Why I want to punch Netflix in its face!

Oh, man I'm angry at Netflix today! I am a current member (about 2 yrs+) and have the one-DVD-at-a-time and unlimited streaming movies/TV plan. They raised the prices on us when they started adding all the streaming movies. Fine. Whatever. I'm getting more content in more ways. Fair enough (I guess). Now they are dividing my DVDs and streaming content. Pay even more for both services or choose between my 2 children. NOT fair! Even AT&T and Verizon allowed customers to keep their unlimited data plans when they switched to tiered pricing. Netflix needs to learn a thing or two about customer appreciation and loyalty.

This goes into effect for current members on Sept 1st. It kicks in immediately for any new accounts. I plan to research alternative video services and possibly (hopefully) drop Netflix for something else like Amazon, Hulu or Roku or whatever. Maybe a combination of some of those. I don't know yet. I'm just very angry that Netflix didn't at least allow us to keep our current plans. Pretty greedy, if you ask me.

Netflix Press Release

Don't know where you live, but check out Red Box. That is who I use for DVDs. This is not worth stressing over.

Hulu, commercials even in Plus accounts. No go for me.

MYmacROX said:

Oh, man I'm angry at Netflix today! I am a current member (about 2 yrs+) and have the one-DVD-at-a-time and unlimited streaming movies/TV plan. They raised the prices on us when they started adding all the streaming movies. Fine. Whatever. I'm getting more content in more ways. Fair enough (I guess). Now they are dividing my DVDs and streaming content. Pay even more for both services or choose between my 2 children. NOT fair! Even AT&T and Verizon allowed customers to keep their unlimited data plans when they switched to tiered pricing. Netflix needs to learn a thing or two about customer appreciation and loyalty.

This goes into effect for current members on Sept 1st. It kicks in immediately for any new accounts. I plan to research alternative video services and possibly (hopefully) drop Netflix for something else like Amazon, Hulu or Roku or whatever. Maybe a combination of some of those. I don't know yet. I'm just very angry that Netflix didn't at least allow us to keep our current plans. Pretty greedy, if you ask me.

Netflix Press Release

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I was kind of upset upon reading this myself but... to be the voice of reason here, it is not Netflix simply being greedy. They're trying to keep up with the amount of demand being put on them with tons of new customers. They're also getting more and more new content all the time. It ain't cheap running a top notch streaming service such as they do. Server space, bandwidth *not dictated by them* and a ton of other things that go into serving us up this content, or letting us know what content is available *OH so many things* don't come for free to them!

It's kind of logical that they'd have to raise their prices in order to make up for the money they're spending in order to deliver us things in an efficient and consistent way. But hey... you're speaking with your wallet and that will go a long way, especially if you write a letter to the COO explaining why. I do see your point however, about being an older existing member. That's a good place to enter in the conversation. However, I don't think that the business model you compared Netflix with, can compare as such.

Doug

Try to call their customer service, good luck getting through today.

We received the price increase email today. Screw them! Just finished canceling my service. $16/mth is more than I can justify. Their streaming content is terrible anyway. We'll be Red Boxing it from here on out.

I'm going to get rid of the 1 bluray at a time. Keep the streaming. My daughter loves Phineas and ferb.
Idk if you have Dvr but most of the shows I dvr'ed are either on hulu, abc.com NBC.com etc.. Etc.., or on Netflix.
I got rid of the Dvr and that was a savings of 10.99 a month I think.

To be quite honest, I've been with Netflix quite a while and they are hardly a beacon of being a consumer champion. They've done some really jerk things to subscribers over the years, and I've only see them back down once (when they got rid of individual family queues), they rest of the time they just don't care.

But in the end it's the choice of two evils and Netflix is far less evil to me than the Cable and Telco Machine, and far cheaper.

I do get the rationale for the prices, and it's not all their fault, the content companies are being their typical idiotic selves and not getting with the times. But the way Netflix sold this in their release just is one more point on the chart that says their PR dept is quite possibly the worst in the industry.

Also, this price hike is really mainly for the 1 out DVD people. For the higher plans, the price increase is far more modest, just a few dollars on the 3 out plan which is the one I"m on.

Braven said:

Their streaming content is terrible anyway.

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It's better than Hulu+ Nothing sucks worse than paying a premium to be forced to watch commercials.

If you want to show them that you are not satisfied with their service, which it seems that you think the price doesn't justify the service, then let them know by canceling their service. Don't complain while still letting them have your money! I used to have netflix while it was only 7.99 a month. I used it A TON the first month or so, but then I realized that they hardly updated their movies. After a while, it was much cheaper to use red box because you only pay a dollar for when you rent a movie. A dollar, a few times a month, is something I can live with.

I don't have cable. So for me, the combined price I pay to Netflix and Hulu+ equal about 15% of what I was having to pay the cable company for HD service. I can live with that.

And for new release movies that I absolutely can't wait to see on Netflix, I just rent it from Vudu in 1080p for a few bucks.

All in all, I still make out way better than having cable. And I spend less time watching crap on TV.

idrinorbarsaku said:

If you want to show them that you are not satisfied with their service, which it seems that you think the price doesn't justify the service, then let them know by canceling their service.

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Done!!

idrinorbarsaku said:

If you want to show them that you are not satisfied with their service, which it seems that you think the price doesn't justify the service, then let them know by canceling their service. Don't complain while still letting them have your money! I used to have netflix while it was only 7.99 a month. I used it A TON the first month or so, but then I realized that they hardly updated their movies. After a while, it was much cheaper to use red box because you only pay a dollar for when you rent a movie. A dollar, a few times a month, is something I can live with.

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I don't know about you guys but... I've only ever seen like one RedBox kiosk and that was in Long Island, in a Walmart or something. I've looked on their website and see that there are some KIND of near me, but only if I want to take the train in a fairly out of the way area. Not convenient at all. Plus, if you really think about it:

30/31 days in a month. I've got to either drive or pay for train fare to rent or return. The Train here is $2.25 one way. Gas is obviously more expensive.. especially if you're sitting in city traffic to get anywhere. Plus, does Redbox really have everything under the sun that I'd want to watch?

You do the math. And you figure the logic. Seriously.

Doug

schweb said:

I don't have cable. So for me, the combined price I pay to Netflix and Hulu+ equal about 15% of what I was having to pay the cable company for HD service. I can live with that.

And for new release movies that I absolutely can't wait to see on Netflix, I just rent it from Vudu in 1080p for a few bucks.

All in all, I still make out way better than having cable. And I spend less time watching crap on TV.

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Good call. Though I kind of take issue with having to pay for commercial content on the internet (Hulu). That's fairly ridiculous. The idea behind commercials has always been self explanatory I think so... One thing about cable though, is that if tiered plans were offered, it would be so much more worth paying for. I'd not mind paying for things such as the History channel, Discovery etc.. But maybe that's just me.

Doug

Doug b said:

I don't know about you guys but... I've only ever seen like one RedBox kiosk and that was in Long Island, in a Walmart or something. I've looked on their website and see that there are some KIND of near me, but only if I want to take the train in a fairly out of the way area. Not convenient at all. Plus, if you really think about it:

30/31 days in a month. I've got to either drive or pay for train fare to rent or return. The Train here is $2.25 one way. Gas is obviously more expensive.. especially if you're sitting in city traffic to get anywhere. Plus, does Redbox really have everything under the sun that I'd want to watch?

You do the math. And you figure the logic. Seriously.

Doug

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I can walk to the nearest redbox and back in 5 minutes, and I live on the outskirts of town. Then again, NY has completely different street-side vending than we do

I've been a subscriber for a good 10 years. While 2 price increases - this year - for a 20% increase at my level of service - and I'm at the 4 disc at a time level - does seem excessive - when compared to the competition, it's not really so.

The disc pricing at 1 & 2 discs is actually $2 cheaper than Blockbuster - that's with Blu-Ray - and even cheaper without Blu-Ray which Blockbuster doesn't even offer. Once you hit the 3 disc and above - both their pricing is the same - only Blockbuster does not even offer plans with more than 3 discs at a time.

Streaming - same price as Hulu+ and commercial free - that's gotta be worth something. Amazon is going to be making a dent here. Amazon is coming on strong, getting more all the time and with a price point that's $16 a year cheaper and gives you free 2 day shipping on all purchases to boot.

Everyone has to make their own choice. I must do the same. A 20% increase in a 9 month period of time... is a 20% increase. My pay sure hasn't gone up a penny during the last 3 yrs now.

Everybody wants Netflix to get more, better, newer stuff. Well, that money they have to pay the studios up front to get that stuff has to come from somewhere.

Dysfunction said:

I can walk to the nearest redbox and back in 5 minutes, and I live on the outskirts of town. Then again, NY has completely different street-side vending than we do

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Same here. I have one 2 blocks away at Giant Eagle. I like how they also have game rentals now for only 2 bucks. Good for when you have a party or something.

To me it's not a huge deal. Did my rates go up? Yeah, I was expecting it to eventually though - between the cost of postage that has increased over the years, and the cost of running streaming servers and the cost of what they have to pay to the movie companies for license to stream the content - it's just not a shock.

Is it annoying? Yeah.

Is it worth it for me to go to redbox? No. This is why: I am sometimes TERRIBLE at getting a movie turned around quickly. There have been a few titles I've held onto for 3+ weeks. At that point redbox becomes significantly more expensive. The same goes with renting TV series (like I'm watching the back episodes of House that I never saw before because I didn't start watching House until recently, so we're talking 6 seasons of 4-6 discs per season) - On average I hold onto a set of 2 discs for 2-4 days, with redbox (@ $1/day/disc) that would be $4-8 + per set of discs, now if that was repeated over and over (like I brought one set back and took another set out right away) that would get REAL expensive REAL fast. A lot cheaper to pay my $22 (blueray+dvd+streaming) per month for netflix and still have streaming when I want it for the shows I can watch with it.

JMHO

The thing that's amazing to me are people getting so mad at Netflix for the prices or their small streaming library. Why not get mad at the people who are actually at fault? The studios and content owners who are forcing these prices and not allow streaming?

Do you honestly think Netflix is choosing to not stream things to you on purpose just to make you mad? No, the studios are afraid of the Netflix model, just like RIAA was afraid of streaming music.

So yeah, get all uppity about Netflix and cancel rather than putting the blame where it actually belongs...that'll show 'em!

schweb said:

The thing that's amazing to me are people getting so mad at Netflix for the prices or their small streaming library. Why not get mad at the people who are actually at fault? The studios and content owners who are forcing these prices and not allow streaming?

Do you honestly think Netflix is choosing to not stream things to you on purpose just to make you mad? No, the studios are afraid of the Netflix model, just like RIAA was afraid of streaming music.

So yeah, get all uppity about Netflix and cancel rather than putting the blame where it actually belongs...that'll show 'em!

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The way I see it (and always have seen it) is if you run a business, you deal with things behind the scenes and you consider that to be the cost of "doing business". You don't pass the expenses onto your customers every time. You absorb a lot of operating expenses to keep your customers happy. When you increase the quality and the amount of whatever it is you're offering, then yeah maybe it's time for a reasonable price increase. I understand that. Sure. But until Netflix gets things ironed out with the studios, it's their problem. Not mine.

As mentioned, they have raised prices twice now since I've been with them and that's only in about 2+ years. I didn't scoff when they offered streaming content and the price went up a tiny bit. Fine. Fair enough. But now if it's too expensive for Netflix to keep the current offerings, then do as I mentioned in my first post and end it for new customers only. Don't stick it to your loyal customers. You want to raise it another $1/month on me, ok maybe I can understand that. But jump $5/month on me? Not gonna happen. I am definitely dropping them Sept 1st. I'll get what I can out of them for 6 more weeks. My wife has an older movie series that she is finishing up and it's only available via DVD, so after that we're done with Netflix. Maybe they'll get the point if enough people jump ship. Maybe they'll still have fat enough pockets that it won't effect anything. Time will tell.

I am looking seriously into Amazon's streaming service after researching them yesterday. Other than content availability and pricing, the other big thing for me is convenience. Can I watch it on my TV without connecting my computer? Can I watch it on vacation on my iPad or MBP? I read on redbox's website yesterday that later in the year they are possibly bringing an "app" of sorts to Vierra Cast TVs (which I have). I already have an amazon (and Netflix) one on my TV. So that is a big draw for me. Also, I can walk to two Red Boxes in less than 10 minutes. Right now it's looking like possibly amazon prime + Red Box. Maybe hulu.com (the free service) for tv shows I've missed. I don't have cable, haven't for years. Just the basic 20 or so channels - networks, discovery, PBS and TBS. That's about it. This is more about movies than it is TV for me.

So two question:

- Which company do you know doesn't pass on its cost to it's customers? I'd love to buy more from them.

- Netflix has raised prices a few times over the years. But how many times has your cable company raised it prices over the same time period?

I still contend your anger being solely directed at Netflix rather than the true culprits is misplaced.



Also, Amazon loses money on streaming. They're giving it away because it's a way to get you into the door to buy more stuff from them. Netflix only has video. Not really a fair comparison.