Netflix basic plan just went up to $15.98

[moburg]

I thought Blockbuster went out of business, and sold all of their kiosks to RedBox. We certainly don't have any stores in our area.

There is still a Blockbuster store and several kiosks around here.

 

[bicker]

We'll be saving some money with this change. We couldn't use the streaming option anyway, due to my wife's hearing impairment.*

I think our price goes down $3 per month.


_______________
* Most of the titles we want are not subtitled, and beyond that, the Netflix software on our Blu-ray player, on our XBox 360, and on our TiVo, doesn't support subtitles anyway, so it would be a major annoyance to deal with streaming even if the titles, themselves, had subtitles.

 

[bicker]

The problem - they have to pay more for the rights to stream movies

This is the crux of the issue: The production companies were pretty casual about licensing for streaming when only a few people were doing it. Now that Netflix streaming represents more than half of all peak Internet usage, it cannot be treated in such a sweetheart manner. It's real value being delivered: In most cases, viewing a movie streamed to you represents as much value to you as watching that movie on a rented disc.

While they don't need to be earning for streaming 100% of what they earn for rented discs, it needs to at least come close. As a result, once the current sweetheart deals Netflix has with production companies expire, over the next year, the renewals will cost an order of magnitude more, i.e., like a 1,000% increase. That's like your price going from $20 per month to $200 per month. The worst case scenario for this Netflix price change is a 60% increase, and that's the worst case scenario - other Netflix streaming plans are seeing a smaller percentage increase.

And, of course, like I said above, for some Netflix customers, we're actually seeing a price decrease. That indicates to me that we've been subsidizing even these lower-price streaming plans other subscribers are making heavy use of.

 

[bicker]

Personally I think they should have to notify me by mail or email of this increase.

It is my understanding that they did send email to the email address on record for every account, unless you previously explicitly told them not to send such messages to you. If you didn't get an email, you may want to check what email account is on record on your Netflix account, and check to see if you've deliberately opted-out from receiving emails like that. You will also want to check with your service provider to find out why certain email isn't getting to you. An over-aggressive Internet service provider might wrongly decide to filter a mass email like that.

Here is an email sent:

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 $17.99 a month membership for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs (including Blu-ray access) will be split into 2 distinct plans:

Plan 1: Unlimited Streaming (no DVDs) for $7.99 a month
Plan 2: Unlimited DVDs (including Blu-ray), 2 out at-a-time (no streaming)
for $14.99 a month

Your price for getting both of these plans will be $22.98 a month ($7.99 + $14.99). 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.

You can easily change or cancel your unlimited streaming plan, unlimited DVD plan, or both, by going to the Plan Change page in Your Account.

We realize you have many choices for home entertainment, and we thank you for your business. As always, if you have questions, please feel free to call us at 1-888-357-1516.

–The Netflix Team

 

[bicker]

Thank heavens! Everything is getting so expensive these days!

To be fair, these prices are still less expensive, adjusted for inflation, than we were paying, say, in the summer of 1996, for renting VHS tapes from Blockbuster.

Why? Even at $20/month you could conceivably watch 10+ DVD's and unlimited streaming. That works out to $2/movie, not including any that are streamed.

Precisely.

 

[mhawk4]

We canceled our subscription. We found that we can get most of the movies we want to watch through Verizon or rent them through Amazon. We were only getting one movie a month and the streaming. My husband was really the only person who watched the streaming and he has found other sources to get some of these titles.

This increase in price also spurred us on to find other ways to save money and with changes to our Verizon subscription ended up saving $50 a month there. So we have just saved ourselves close to $70 a month

 

[mikron]

We changed to stream only 4 months ago. We heard this was going to happen. We don't miss the mailing at all. If you can't find what you want on search then just waite a few weeks/month and there it is.