Well here’s a case study of how a brand loses half its audience overnite. Justified or not, I bet it’s likely. Especially if Twitter comments are any indication. AND THEY ARE BECAUSE TWITTER DOESN’T LIE. So I get this email tonight saying basically the one price I currently pay for Netflix (unlimited streaming and one DVD out at a time via mail delivery), is being doubled. The plan I have will be split in two to reflect how people use their service (DVDs via regular mail or streamed.) Is it an unreasonable price?
Not when you consider what you don’t get from Hulu’s ad-supported Plus service ($7.99 monthly for some average choices), YouTube’s $3.99 and Apple’s $3.99 iTunes offerings. On the surface then, Netflix is a bargain. Except they can’t compete in terms of offering the same streaming titles. Forget Hulu, you find far more theatrical releases on Apple or YouTube. That Sony pulled content from Netflix doesn't help the cause. Regardless, a price hike would’ve been easier had they bundled it with an improved selection of instant titles.
Offer current members the opportunity to be grandfathered in and not pay an increase. Otherwise, this hike is a stun gun to the private parts of a movie community already watching the Netflix user experience diminish lately (lack of contemporary title relative to other services, reviews stripped of user IDs, etc.)
They say you can call or write, but cancelling sure speaks louder. Hello redbox.
4 comments:
I love Redbox. I used it religiously when in the states and now that I'm back in Canada, I use its sister-company Zip.ca (same premise).
I'll admit though that I was taken aback a little while ago when Zip.ca raised its new release prices from $1.00 to $2.00. Now I know it's only a dollar more and hardly a comparison to what Netflix is doing to pooch its Customers....but it's the principle.
In any other business model, such an increase would be laughable (and not in a good way). Imagine if food costs or gas literally doubled over night. There'd be riots in the street and general civil unrest.
While I'm not saying that I'll start torching cars because I now have to pay $1.00 more to find out what happens to Harry Potter, I am saying that businesses needed to watch how much they bubble their price model. Especially in a time where all consumers are mercenaries and will slit throats of brands they have been loyal to in the past for a better deal in the future.
I'm considering dropping my disc plan, or changing it from two discs to one. But that just plays into their ultimate plan or dropping discs altogether. Which I guess would be okay if all the titles could be streamed.
Still though, I've gotten accostomed to Blu-ray. My broadband connection can barely stream the blocky junk I see now, so how am I supposed to watch something in HD?
Thanks for alerting me to the YouTube option. I didn't realize they rented movies. Why didn't I know that?
ugh! I'm a huge Netflix fan. I almost cried when I heard about the price increase. I changed my plan to streaming only :/ ... I'll miss my DVDs.
*waving at Redbox too*
Ugh, of course I just signed up for Netflix.
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