Netflix announced their separation of unlimited DVDs and unlimited streaming yesterday and the accompanying 60% price increase if you want the same level of service before the announcement. While lots of prices are increasing today, it seems this increase from Netflix is coming as a slap across the face for many people and they aren’t taking it lightly.
The first protests started on the Netflix Blog post where comments maxed out to the Blogger threshold of 5,000 comments within 8 hours of the announcement. From there, over 29,000 comments have been posted in reply on the Netflix Facebook page as of publishing. Branching out from the official locations to provide feedback, a number of Facebook pages have been started like: Cancel Netflix, I Unlike Netflix Today, I use to love Netflix until they decided to rip me off, 1,000,000 people who will not stand for Netflix’s new prices, and I’m sure there are others out there that I have missed.
“Dear Netflix” has become a trending topic on Twitter with most people telling Netflix how they hate the price increase, posting screenshots of their service cancellation letter, or posting images of their calendars showing canceling Netflix before September 1st.
Both Netflix and Coinstar, Inc., the owner of Redbox, have seen their stock prices jump up this morning. What will the price change mean for the long term?
Many of the protests across social media are complaining that Netflix used low prices until they drove other companies like Blockbuster out of business and now that they have eliminated the competition, they are increasing the prices. Unfortunately for Netflix, this might not be completely true. There are more competitors now than before, especially for the streaming market: Hulu, Amazon Prime Instant Streaming, and CinemaNow offer streaming alternatives while Blockbuster DVDs by mail and GreenCine offer DVDs by mail.
Many complaints of yesterday’s change based their arguments on a lackluster selection in Netflix’s Instant Streaming selection. Perhaps having Netflix split the services is for the better, if you get 1 DVD at a time by mail and use Hulu and Amazon Prime Instant Streaming, you might be able to get a better selection at lower prices.
Some defend Netflix saying that the media companies are raising prices on them with license renegotiations coming up soon. If this is the case, do you think Netflix should come forward with this information and pass the buck that they’re not the reason for the price increase at their “lowest prices ever”? They might be their “lowest prices ever” but its far from their best deal ever.