Netflix Raises Prices, Users Revolt Across Twitter and FaceBook

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Netflix Raises Prices, Users Revolt Across Twitter and FaceBook

10 Comments 13 July 2011

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Netflix sent out an email today notifying it’s subscribers that the pricing structure of subscriptions would be getting an overhaul. The new plans will separate the two services into $7.99 for strictly online streaming and $15.99 for the combo streaming plus one DVD rental at a time. Currently members pay $9.99 for unlimited DVD rentals and streaming.

Initial reactions to the announcement have been largely negative, with many subscribers viewing it as a 60% price hike. A quick look at Netflix’s FaceBook wall will show some 18,000 comments as of this writing, voicing their displeasure at the increase. The reactions on Twitter were equally grim, the trending topic ‘Dear Netflix‘ is filled with complaints about the limited number of movies available on the service as well as the long wait to see some new releases.

Littered among the complaints were a few isolated cases where cooler heads voiced more positive views. The $7.99 streaming plan represents a %20 savings for anyone who primarily using the streaming option over physical DVDs in the mail.

Movie buffs who previously enjoyed both unlimited discs and streaming got the shorted end of the stick with this deal. Hollywood studios have been pressuring Netflix to pay more for movie rights, the end result being that, those costs have be offloaded onto it’s most active subscribers.

So what do you think about the Netflix pricing restructure, is it fair or is $15.99 too much?

You can follow me here: @KevinMinott

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http://www.awebguy.com/ Mark Aaron Murnahan

It seems pretty common that people will complain about prices, but then slump their shoulders and get off their soapbox when they realize it is still a good offer.

If the company cost goes up, the prices go up. How is that so hard to understand and accept. It would be more productive to get off the couch an extra movie’s worth per month and earn the extra pennies they are charging than to complain about it.

It must be anti-capitalists complaining. They seem to have far too large of a lobby these days. Let’s see how well the Netflix come through when the rest of the jobs are gone because people are too busy on the couch to work for a living.

Eat your government cheese, let me pay for your kid’s shots, and if you are lucky, maybe they will add Netflix as another government entitlement. Until then, complain about something more productive … like the huge increase of morbid obesity that has occurred since television became the new nanny and educator.
- http://komverse.com/ KevinMinott
  
  Mark you are certainly pushing a few buttons with that one.
  
  When a company incurs new costs, they can either eat it and hurt their bottom line or pass it onto the consumer. If anything people should be upset at the movie industry for starting these price wars while limiting the availability of new releases.
  
  The price change is great for anyone who just streams. I suspect most people will switch to the all streaming plan.
  
  Netflix needs to beef up the number of films available for streaming to compensate.
  - http://www.awebguy.com/ Mark Aaron Murnahan
    
    It constantly amazes me how people are hopeful to dictate how a company makes its decisions, without ever having made those decisions themselves. Maybe we should just swallow up every business into our near-defaulted government so everybody can vote on it. That seems popular, and heck, similar things worked in Germany and USSR. That was awesome, right?
- Tazshedevl
  
  Wow, preach much? The complaint isn’t necessarily with the cost – it is with the way the change is presented, the ridiculous spin they tried to put on it, and their complete lack of appreciation for their existing customers.
  
  It may turn out to be worth it, or it may not. But complaining when a company raises its pricing by 60% without doing anything to improve its service offering or offering much by way of explanantion for its cost increases does NOT make someone “anti-capitalist.”
  
  But thanks for sharing your views on everything else under the sun and for your unwarranted assumptions about others. Maybe a little therapy can help you with your anger issues.
  - http://www.awebguy.com/ Mark Aaron Murnahan
    
    So then since it is not about the price change, exactly what part of how it was presented is so disturbing? The paper, the ink, the color of the invoice?
    
    A price increase does not show a “complete lack of appreciation”, so I wonder how they presented that one. Did they give people a “dutch oven” or call their kids ugly, or something?
    
    As a businessman, I realized something a long time ago. If I need to change my prices for the business, that is what I will do. If I just get out of bed and say “I think I’ll raise prices today for no reason” … that’s up to me, too.
    
    I am not angry at all. I’m laughing at the ones who are.
Anonymous

Normally, when a company changes a pricing structure, the company rewards existing customers by grandfathering them in under the previous pricing structure at least for a time. Verizon has done that with their data plans for instance. Existing customers still get unlimited data.

That’s where I think the anger is coming from. It was simply an email that said, “We’re doing this. Deal with it.”

I am going to be using the streaming plan largely because I don’t have cable/satellite television and have two teenagers that like watching Nickelodeon programming. At the same time, I would agree as well that Netflix needs to step up their streaming offerings. Their “new arrivals” to streaming are often quite lame and it seems the only time something new is really good is when it debuts on Starz (Toy Story 3 and Secretariat for example).

But if you look under new arrivals right now, it’s nothing but a bunch of older movies and direct to video grade B junk.
- http://komverse.com/ KevinMinott
  
  I agree a grandfather deal would have been appropriate in this circumstance.
  
  Right now the Starz movies are their main saving grace. Otherwise you have to dig through that horrible new interface to find quality films.
  
  Consumers don’t have much choice in terms of services, it’s them or BlockBuster digital rentals at $2.99 a pop.
http://komverse.com/ KevinMinott

Tech savvy users will opt for the streaming only plan with no problem. It’s only those looking for a rare film on DVD that will lose out on this.

Netflix and Hulu subscriptions are still less than cable, for the time being. Hopefully they don’t use this new power to gut consumers.
http://idiotica.me iDiOTiCa.ME

I figured Netflix raised prices because the money-grubbing studios wanted to grub even more money. I imagine that may also be why Netflix was stuck with a miniscule collection of good films available for streaming. So few streamers… so few.

I got the email and grumbled. If they had a wider selection of streamers I wouldn’t mind the new price. Blockbuster and Amazon have almost everything I’m looking for but the cost is too high. Worse, I still pay for cable yet they perpetually repeat the exact same flick options, so searching for anything new winds up futile.
I mean, come on, how many times can I watch Lord of the Rings and The Bourne Identity? It’s a lose-lose situation for me. Boo Hoo {grumble grumble}
- http://komverse.com/ KevinMinott
  
  The movie studios and television networks want consumers to come directly to them for content, but who has the time for that. I don’t want to have to remember every website that my favorite show comes on.
  
  There needs to be a single centralized place online to get access to all the shows. Netflix is looking like the best hope for that.