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Netflix Announces MORE Price & Plan Changes You Probably Won’t Be Happy About
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Just last November, Netflix announced that they would be increasing their prices due to their ever–growing selection of movies and TV shows available to watch instantly or on DVD and Blu–ray.

At the time, most customers seemed to be upset over the price changes””the company does offer an gigantic amount of movies and shows to watch, but they’ve always had trouble getting what people actually wanted to watch. The vast majority of their titles are strange and obscure offerings most people have never even heard of. And while they have increased the amount of worthy options, many people still think the price isn’t worth the low amount of top–level movies and shows available.

All of that said, the video rental giant still projects to keep growing more and more each year, and they’re raising prices and changing their plans again to keep up with demand. Continue reading to see what’s being changed and how much it will cost you.

The biggest change Netflix is making is they will be splitting up their $9.99 DVD/Instant combo package. Easily the best value of the lot, this option opened up as much instant streaming as you could watch, as well as 1 DVD out at a time. Now the plans will be split into individual options, with either unlimited streaming or 1 DVD out at a time running you $7.99 per month. If you love having both, it will now cost you a whopping $15.98 per month. This just goes to show you how popular the instant viewing option is, as it is no longer just the “added bonus” it began as.

Netflix explained the reason behind the decision, saying:

Last November when we launched our $7.99 unlimited streaming plan, DVDs by mail was treated as a $2 add on to our unlimited streaming plan. At the time, we didn’t anticipate offering DVD only plans. Since then we have realized that there is still a very large continuing demand for DVDs both from our existing members as well as non-members. Given the long life we think DVDs by mail will have, treating DVDs as a $2 add on to our unlimited streaming plan neither makes great financial sense nor satisfies people who just want DVDs. Creating an unlimited DVDs by mail plan (no streaming) at our lowest price ever, $7.99, does make sense and will ensure a long life for our DVDs by mail offering.

Reflecting our confidence that DVDs by mail is a long-term business for us, we are also establishing a separate and distinct management team solely focused on DVDs by mail, led by Andy Rendich, our Chief Service and Operations Officer and an 11 year veteran of Netflix.

Aside from that no other changes appear to have been made (yet), but it now looks like the best choice is to just drop DVDs altogether and fully embrace the instant streaming. That won’t be difficult for a lot of people to do, but I do feel bad for those who have faithfully used both services for so long. A jump from $9.99 per month to $15.98 per month seems, well…pretty rough.

These changes do not kick in immediately. You have until September 1, 2011 to decide if and how you’ll continue to do business with Netflix.

What do you think of these new changes, and will you continue using Netflix? On one hand, you have a company who is constantly growing and needs to keep increasing prices to keep up; while on the other hand, you have a large mass of customers””many of whom are struggling through these tough economic times””who aren’t ready to keep dishing out more and more coin they don’t always have.

[Source: Netflix]

6 Comments »

  1. I will be dropping the streaming service. the fact is, as cool as streaming is, the selection sucks. I get my one DVD in the mail, rip it on my Mac, and send it back immediately. I have all the files on hand to watch on my Apple TV or iPad whenever I want.

    Comment by Anonymous — July 13, 2011 @ 12:25 am

  2. I have a real love/hate relationship with Netflix.  I abhor watching movies online but will admit their selection of streaming stuff has gotten better, with tons of movies and TV shows that were never released on VHS/DVD.

    However, their DVD selection seems to suck more and more each day.  I’ve had AT LEAST 30 DVDs in my queue that mysteriously got marked “unavailable” and moved to the “saved” section — and 98% of those unavailable discs are still in print. 

    Their selection of Blu-Rays completely SUCKS (unless it’s a new release of a brand new movie, you can bet they won’t offer it) — and if you go browsing their BluRay section, you’ll quickly discover the vast majority of titles listed there aren’t actually available on Blu Ray (many titles in that section haven’t even been RELEASED on BluRay!). 

    And the kicker is there’s stuff that they absolutely SHOULD stock but don’t.  For example, if you’re looking for the three “Psycho” sequels, won’t find a single one of ’em at Netflix. 

    Netflix was great when it began, but now that they’ve edged the nefarious Blockbuster into near-extinction, they’re becoming an equally evil corporation.

    Comment by Vince — July 13, 2011 @ 9:22 am

  3. When I rejoined Netflix after a 3 or 4 year hiatus, 3 DVDs plus streaming was something like $16.99/month. That was increased by $3 this winter to $19.99/month and in about 6 weeks, another increase of $4 to $23.99/month? That’s two price hikes for a $7 increase in less than a year. Being able to catch up on some TV series is neat but I will probably drop streaming because there just isn’t a big enough selection or any compelling new movie releases. Plus it considerably slows down my Internet at home, which I don’t like. I’ll get what I get by mail for $15.99/month and if that price increases even more, I’ll go back to Blockbuster because at any higher rates for a Netflix “DVD only” plan, I can at least get free and immediate in-store exchanges at Blockbuster. Plus I kinda miss walking around looking at real DVDs once in a while. We’ll see. Bottom line though is that I do not like the Netflix price hike and will be cutting back. How’s that for generating more revenue!

    Comment by PAUL — July 13, 2011 @ 2:29 pm

  4. That’s assuming Blockbuster stays open much longer. Most of the ones by me have closed down. Only one remains open and they cut their in-store selection down significantly.  I hope they survive though, it’s never good for consumers when one company runs the whole show.

    Comment by WordSlinger — July 13, 2011 @ 2:50 pm

  5. I love how they try to spin it as if they are doing it for their customers who just want an unlimited DVD plan.  I doubt there are that many people who were upset by the fact that they had to pay $2 a month on top of the $7.99 streaming price.

    Comment by T — July 13, 2011 @ 8:53 pm

  6. Well I am that one customer that will be effected by this change. We stream a lot because there’s random old movies and shows, which we like. The One DVD is not so bad because we get the old movies that can’t be streamed. As for the new movies we go to redbox because Netflixs is always backed up on new releases. We recently got Hulu and HBOGO and were thinking about canceling Netflixs but now we definitely will after this change because it’s not worth it. The movies available on instant stream are oldies we have already seen, the new releases we get somewhere else and the tv shows we can watch on Hulu. It’s too bad that Netflixs will be going out soon, I just wonder what’s next.

    Comment by E_L — July 14, 2011 @ 5:51 pm

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