Deep Six Netflix
Netflix announced their increased subscription rates on Tuesday. This isn’t a mere 1% or a 5% increase – no, it’s a whopping 60% increase, effective September 1st.
We’ve been subscribers to the service for almost a year – paying $10 a month for 1 DVD out at-a-time plus unlimited streaming. I didn’t mind the dollar increase (it was $9 when we first signed on), but today’s announcement leaves me with a really bad taste in my mouth. An otherwise stellar service is now charging me significantly more for the same service I enjoy.
While I didn’t cancel the service, I did eliminate the DVD portion, opting to stick with the streaming content that’s available. Today’s cartoon was a more knee jerk reaction, when I first heard the news.
Do you agree or disagree with the price increase? Will it affect your Netflix subscription (if you have one)? Sound off in the comments below!
-Krishna
(inks and colors will be up tomorrow)
These beautiful and intelligent people wrote
Tell me what you think!
TheCastro
July 12, 2011 at 10:26 pmI’m canceling my 3 dvds at a time and just going with streaming. It’s BS they’re raising it that much. I bet they want people to cancel their DVDs to save them money.
Robert Dundon
July 12, 2011 at 10:32 pmNo.
Netflix has been paying through the nose in order to renew IT’S subscription with the movie providers.
Deverill
July 12, 2011 at 10:59 pmIt’s a lot to absorb at once but considering the costs to them for bandwidth, movie licensing, etc – and considering what it costs for cable or the cinema or even Blockbuster I won’t say anything against it. The convenience of a movie whenever I want, or some old TV series, is great and it’s a lot cheaper than iTunes is for the same amount of material.
The cartoon is funny though. :)
Juan José
July 12, 2011 at 11:02 pmI can’t still use Netflix as I live in Dominican Republic (they say they will come…) but that is the whole point! They WANT users to stop using DVD’s and switch entirely to Streaming.
Vivek
July 12, 2011 at 11:51 pmThere was a good article yesterday about the fact that it may cost as much as 10x as much to renew the Starz deal (which provides Sony and Disney movies). Sony movies currently dropped off due to a cap with number of total streamed views of their movies and Disney is apparently close to the cap. Apparently they will try to renew sooner to avoid losing so much of their streaming catalog. Hence the sudden price increase.
Hal H
July 12, 2011 at 11:55 pmIf they announced they were going to have a lot more of their catalog on streaming I could get rid of DVDs. Most of the things I want to watch are DVD only. I like to stream Documentaries and TV shows but have the DVDs for current movies. Make the whole catalog streaming and then you have a deal.
Barry Buchanan
July 13, 2011 at 12:35 amIt that big of a price jump a drag? Yes, yes it is. Will it make me cancel my subscription? Not so much. Even at the new price, it’s still a good deal, just not as great of a deal. If they do it again I can re-think it then. This may be the blink other services may need though to get some market share. I do love my Netflix, and you can take it from my cold dead PC. Great strip Krishna!
Rene
July 13, 2011 at 2:53 amThey could have padded it with a better explanation.
Kevin Rubin
July 13, 2011 at 5:36 amI haven’t actually ever used Netflix… I was thinking about when I first got back to the U.S. last year, but then decided against it. I feel like if I got a subscription service like that, instead of buying movies one-by-one (or ten at a time on a spree…) I’d end up feeling like I absolutely must watch movies to get my money’s worth, even if I’m not in the mood…
I can see myself getting towards the end of the month, calculating whether I’ve watched enough movies to be worth it, and if not, staying home on a gorgeous, rainy day to unhappily watch a movie instead of going out to explore the city.
JackB
July 13, 2011 at 5:55 amI came to the same conclusion – drop the DVD portion. And did any of you look at their financials? I did – they pretty much doubled their net income since last year, before this increase. For as often as I was even getting a DVD, I decided I can rent a movie from iTunes or Amazon instead.
Antoine
July 13, 2011 at 8:25 amWell, 16$ a month for one at a time, is totally not worth it. Netflix started in Canada last year and I am on a trial as we speak. But honestly, the night I subscribed, I spent 3 minutes trying to find a movie I wanted to watch. Extremely bad selection available for Canadian Customers…
Antoine
July 13, 2011 at 8:26 amI meant 30 minutes, not 3… :P
Frank M Hansen
July 13, 2011 at 5:57 pmVery nicely done. Great comic post.
Krishna
July 13, 2011 at 6:00 pmThanks, Frank!
Matt
July 14, 2011 at 4:01 amI’m okay with it as I am a streaming only subscriber anyways. I’d probably feel differently if I went with the DVDs, but where I live they take way too long to make the journey.
Kevin Rubin
September 20, 2011 at 5:51 amOne of the ads I have on the right side here is for a free Netflix trial…
Jim
September 30, 2011 at 6:41 pmIf the stuff I wanted to watch was there for streaming, and it would stay there (two movies went away before I finished them, in my 15-minutes-at-a-shot way), I would consider streaming-only.
But since they aren’t, I stripped down 50% to 2 discs a month and 2 hours of streaming (about all I actually use). So Netflix boosted their prices and lost 50% of their income from me. And now they’re going to force me off one or the other completely; guess which is will be?
Of course, I like watching the DVD extras — deleted scenes, especially, but sometimes other stuff. I like *having* it to watch even if I don’t. They don’t stream those things at all, so I’m that much less interested in streaming as the only option.