Netflix raises prices

Anyone else get this email yet today?

Dear Joshua,

We are separating unlimited DVDs by mail and unlimited streaming into two separate plans to better reflect the costs of each. Now our members have a choice: a streaming only plan, a DVD only plan, or both.

Your current $9.99 a month membership for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs will be split into 2 distinct plans:

Plan 1: Unlimited Streaming (no DVDs) for $7.99 a month
Plan 2: Unlimited DVDs, 1 out at-a-time (no streaming) for $7.99 a month

Your price for getting both of these plans will be $15.98 a month ($7.99 + $7.99). You don’t need to do anything to continue your memberships for both unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs.

These prices will start for charges on or after September 1, 2011.

I still find the physical DVD pretty plan valuable, as the streaming collection is far from complete, and contracts often result in shows/films getting pulled off the service. The price hike isn’t a surprise, but I wasn’t expecting such a high bump.

That’s a pretty huge increase. I hope they get some real competition soon. I guess Blockbuster isn’t cutting it as a rival for streaming and delivery. Netflix is one of my favorite services, but if they keep raising prices like this, they won’t be for long.

heh, totally fine with that. Don’t tell them but they could charge me double and I’m fine.

Can you get just the streaming for $8? That seems quite reasonable.

This might push me to drop the disk part completely. I use the streaming part almost exclusively and the disks are just “extra” at this point anyways.

Not for me, there’s still way too much that isn’t available for streaming. It’s pretty annoying, actually.

Hmm, this might push me to investigate pay-per-view streaming services or go back to buying DVDs/Blu-rays. We barely touch Netflix and streaming anymore. I’ve reduced my movie consumption to play more games and my wife only uses it once or twice a year for a TV series.

I think I’d actually drop streaming first. At least for now.

I’m pretty certain they’re just as happy for you to cancel physical disc plans as they are for you to subscribe. Rising costs of shipping and physical discs, etc. As noted, I still find the streaming only plan to be too incomplete.

Vudu is an excellent ppv streaming service. It came as an installed app on our TV, and we gave it a try. The picture is clean and great.

We still use and will continue to use netflix streaming, we dropped the disc option a while ago.

Yeah, I’ve already treated the disc part of Netflix as the ‘optional addon’. This will push me to drop it completely.

I did just drop the disc plan, and shipped my outstanding title back, whereupon they immediately sent me the next one from my queue… Dunno what that’s about.

Point being, I realized I was getting about four or five discs a year, at most, from them, and the rest was all streaming. At that rate, it’s almost cheaper to just buy the films I want from them (that aren’t available via streaming), or just rent locally.

We do have a nice rental shop around here that has a tremendous stock of obscure, independent, classic, and foreign titles. They just don’t do much in the way of Blu-ray.

I think I will drop streaming. The DVD library is complete, the streaming one is not plus titles drop in and out. With DVD service I have access to everything. With streaming I just have more convenient access to way less. Content is still the most important thing.

I would guess, in part, this may have to do with the studios coming to their senses and realizing that streaming is a real market. Netflix may be paying out larger fees for movies now, or will be in future contracts.

Plus, from an accounting standpoint it has to be easier to do the books with them separate. People like me (watch lots of streaming and maybe 1 disc a month when I remember I have it) and my brother (regularly churns 3 discs but doesn’t watch streaming at all) throw off the numbers. Under the new deal, streaming pays for streaming and discs pay for discs.

I believe recent deals have been publicized as Netflix getting a bunch of stuff, but only after X days of retail sale, and I think that will be the future of all content. Theatrical release, a gap of time and it goes to disc for retail, another gap and you get discs for rental, then another gap and it goes to streaming. Cable and network TV probably fall in there somewhere, but does a large section of consumer still really care about those outlets for release anymore?

For me personally, if a movie doesn’t get me into the theater, I’ll happily wait for streaming, or borrow it from someone, or just never see it. This change will probably get me to drop discs since I barely use them.

As price hikes go, that’s not bad at all. I was paying $20 for the 3-disc plan before the streaming became viable. Once I was able to stream most things, I cut back to 1-disc, so this is basically just them bringing my price back to what it was, with streaming replacing two discs, which is pretty fair.

That said, when it’s broken out as $8/month for a disc… well, maybe I would be better off just losing the physical disc plan.

There is plenty that isn’t available, but I don’t have too much trouble finding something to watch via streaming, especially when it comes to older TV shows. I may keep around 1 disk a month for some things, but I’ve had two disks sitting on my player for a couple months now, unwatched, yet I use the streaming 3-4 times a week for movies and TV shows.

Streaming is more valuable to us at this point. Still get about 1 disc a week of non-streaming stuff, though. Hmmmm. Prices only go up, dammit!

To think I was about to add discs to my plan which seems totally reasonable for an additonal $2… but for more that, I think I’ll skip it since I would only probably use it once or twice a month if that much.

Seems like a big hike but in fairness it’s still much cheaper than cable - I just cancelled the Showtime, Cinemax and Starz packages and that cut my bill by about $40. Only watched these occasionally and much less since getting Netflix.

The prices have gone up because of competition, so careful what you wish for.

Smell ya later, discs.

Discs will get dropped form my household. Streaming is where Netflix holds all the value to my family.