Anyone else miffed at Netflix price increase???

[lotust]

lol thats great. I have no bad feelings about going to the last step. netflix is killing me now. OLD OLD low budget B flix movies.

 

[poofyhairguy]

That is great.

 

[slayer202]

"The machines are still featuring people whining about Netflix's fee hike. Meh," wrote Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic on Google+. "Look at the price of a car. Or college. Or a gallon of gasoline. Or lunch at Applebee's. Or a movie ticket. People don't calculate hourly entertainment value very well."

Basically, people are dumb.

 

[lotust]

Like others said. If netflix was up to date with more moves and almost current Tv series I would be happy to fork over the extra$$

 

[Cstefan]

I had already switched to the stream only plan. No problems for me. YET.

 

[Ronstang]

I was ALWAYS surprised it was so cheap. I have been trying out the streaming using my dad's account since he never did and I liked it quite a bit. Watching it on a nice computer monitor the quality was very decent...better than most older DVDs. I like crappy old B movies so the streaming is right up my alley. I live closer to the warehouse than my dad and he can easily get 2 DVDs a week he says. All that for $17 a month? Where do I sign up?

Have people really become this cheap or is it that they expect their content for close to free? I can easily watch a movie a night to relax after my day is done. Whether it be DVD or streaming that works out to about 50 cents a movie. There are evenings where I have streamed 2 or 3 movies using my Amazon Prime account. How much cheaper does it need to get without having to leave the house?

I guess it all boils down to usage. For me it is a great deal even after the price increase.

 

[videopho]

It has now became cheaper for me since I dropped streaming.
I can average 2 movies a week.
I also prefer BR whenever possible, so streaming is not exactly my cup of tea.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

aside from paying the studios, i'm sure bandwidth is a huge expense for NF.
i read that they're like 30% of all internet traffic?

regardless, i find their selection to be lacking and BB is a much better choice for me.
the in-store exchange along makes it worth it for me, since I don't stream.

 

[Fun Guy]

Is the quality of streaming movies as good as actual DVDs?

 

[Ronstang]

Is the quality of streaming movies as good as actual DVDs?

From my experience when comparing older DVDs it is as good if not better in my opinion. This is watching them on my LG 24'' monitor.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Is the quality of streaming movies as good as actual DVDs?

Usually not. If you watch carefully on a HDTV you'll notice more compression artifacts like blocking and color banding. It's good enough that if you aren't looking for the flaws you probably won't care.

 

[JSt0rm]

Most of the blame should be on the greedy movie companies. The upcoming increase in licensing their content is outrageous. Netflix is just passing this along to the consumers.

The deal they got before was retarded. The new deal is more inline with what it should be. Its still cheap as fuck.

 

[JSt0rm]

Have people really become this cheap or is it that they expect their content for close to free?

Thats what a couple decades of piracy has done. People think if they cant touch it or eat it then it has next to no value. Total fantasy land.

 

[GrumpyMan]

What I'm really miffed about is that I thought that they were moving to a mostly streaming format and that since the DVD side was going away (not anymore), I thought that the streaming selections would improve greatly. But no!!!!! Other than that, whatever....

 

[JackBurton]

I don't give a crap.

 

[Aikouka]

Have people really become this cheap or is it that they expect their content for close to free?

I would argue that the problem isn't the cost of the service, but actually the way they went about implementing the cost.

1) They should never have made it free.
2) They never should have implemented a streaming-only service while still providing it as a free add-on to the disc-based service.

The problem with (1) is that most people have been paying about the same price (Netflix has had other price increases) and they've still kept the same level of service. The problem with (2) is that they essentially gave consumers this strange mindset that DVD streaming was pretty inexpensive. Instant Streaming alone is $8, but I believe the lowest DVD package is $10-11 (something around that). So, to the average Joe, that says the DVD service is only worth a few dollars a month. They essentially devalued their own service.

It doesn't really bother me much though.

 

[Alamat]

I usually get BRs about twice a week. I stream mostly foreign films but I guess quite seldom so I'll be dropping that and going just DVD.

 

[Fun Guy]

1) They should never have made it free.
2) They never should have implemented a streaming-only service while still providing it as a free add-on to the disc-based service.

The problem with (1) is that most people have been paying about the same price (Netflix has had other price increases) and they've still kept the same level of service. The problem with (2) is that they essentially gave consumers this strange mindset that DVD streaming was pretty inexpensive.

Ding Ding Ding Ding!!! Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner.

They should have charged for streaming DVDs at the inception of the service, then lowered the price later. This would have had the same long-term revenue stream (actually, more...), with no bad taste in customers' mouths.

Whoever thought up their strategy is a moron. And I mean that in the nicest possible way!!!

 

[Paladin3]

Ding Ding Ding Ding!!! Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner.

They should have charged for streaming DVDs at the inception of the service, then lowered the price later. This would have had the same long-term revenue stream (actually, more...), with no bad taste in customers' mouths.

Whoever thought up their strategy is a moron. And I mean that in the nicest possible way!!!

You obviously don't know how business works. New services are usually introduced for free or at a low price to get as many people using and create as much buzz about the service as possible. Prices are then raised AFTER you have a large user base, generally in small increments to lower your customer drop-off.

Even drug dealers understand the concept that the first hit should be free to get customers hooked. Look at the prices of similar entertainment in this market, they are all increasing. If you thought it would stay free forever then you are the moron.

 

[Aikouka]

You obviously don't know how business works. New services are usually introduced for free or at a low price to get as many people using and create as much buzz about the service as possible.

Given how Netflix has had free trials for their disc-based service for a very long time, offering a similar "trial" of the streaming services for existing customers would not have been difficult. In fact, non-existing customers can get a trial of the streaming services already. The only issue that you may have run into is that the original selection on their streaming wasn't really that great, and even today after adding a lot more content, people still complain about it.

While you may state that's "how business works", I would argue that I think you're not understanding how the frugal (or rather "cheap ass") human works. People do not like large increases in prices... even when they're still an insignificant amount. If someone had a 1 DVD plan, they're going to see a large increase as they're going to pay an extra $8 a month just to continue to enjoy the same features that they had to begin with. I can't recall the 1 DVD plan price, but I think it's $10 a month?

Frankly, I understand that there's going to be a need to raise the price as a "free" streaming service with no commercials or limitations (other than number of streams) is almost too good to be true. This does make me wonder... what will happen to Amazon Prime's free streaming? Their selection isn't as good, but it's still free. Although, while Amazon does have free content, it also has paid content, which you could consider the free content the proverbial carrot.

 

[rockyjohn]

I was ALWAYS surprised it was so cheap.... For me it is a great deal even after the price increase.

I agree. I have the streaming plus 3 DVD package so my cost went to $25 a month. But it is still a steal.

Look at all the content you get without having to pay Theatre fees (gee that would be less than 3 movies a month) or purchase DVD's - maybe one or two. And everyone in the family or household gets access.

Three out of four movie productions lose money. Go to boxofficemojo.com and compare production costs (where listed) with movie revenues. Then cut the movie revenues in half since the distrutor and theatre oweners talk about half leaving only the other half for production costs and profits - if any. Movie production is a high risk business. Sure a few blockbusters and sequels make a lot of money - but most don't. I recall when several years ago several conglomerates where selling off their movie subsidiaries for a substantial loss because they could not afford the continued losses and needed to stop the hemoraging.

Movie producers on average do not make enought on theater rentals to pay for production costs and need the DVD sales and later licensing fees to make back their investment and earn a profit.

I think the movie license owners are still selling license rights for movies well below value to build a market and I would expect more increases in fees and higher Netflix prices in the not too distant future.

 

[HendrixFan]

The problem with (1) is that most people have been paying about the same price (Netflix has had other price increases) and they've still kept the same level of service. The problem with (2) is that they essentially gave consumers this strange mindset that DVD streaming was pretty inexpensive. Instant Streaming alone is $8, but I believe the lowest DVD package is $10-11 (something around that). So, to the average Joe, that says the DVD service is only worth a few dollars a month. They essentially devalued their own service.

Streaming was inexpensive for them, so they made it inexpensive for their customers. A few years back Netflix actually lowered their monthly rates. They sent out an email saying they had improved efficiency and were passing the savings on. It was a dollar or two a month, but it gets to the heart of how they do business.

Netflix is going from paying $180 million per year to $1.9 billion for the rights to stream content. That is why the cost of streaming is going from "value added bonus" to "you gotta pay for this".

 

[sm625]

I downgraded to keep the price the same.

 

[Aikouka]

Netflix is going from paying $180 million per year to $1.9 billion for the rights to stream content. That is why the cost of streaming is going from "value added bonus" to "you gotta pay for this".

Last I heard, that isn't the case. That greater than $1 billion figure was merely a possibility, but not necessarily what is happening. I don't personally doubt that the license holders won't want a piece of the pie though, so their costs will probably go up.

The thing is... didn't Netflix only make a couple hundred million last year in revenue?

 

[sm625]

Netflix is extremely overvalued, like most of the tech stocks. Netflix was able to get sweet deals on content because no one expected them to make any money. Now that they were able to make money, no one is going to sell them content anywhere near as cheaply.

It's not like Netflix actually has any valuable IP. It's not like they went and invented a new codec that allows a 4.7GB movie to be compressed into 500MB with the same quality as your typical 2GB rip. They have nothing to justify that lofty stock price, except projections of future earnings based on past rates. It is pure madness only eclipsed by the madness of the tech bubble.