Netflix Raising Pricing! See Post #12 (1 Viewer)

[John Dirk]

Netflix used to be a universal "no brainer" but now we're discussing it. Hmm... With their "Original Content" division now snatching up every once great comedian they can find and handing them increasingly bigger checks for their [now dubious] content than any other competent network exec ever would, it's no wonder prices have to increase yet again. Netflix still remains a viable service today but the path they are on is doomed in the long run. Without a course correction their prices will soon start to resemble the very services they saved us from in years past.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Ultimately, I don't think this will have much of an impact on them. The increase will cost most of their subscribers an extra $24 over the course of a year, and I'm not sure that the majority of their customers will rebel against it. A month of Netflix is still cheaper than a month of HBO, and Netflix has been making original programming that at least meets if not exceeds the standards established by HBO decades earlier for premium original content.

The great thing about all of these app-based subscription services is that they don't come with the obligations that a cable package used to have. I remember back in the day, if you wanted to add HBO to your household cable subscription, it wasn't just a simple matter of calling the cable company and asking to subscribe to HBO. You'd have to make an appointment, and usually that appointment required someone to be home. The cable company would have to come over and first climb up the poles in the neighborhood to unblock the HBO signal to your house, and then they'd have to actually have a visit at your home to install a new cable box that could decode the HBO signal. Unless you happened to subscribe during a promotional offering, you'd get billed an installation fee just for adding the one channel. And then you'd have to go through the entire process in reverse to cancel HBO, and pay another fee on top of that for cancelling. The practical result for all of this is that when people would add to their cable subscriptions, those additions would often stay locked in place for years.

In this new ecosystem of apps, you can subscribe and unsubscribe on a whim, and there are no limits or surcharges or cancellation fees associated with doing so. My wife manages our household Netflix account and keeps it running year round; she actually does watch a wide enough variety of content on there that she feels she gets her money's worth year-round. But I'm much more conditional with my subscriptions. When Showtime brought back "Twin Peaks" in 2017, I subscribed to their app for the duration of the series, and then canceled the subscription when the show ended. I did the same with CBS All Access for "Star Trek Discovery." And I only keep the HBO Now subscription active when a show I like is actually running; my subscription was inactive for a few months until "True Detective" came back on Sunday.

I think that's the way forward for most people: to keep one or two subscriptions running year-round, and to subscribe shorter term to other apps when there is something specific that's of interest. I think Netflix still offers enough, and still viewed as "the default" service by enough people, that they can withstand any small price increases.

 

[TonyD]

It’s not a subscription it’s a monthly service.

Just cancel it every other month or so and your cost is cut in half.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Those fuckers.

 

[dpippel]

 

[Carabimero]

This is just a taste of more rate hikes soon to come. Before long Netflix will hover around $20 a month. At that point, is it still worth it?

 

[John Dirk]

It’s not a subscription it’s a monthly service.

Just cancel it every other month or so and your cost is cut in half.

That's true today but I suspect Netflix has greater aspirations [read Comcast]. One thing cannot be denied. The cost of the content they license/produce is not recouped [not even close] by their current rate of growth. Investors won't tolerate that indefinitely and Netflix knows as much.

No business really wants the overhead [and market fluctuations] associated with members who can cancel at their whim.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Netflix is very good at catching the cultural zeitgeist of any particular moment; as long as the big hit thing that everyone is talking about is a Netflix thing (and that does seem to happen to them on a reliably frequent basis), there will be a demand for their service.

People have complained about HBO costing too much since the pre-internet, old-fashioned cable box era, and yet, HBO continues to thrive. People complain that the Amazon Prime yearly cost has gone too high, and yet, Amazon Prime continues to thrive. I think if Netflix goes up closer to $20, people will complain more, but I don't think it'll substantially dent the number of subscriptions they have.

When all is said and done though, it looks more and more like we've trading bloated cable packages for bloated streaming packages. Instead of having 500 channels even though you only watch about a dozen of them, you'll have multiple streaming services - some will offer you a variety of content that you'll enjoy year-round, and others will only offer one or two items of interest to you. You'll likely keep one of those subscriptions active year round, and have a few others that you cycle through signing up, watching a show, and then canceling until the show comes back for another season.

But it certainly seems that the idea that you could cancel a $150 a month cable subscription, replace it with a $10 streaming service subscription, and have equal access to identical content was more wishful thinking than reality.

 

[dpippel]

The day that Netflix stops being a good value for me, or the day they start mimicking the industry they've supplanted for me, is the day I stop giving them my money.

 

[Robert Crawford]

The day that Netflix stops being a good value for me, or the day they start mimicking the industry they've supplanted for me, is the day I stop giving them my money.

The day is coming when I lose interest in new programming and that my disc collection, digital library and TCM will be good enough for me. I might add 1 or 2 services that cater to my tastes such as Criterion, Warner or Disney with Fox titles, but I will definitely reduce my home entertainment costs to a certain point so I can maximize what I already have paid for and is available to me.

 

[Mark McSherry]

Why do we need all this new programming? After all, how many people have watched all 635 episodes of Gunsmoke?

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I have never subscribed to Netflix, so this doesn’t have a direct impact on me. However, I already endured another Amazon Prime increase at our December renewal. At $10 per month, though, it’s still a better deal for us than Netflix, since we get additional benefits other than just streaming.

I have been avoiding paying for any other streaming service, with the exception of NHL.tv to watch my beloved Montreal Canadiens. We had Hulu for awhile for free as part of our Sprint cellular service, but when I changed to a less expensive plan that went away, too. I may pay for a month of HBO streaming after Game of Thrones Season 8 is done, but that will probably be it for us.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The day that Netflix stops being a good value for me, or the day they start mimicking the industry they've supplanted for me, is the day I stop giving them my money.

In all seriousness, I feel the same way. The frustrating thing about this rate hike is that it's to finance the production of more original content, when I already can't keep up with all of the new stuff I want to watch. I'd rather they produce less, and charge me less.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

There’s just an explosion of content now, both on Netflix and every other new and emerging platform. You gotta figure that at some point, it’s gonna start stabilizing and leveling out with smaller numbers of things being made overall. I don’t think constant expansion at all times is eternally sustainable.

 

[dpippel]

"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." - Edward Abbey

 

[Sam Posten]

Hulu is the first thing to cut.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Why do we need all this new programming? After all, how many people have watched all 635 episodes of Gunsmoke?

Well, I guess it could be aimed at people like me who have never watched (nor intend to watch) even a single episode of Gunsmoke...

As others have said, Netflix keep spending all this money they don't have on content (not just their own original programming, but the stuff they're buying-in, also), presumably to build/maintain their position as the market leader, but at some point, they've got to change their model (run more efficiently/turn a profit or at least break even) or the whole house of cards will fall.

Do I like the increase? No, but I really can't complain too much. Having Netflix, Hulu and Prime is still way, way cheaper than my Dish Network bill used to be, and I get far more out of these services than I ever got out of Dish.

And, yes, Prime is the least-watched of the three, but I'm also using the heck out of Prime for the free shipping. And, there are one or two things on Prime Video that I actually watch (I watch Black Books there instead of on Hulu so I can avoid the commercials, for instance).

 

[Robert Crawford]

Hulu is the first thing to cut.

I originally thought so, but I'm only paying $3.00 a month for it which is roughly 10 cents a day over the course of a year. If the price is raised then I'll have to rethink about Hulu.

 

[Bryan^H]

Only, if you use it enough to see it's a great bargain. For myself, even with me retired, I have too much programming available to me so I'm looking to cut out some stuff out in 2019, in order to save some money.

DirecTV: Premier
Netflix: Premium
Hulu
Amazon Prime

Also, there's my extensive 4KUHD/BD/DVD library. As well as the TCM app. and various streams/downloads options I have on Vudu and iTunes.

TBH, I've been a DirecTV Premier subscriber for over 20 years, but I rarely watch any of the premium channels except to watch something like True Detective or Game of Thrones on HBO. I hardly watch premium channels like Showtime, Movie Channel or even the Starz channels. I'm a sports nut so I do watch my NBA Pass, NFL Ticket and MLB Extra Innings sports packages. I definitely need to change my DirecTV Premier package to reflect my current viewing habits and stop wasting monies each month as the rates for these home entertainment services continue to rise with no end in sight.

The same with Hulu which is attached to my Spotify Account. I rarely watch anything on Hulu. In 2019, we have Disney, Warner and Criterion coming with their services. I have some hard decisions to make as I just have too much stuff to watch for me to get enough value out of them to justify the monies I'm spending each month with all of these home entertainment options.

I dropped my Cable as I am spending a couple hundred dollars every month for Blu-Ray movies. I don't need to add an extra $100 a month for shows I barely watch. I still have Amazon Prime which in my opinion kills Netflix. Much more content, and they don't seem to lose their content as quickly as Netflix. In fact I haven't noticed anything I'm interested in going away...yet.

EDIT: also got HULU just to re-watch St. Elsewhere. When I'm done with it, that will be it for my HULU sub.

 

[mattCR]

So Amazon Prime for me is a freebie; I subscribe to Prime for the free shipping, and I order a lot from Amazon, so it pays for itself.. the video streaming is a perk.

I added Hulu a few years ago for Handmaid's Tale and am likely to drop it. I added CBS All Access for The Good Fight, and I'll keep it. Yeah, I get DirecTV with all the channels and so on, since we have AT&T Fiber. But, something is going to get cut. It's likely Hulu.