Once upon a time I was a Blockbuster subscriber. I received DVDs in the mail, and then went over to the physical Blockbuster store (a 10 minute drive) to exchange them for free. I remained a Blockbuster subscriber for a pretty long time. Then Blockbuster raised their rates. I canceled my Blockbuster subscription and got Netflix, and a Netflix compatible Blu-ray player. I’ve remained with Netflix ever since.
There is not a moral to that story – in case you were looking; raising rates does not immediately get you booted. It is only when you think that the price does not deliver the goods that it promises, that it does. Today I received an email from Netflix. It said :
We are separating unlimited DVDs by mail and unlimited streaming into two separate plans to better reflect the costs of each. Now our members have a choice: a streaming only plan, a DVD only plan, or both.
Your current $11.99 a month membership for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs (including Blu-ray access) will be split into 2 distinct plans:
Plan 1: Unlimited Streaming (no DVDs) for $7.99 a month
Plan 2: Unlimited DVDs (including Blu-ray), 1 out at-a-time (no streaming)
for $9.99 a monthYour price for getting both of these plans will be $17.98 a month ($7.99 + $9.99). You don’t need to do anything to continue your memberships for both unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs.
These prices will start for charges on or after September 1, 2011.
So, here’s the backstory. Netflix had a plan that allowed you to rent DVDs by mail, and stream films for $9.99. I paid $2 extra since my mail-in plan had the Blu-ray option. Still, $11.99 to get DVDs by mail (one at a time) and have hundreds of films at your finger-tips, via streaming, was a no-brainer. Now that Netflix is separating it’s plans, you are forced to choose one or pay a premium if you want both.
In my case, I will now have to pay $17.98 (+tax) if I want the service that I had before : $10 for Blu-ray by-mail rentals, and $8 for streaming. Me thinks Netflix is trying to get out of the DVD business and concentrate on the streaming alone. Redbox kiosks charge $1 for movie rentals/day ($1.50 for blu-ray), and get the film faster than Netflix. Over the past year or so, Redbox kiosk locations have tripled and a few more wouldn’t hurt.
So, the upshot of all this is that I will probably keep my streaming service (and hope that Netflix provides more content on it) but get rid of my mail-in service. In all fairness I’ve got to say that Netflix service is pretty good. I don’t have empirical data, but on the whole Netflix turnaround times are pretty fast ( faster than Blockbuster was). I mail in a movie today, and the new movie is mailed out the day-after – a 2 day turn-around. So I mail-out Monday morning and go check the mail on Thursday evening and the red envelope is in there – not bad, yeah ?
And yes, the streaming films are not in hi-def, but they are pretty close to DVD quality. Netflix’s selection is large when it comes to streaming desi films, from Sanjeev Kumar’s classic “Mausam”, to the Sonam starrer Delhi-6, to the newer “Dhobi Ghat” – way more than any desi video store would ever get you. Plus they have the esoteric titles like say, “Loins of Punjab presents”. Try asking for that at a desi video store; they look at you perplexed, and one of them even told me that they didn’t carry documentaries e.g.; “Lions of Punjab”. Being the ardent movie-watcher that I am, with streaming I have the opportunity to watch gorgeous foreign films like “Bread and Tulips”, or discover fantastic titles like “Moon”. Streaming is wonderful and is all set to be the future and I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.
Today’s price hike has irked a number of Netflix subscribers, most of them venting their ire on Netflix’s blog or Facebook page. #DearNetflix is a trending topic on Twitter. Now, Netflix is a money-making concern not a charity, so I’m assuming that this is the way they look to make profits. It is up to me as a subscriber to decide whether I want to spend my money on them or on Blockbuster or on Hulu or on Amazon Prime. Plain economics really. Price it too high and not deliver enough value for the money, and you lose people. Price it too low and go out of business.
Still, I must say that Netflix needs to work on it’s PR. To announce a 60% price hike all in one day ? Really ? How bad does a 60% increase look printed across headlines in most newspapers and information websites, and have angry subscribers announce (to the world) that they are going to quit come September ? Talk about negative press! If you have to go up, how about 30% spaced out by 6 months? Or how about introducing a hybrid plan in addition to the 2 separate plans ?
I’m not sure what the head honchos at Netflix are planning but I sure hope that they get a larger movie database on streaming, and find a way to get hi-def on it too. One would appreciate it if a quality movie rental service remained that way.
