It seems that people are unhappy with Netflix and its decision to change the pricing plans and effectively raise the price of the DVD rental plan by 60%. Very, very, very unhappy.
For those of you who’ve not been keeping up, I’ll let my colleague Rachel King explain the changes:
“For subscribers who still want both unlimited streaming and at least the unlimited one DVD out at-a-time plan, they’ll have to fork over $15.98 per month (thus, $7.99 + $7.99). For reference, up until now, the rate for the comparative unlimited DVD and streaming plan has been $9.99 per month.”
What’s not mentioned is the reason behind this change. According to CNN Money, Netflix has been forced to hike prices because it needs to find some extra $2 billion in content costs for the studios next year. That’s not walking around money, and it seems that Netflix is asking customers to turn out their pockets to foot this bill. ZDNet editor-in-chief Larry Dignan agrees - “Netflix’s price changes are all about the dollars.”
Netflix throws the phrase “terrific value” around a lot in its announcement of the price changes, but customers feel differently. Very differently. In fact, within minutes of the announcement a social media fireball erupted, with Netflix at its center.