Netflix introduces new plans and price changes

Does anyone share my opinion that Netflix should have taken this opportunity to clarify as to why these price hikes are inevitable, due to the sky high content licensing costs they themselves have to pay to the content providers to keep streaming possible. I didnt see any mention of this in their entire PR release and I think at least the community would have read that and not perceived this announcement as a "more money grab" and as Netflix doing what it has to, to keep offering the best content available for streaming.<p>I think it threw away that chance and left the door open to a lot of these "entitlement" type comments that harp about how Netflix used to charge $8 per month and can never ever change that. Ever.<p>I for one, plan to stay with Netflix and opt for the Streaming option as long as it makes sense. As for DVD/Bluray, I will go to my neighborhood Redbox.<p>Blockbuster? You, I havent yet gotten over the $4.99 rental fee, so you stay in the shit list for a little while longer.

I'm really unclear how the 1 disk out at a time is 'unlimited'. It's more along the lines of 'either I or my wife can see our choice'. And to call their streaming unlimited ignores the lack of depth in their streaming catalog.<p>I really only want the dvds for things that they don't stream. So, their new dvd plan is essentially a tax on me for their streaming plan not being good enough.<p>And now, given how often I actually get around to watching something, It's barely worth it at the current price, and not worth it at 2x.<p>[ edit quantification -- I've been a member this time for a year and a half, and just shy of half the streaming was in the first week, (two sick parents and kids to entertain will do that), and 7 titles streamed in the last year. We've gotten 7 dvds in that whole time, and watched all of 3 of them. Doing the math -- not worth $16/month. ]

Looking at the comments I'm amazed at how quickly the sense of entitlement sets in. Netflix cut the cost and hassle of entertainment by 80-90% over what was traditionally available from rental stores and cable subscriptions a few years ago. Big content is seeing their profits evaporate and playing hard-ball with Netflix, and all you get is whining from customers about paying $15/month.

My problem with this announcement is they try and tell their customers what a good deal this is for them when it is obviously not good for them. It's a more expensive deal then what they currently have, if they had been upfront about it and said "our costs are going up due to content providers charging more for their content" or "in order to acquire more premium content for our streaming service we need to charge more" then I think people wouldn't have such an issue.<p>It's the worse deal + treating customers like they won't notice it that is the problem.

I wonder how many Netflix members are also Amazon Prime members. I'm currently on a $15/mo 2-disc/streaming plan. But I also have Amazon Prime. I have the Amazon channel on my Roku and have checked out the catalog a couple times. At a glance, it looks pretty similar to Netflix. It never occurred to me to use it because streaming was included in my Netflix plan and I've already been using it for years.<p>I'm not so much bothered by the price hike. My price will go up to $20/mo. I'm not going to gripe too much considering how much I use Netflix. But now that DVDs and streaming are separate plans it creates a strong incentive for me to use Amazon Prime for streaming. I'm already paying for it so I can get the free shipping. Now I can change my Netflix plan from $15/mo (soon to be $20/mo) to $7.99/mo and get the same overall service. I wonder if they thought this through.

TLDR: Netflix raises subscription cost 60%. The comments on the post are vicious.<p>They are duplicitous. DVD by mail is not a separate product. It is a workaround for the fact that they have failed to license their entire library for streaming. Now they have a perverse incentive to limit their streaming library to encourage people to pay extra for DVD service.<p>[edit] Now had they just said, "Hollywood is putting the screws to us, we need to raise our prices" I could respect that.

I find the (dis)honesty of this post baffling. I understand that they want to increase prices, whether because of greed, licensing, or other costs - I don't care. What seems extremely dishonest to me is to say that this somehow benefits the customer when it just doesn't. People want streaming w/ physical DVD as a backup for things that aren't there on streaming. This, therefore, is just a price increase.

I pay ~100/month for cable. I've had a Netflix subscription for ~6 months. Since subscribing to Netflix, my girlfriend and I have watched less than 20 hours of television via cable. We maintain a cable subscription for pretty much the same reason people rationalize a landline phone (just in case).<p>Netflix can raise their prices about 10x before I'd even consider not renewing my subscription.<p>"But comparing Netflix to Cable is a bullshit comparison, the content on Netflix is way less" you might say. In theory, you are right. The content available via Instant Watch is way limited; and it has less newer content.<p>All I know is that since we've started using Netflix, I've stopped buying DVD's (I used to order 15-20 a week from Amazon), I've stopped watching the DVD's I already own (I have about 1000 sitting in giant plastic tubs in the closet that I never dig through), and I've stopped watching regular television.

I really think they could have done a much better job of framing the discussion around this increase. Talking about why they're doing it (not some B.S. about how "they really want to show people that they are committed to DVDs by mail") would have been appreciated.<p>Customers are not stupid. They see right through PR speak, and you can clearly see that in the comments.

I don't know why people are complaining so much. The company did exactly what they should have - they hiked the price to stay in business and clearly informed their customers in advance. Evidently many people were abusing the unlimited streaming + DVD subscription before and it was not cost-effective for the company to continue to offer the deal.<p>Percentage-wise while it sounds a huge increase, it is absolutely nothing when you look at the real dollars. My cell phone bill is $100+, ISP is $70+, web hosting is $30+, and I pay $10+/month for many different web services (include many startups I found via HN). How is $8/mo for renting 3-4 DVDs a month too high? Sure, it was $2 before but you can't expect any company to make money on deals that get abused by more than a few.<p>I'd rather have Netflix charge their customers appropriately than go out of business or start nickel and diming like airlines or cellphone companies.

The really bad news: No more Unlimited Streaming + Unlimited DVD combines plan.<p>---<p><i>Second, we are separating unlimited DVDs by mail and unlimited streaming into separate plans to better reflect the costs of each and to give our members a choice: a streaming only plan, a DVD only plan or the option to subscribe to both. With this change, we will no longer offer a plan that includes both unlimited streaming and DVDs by mail.<p>So for instance, our current $9.99 a month membership for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs will be split into 2 distinct plans:<p>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.<p>The price for getting both of these plans will be $15.98 a month ($7.99 + $7.99). For new members, these changes are effective immediately; for existing members, the new pricing will start for charges on or after September 1, 2011.</i>

I've taken to getting DVDs from my local library.<p>- I can reserve online and they'll get it from any library in the network.<p>- Generally get new release DVDs much faster then Netflix<p>- Get entire seasons of TV shows at once instead of a disc at a time.<p>- Free<p>The big negative is I have to actually go and get them, but I generally pass the library daily, so it isn't that big of a deal.

This sucks. The streaming collection sucks even more. Every time I login the only titles being added are bottom rated movies and "Mock busters". Complete crap honestly.<p>It also looks like the meat of the customers are in these lower end plans.<p>I have no intention of passing Netflix on as just another cable bill.<p><i></i>We need more innovation in this space.<i></i>

Netflix brought this on themselves by including streaming in the plans for free to start with, which gave the message that this should be valued at $0. Now they want to charge $8 for that, and should not be surprised if there is a backlash.

seems nothing more than just a price hike.<p>at the very least, they could have thrown in some good news about how they are increasing the quality of each service by adding a ton more stuff to netflix instant etc.

I think this is a horrible idea. I was actually thinking about upgrading my unlimited streaming plan to get the unlimited dvds option for $9.99. That price is such a good deal and I think it attracted a lot of customers because they were getting bang for their buck. But now that Netflix has announced this new pricing schema, I will definitely will not be doing so and I'm sure many customers are unhappy about this change.

For everyone complaining in this thread, I will remind them of the article from several days ago indicating studios have increased their streaming licensing costs from ~180 million to ~1.98 Billion<i>.<p>If they think this price increase is enough to stay afloat, honestly, I'm impressed<p></i><a href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/07/08/technology/netflix_starz_contract/index.htm" rel="nofollow">http://money.cnn.com/2011/07/08/technology/netflix_starz_con...</a>

I wonder how many people now live close enough to a Redbox location that dropping the Netflix DVD service and going streaming + Redbox ends up being cheaper and affording of more DVDs/month.

To those who are unhappy that customers are whining, I'd like to offer some context:<p>The instant viewing section is almost unusable since they launched their layout redesign in early June. The only logical explanation for introducing such a poor UX is to restrict users from accessing content in the first place, to reduce costs.<p>There continue to be a substantial number of complaints following that redesign, to which Netflix never adequately responded. Now they are raising prices on an already reduced customer experience. It's possible that Netflix could have gotten away with raising prices (with a reasonable explanation for doing so), but this change is happening in a broader context where Netflix is essentially taking its customers for a ride.<p>I suppose I could be completely wrong. The redesign might offer a wonderful experience that somehow I can't grasp. But that seems unlikely.

There's actually a reason for this: <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/07/08/technology/netflix_starz_contract/" rel="nofollow">http://money.cnn.com/2011/07/08/technology/netflix_starz_con...</a><p>People can complain all they want, but the price increases are necessary.

The oddest part to me about this pricing announcement is that the company announces a new set of plans, but only mentions the price of <i>just one</i> option in the announcement - the one in which prices are rising the highest (1 dvd at a time plus streaming).<p>I am currently paying for 2 DVDs at a time plus streaming, for $14.99/month. According to the recently updated Your Account page, this will cost $19.99 in a few months, a price raise of 33%.<p>Not as dramatic as the rise mentioned in the announcement - so why not mention that? Why make me hunt for how much other plans will be changing?

This sure sets the table for spinning off the DVD rental product. Prior to this arrangement the two were practically inseparable.

Pay $7.99 and have both by switching your plan during the month when you want streaming and when you want DVDs.

I feel like this is a chicken and egg scenario between big media wanting more for their content and consumers wanting a better selection of first run movies via streaming. Netflix (at its current pricing structure I assume from the comments here) can't afford newer titles however people want a better selection in the streaming section. One's gotta give and I feel like they chose to go with letting the customer pay more in an attempt to secure better streaming titles. Unfortunately in the climate of hearing about monthly caps from ISPs I don't feel like it was the best choice. I am going to go back to physical medium, and somewhat debating if I even want to continue that. $12 is 3 decent titles from a console service or Amazon a month. A la carte will win the day.<p>edit: clarity of second sentence.

Random aside: The Netflix blog doesn't have page titles!

I appreciate the overall disturbance in the rental and cable industry that netflix pulled off, but as a canadian ex-customer, this will not get me back. In fact, it still feels like a liability when you couple a really bad selection with our shitty bandwidth caps.

This was a botched attempt at spinning bad news into something else. If the message was more forthcoming I suspect there'd be a lot less ire. I'm unlikely to opt for a streaming+dvd plan. Hey, maybe I'll get some stuff done around the house!

By looks of the comments I guess people don't understand if Netflix streamed everything they offered on DVD then A) Cable TV business model would crumble bringing down billions of dollars or B) It would have to be as costly as cable TV.<p>Netflix streaming is great and it's turned this once illegal downloader into a consumer.<p>Im sure in the future they will offer high priced streaming plans that offer more, but of course not too much more. Understandably Hollywood does not want to cut off a huge revenue stream and all of us entrepreneur are smart enough to know this ... the general public not so much.

Even at that price it's a steal. It should be at least 5x more. I really don't see how netflix pulled it off with content providers, they must have a really large user base i guess. Also, I've seen a lot of people talking about "money grab" - consider that entertainment production is a REALLY expensive sport, with each product considered a startup in its own right. Lots of them aren't successful and tag along their successful brothers.

I'm on the "unlimited 2-at-a-time" plan 'cuz my wife &#38; I have separate queues (sappy romantic comedies vs. sci-fi action).<p>BIG QUESTION: how will Netflix handle the distribution of rather large queues now? We've spent quite some time assembling three queues (2 DVD and 1 streaming) totaling some 400 movies, and will be quite cheesed off if 2/3rds of it disappears just because the service provider encouraged/forced us to switch plans.

I'm pretty sure they're just passing along the licensing costs, but as little content as I consume, this is just pushing me towards iTunes where I can outright purchase what I want, with a little more 'ownership' rights and still spend roughly the same amount per month.<p>For heavier consumers though, $16 + a cheap Netflix streaming device is still a steal compared to satellite/cable and movie channels.

Redbox + Amazon Prime is now far preferred to Netflix. Starting Sept 1st they'll see my cancellation in the mail.

I would love to be able to export my movie ratings before I cancel my account. Anyone know of a way to do this?

Consider the price of The Office Season 1-6 DVD set, $169.99.<p>Now consider the price of HD streaming The Office Season 1-6 on Netflix, $7.99/mo.<p>Thank you, Netflix.<p><a href="http://www.nbcuniversalstore.com/the-office-season-1-6-dvd-gift-set/detail.php?p=282319" rel="nofollow">http://www.nbcuniversalstore.com/the-office-season-1-6-dvd-g...</a>

Pricing gripes aside, by packaging DVDs and streaming separately, they'll have much clearer signals about which one users really want, as measured in dollars.<p>I'm assuming they'll be watching the numbers for DVD rental drop until it no longer makes business sense to offer that service.

I wrote a post about why Netflix is actually doing a good thing here:<p><a href="http://www.bathouselabs.com/archives/yes-netflix-raised-it%E2%80%99s-prices-now-chill-out/" rel="nofollow">http://www.bathouselabs.com/archives/yes-netflix-raised-it%E...</a>

Just to be clear, this affects ALL levels of membership, not just the low-end ones that are constantly being referenced. My (once standard) 3-at-a-time plan is going up to $24 in September.

I'd be happy to pay $15-25/mo without question if they had a better streaming library. I wonder what % of their streaming customers would pay more?

&#62; Given the long life we think DVDs by mail will have...<p>Yes, shipping pieces of plastic around is the way of the future.

Great, so if I use and want to keep BOTH services, I have to pay more to get what I already had...

I understand prices rise...I am just pissed for me is it almost $6/month for the same plan.

Gee, that's a funny way to say "we're raising the price of your subscription by $5.99"

Really too bad to see such a large price increase, they have lost money from me.

Well maybe Zediva the video on demand service that puts DVDs in physical drives and streams them will actually stand a chance of being profitable. There was some discussion on HN about it here:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2334332" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2334332</a><p>Although I still find it hard to believe this is economically viable.

They just doubled my subscription price, for the exact same content. So, I would pay another $8 for streaming content that is mostly old, and often mediocre. It's like having TBS streaming to your PC. On top of that, their encoding is often lousy, and there's no separate way to report it.