1999.

    The thing to consider is how fast the price on all these things will go up when Social Mobile Streaming Bubble 2.0 pops. I think this entire market is being propped up by the bubble and will have to come back to Earth sometime. Video streamers are going to have to increase their prices or not offer as much expensive content for the same price, and cloud providers are going to have to cut back on the freebies and crank up their rates.

  6. True story... by PCM2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    True story ... I kinda forgot that Netflix was only charging me $7.99. I thought the price was ten bucks.

    My bad.

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