Netflix Raising Prices Up To 60%

[Woochifer]

Right on cue. As I've been predicting for months, Netflix has made a major shift to their pricing tiers. While the basic streaming plan remains at $8/month, the DVD mailer option is no longer bundled into the plan options. The basic plan with the DVD mailer option now starts at $16/month, which is a 60% fee hike for people who stream and use the disc by-mail service. Currently, the plans start at $10/month and allow for unlimited streaming plus one disc out at a time.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...,4419525.story

Contrary to the tech press' obsession with streaming, 80% of Netflix's subscribers currently enroll in some form of combo streaming/DVD mailer plan. So, this is a massive price hike for the vast majority of Netflix's current subscribers.

Those of us who subscribe to Netflix know how many movies and TV series are missing from Netflix's streaming. This makes the DVD mailer an essential part of the Netflix service by filling in the many gaps in Netflix's streaming library.

Essentially Netflix is protecting the streaming business by now having the DVD mailer plans subsidize the escalating streaming content costs. DVD and Blu-ray acquisition costs have not increased, yet it's the optical disc mailers that are getting this massive price hike.

I subscribe to the $10/month plan, and while I like it, I'm not sure that I will keep it at $16/month. I would opt to scale the service back to an $8/month streaming-only plan, but my wife uses the DVD mailers for TV shows that are not available via streaming.