Netflix will raise streaming prices for new members this quarter

I think this has been a long time coming. $8 a month is very, very cheap for legal streaming video. Single episodes cost $2 or $3 when bought outright, and Hulu Plus exists at the same price point but with a tremendous amount of ads (getting near to broadcast-level). It has been an absolute bargain for a while, and will remain so at $10/m, in my mind.

I understand the price hike, but Netflix feels like its value to me as a media consumer is stagnating. House of Cards and a bit of laziness is why I&#x27;ve kept it, but I consider ditching it whenever I&#x27;m reminded of the fact that I pay for it.<p>If they want to survive they need to do 3 things imho: 1. Improve their recommendation algorithm 2. More high quality original series (preferably without extorting Maryland for its arts funding) 3. Stop losing quality content

I&#x27;m bearish on Netflix because...<p>a) Everyone and their sister seems to have the technology for a streaming video service.<p>b) They have no shortage of big name competitors like Amazon, Hulu, and Vudu.<p>c) Content companies that provide the bulk of value to Netflix subscribers can keep raising their licensing fees until Netflix is left with zero profit.

I am not against raising $1 or $2. The service has been incredibly stable and fast for me, even when my internet speed was slow.<p>I love how they now make &quot;Netflix original series.&quot; I hope they can release more of that with partner studios. More.<p>Regarding movies collections: please work harder to convince the industry to load contents over streaming. I don&#x27;t care about owning a digital copy. I don&#x27;t care about the whole Netflix DRM. I don&#x27;t want to own that copy. I used to own many CDs and DVDs and they are just sitting there wasting space (I do care about owning my digital books I purchase, I want to own that PDF).<p>I just want to be able to click and watch on a monthly subscription. I am okay with new movies shown only at theater and streaming after theater. I am fine with that; I still love theater.

I wonder how much this will bump new subscribers before it takes effect.<p>I guess it&#x27;s Pingdom and Founders Card who took the &quot;escalating price grandfathered-subscription model&quot; to the limit, but it might be interesting if Netflix committed to roughly the same thing.<p>(with FC, it started out as $99&#x2F;yr renewable at that price indefinitely for ~$300 in benefits, and went up $50 every half-year along with increased benefits; it&#x27;s now about $400&#x2F;yr and maybe $400-600&#x2F;yr in value).<p>This might be an interesting model for SaaS startups, and is sort of related to the kickstarter &quot;50 units at early adopter discount&quot; model of tiered pricing.

The thing I find most interesting about a service like Netflix is the complete inversion of costs of product and delivery for someone in Australia. A monthly Netflix subscription costs less than a couple of coffees here. The data caps on Internet connections and the inaction of successive governments to address market failures means I could pay hundreds of dollars a month to stream a service like Netflix. It can be quite a lot cheaper to buy box sets of shows or take out a cable tv subscription than pay data costs but you don&#x27;t get the same flexibility.<p>I thought the towns local video store would have followed others around the world into bankruptcy by now but they are still charging $7 for an overnight rental and still have customers.

As expected. Comcast shakes Netflix for more money, Netflix then forwards the bill to customers.

I’m surprised that the quotes, and graphics (unsourced, but presumably provided by Netflix) insist on the international dimension of that decision — and yet, no-one in this discussion mentions that point. Netflix is roughly the same price in countries with different standards of living, and such an evolution is most likely going to mean adapting — and more cross-frontier purchases. I’m already doing it: I first booked Netflix in one country; moved and kept my orignal subscription, out of laziness to be honest, but it would have been expensive to switch.<p>About outright piracy: all the shows available on Netflix are available ‘elsewhere’, and many here (me included) have previously expressed their frustration of local limits for certain shows when one travels. Paying for Netflix is made out of convenience and respect for the economics of video creation: I don’t think a price-hike, combined with announces about investment in new content, will trigger that many pirates. At least, I hope I’m not wrong about that.

Look, if it&#x27;s possible to pay under $20 a month for unlimited downloading from a usenet provider, and take advantage of existing services to stream media to almost all devices, is it really worth it to pay Netflix for a subpar library?

I&#x27;d be really curious to see an aggregate demand curve for Netflix. Find out its elasticity and see how much price increases help&#x2F;hurt its revenue. Personally, I think I would pay up to $30&#x2F;month for it.

Good! If they doubled the price and the content I would be thrilled. For 80% of Americans, netflix is a negligibe expense.

#ComcastTax

Why discriminate against new customers? It doesn&#x27;t seem like a good business case.

To raise prices when apps like popcorn time come around and threaten your very existence seems like the height of stupidity to me.