Thinking of dropping Netflix

Yup, a 60% price increase is enough to push me over the edge, maybe. they drop this big ol price increase without any coherent explanation. From what I can pull from their lame blog post they didn't anticipate people still actually wanting discs. They figured everyone would go with the streaming service and they'd make a mint. From what they said, lots of folks still want the discs. I would like the option of discs because sometimes the extras on a DVD are great, like The Office.
So, they almost, nearly elude to the fact that it's more expensive to offer the discs so they gotta hike the price up 60% (again, if you just tell me what's going on I'm much more prone to be ok with it). Wanna know what really pisses me off? So, they charge more money if you want to continue getting the actual discs in the mail....then they start pulling programs that were streaming and make them disc-only! What the! There were two series I was watching that are now disc only. So, you hike the price way up and then try to force me to use that service!?
I'm signing up for a 30-day trial with Blockbuster today.
This relates directly to the thread about customer service. If you treat me, the customer well I'll be loyal forever. Once I feel you are screwing me, I'll drop you like a bad habit and try to influence as many others to follow suit as possible.

We are thinking about dropping them too, for the same reasons.

I'd be fine with streaming only, if the available titles weren't so darned lame.

Does Blockbuster have a streaming and/or mail service too?

Eh, I knew it wasn't going to last. The way I see it, the $7.99 price for DVD only is still lower than the old $8.99 price for DVD only before the streaming started.

Oh, and I find a lot of good E36 M3 to stream. Amazon Prime's streaming selections are getting better, too.

The wife and I were talking about this last night. I could understand a slight increase, but from $13.99 to $20.99 a month is a bit ridiculous. We are not sure if we are dropping them yet, they still don't offer a lot on the streaming (like tv series).

Debating between dropping to one disc + streaming, or one disc and picking up amazon for streaming. I order enough from amazon (2-3 orders/month on average) that the shipping benefits would be a nice sweetener.

What's the deal with Amazon?

We had suspended our account over the summer as there are better things to do, this plus the 60% hike (I don't care if it is only $6 more) made it easy to cancel - which we did.

Come late fall/winter maybe I'll look into other streaming options (Amazon, Crackle, torrent DL's, etc.) and there is always RedBox for a quick cheap DVD or BluRay rental.

The reason people still want disks is 90% of everything I want to stream is only available on disk. Aaaaand Showtime pulled all its content so I can't watch Dexter. I will also be dropping them as soon as I finish Rescue Me.

$16/month for Blockbuster, 3 out at a time, unlimited DVD/BluRay/Games. Smaller plans are cheaper.

I believe streaming is available, but you may have to buy one of their boxes for it. Or at least that's how it worked 2 years ago, don't know what they've done since then.

I have no interest in streaming.

It has nothing to do with the prices they pay the studios for content or that companies like Level 3 are dramatically increasing the cost of their bandwidth.

Those evil profit-driven, corporate bastardos!

I'd pay $15/month for no discs, if they'd just make everything available streaming.

Hardly anything on my que is available for streaming which is making me wonder why I even have that option. Time to re evaluate my service. I think they put a lot of people out of business and now they are getting greedy.

Lets see I get 2 movies a week minimum, So that's a minimum of 8 movies a month + streaming. This is well worth the 20 bux or whatever, Or I could download bootleg crap spend time finding stuff for free. My time is worth more then 20 bux. I think its worth it. I have had Netflix for a long time 2004 I think. It has been under priced for so long it's not even funny. I love all over the internet people are lashing out against netflix saying they are going to start Redbox. Go ahead I can get through my Que faster.

I've gone through 18 movies in a month through Blockbuster before.

All BluRays, all for $16. WIN!

Part of the expense comes from Starz. Sony, Showtime, and Disney offered there streaming through Starz. Netflix was getting the rights from Starz. So many Netflix users were using the service that Starz exceeded the number of downloads allowed by the studios. Netflix users caused Starz to breach contract with the studio and the studio came back expecting to get paid a lot more.

I can't find the original article but this one is kind of similar: http://consumerist.com/2011/06/netflix-stops-streaming-sony-movies-due-to-temporary-starz-contract-snafu.html

Yea, I can get 3 movies a month plus streaming through Blockbuster, and have the option of taking the movie to the store to get another one right now. Now, I don't know either if you need a box for Blockbuster or not so I'll look into that.
My issue with Netflix is this. When you pull a 60% price hike I'd like to know why. Tell me "Well, I took on another 10,000 sq. ft. house and a boat. After I saw the payment books I realized I need more money" if that's the deal. But to put out useless, cryptic blog posts that don't attempt to explain a huge spike like that is poor customer service.
I'll admit, it's still a decent deal but, when they are pulling items OFF the streaming list and charging me more you are now pissing in my Cheerios.
Urine taste nasty.

it's funny when people complain about silly stuff like this- Netflix isn't a charity or non profit organization.. they need to make money. so they raised their artificially low price point to a slightly higher but probably still artificially low price point...

don't like it or don't think it's still a great deal? then take your business somewhere else and see how long it takes for that other company to raise their artificially low rate, too.

personally, i couldn't possibly care less about what they do. i'm one of those weirdos that likes to buy movies on dvd and own it forever. the last movie i ever rented was the original Transformers movie when it came out on VHS back in 86- and i rented that movie a LOT instead of just asking my mom to buy it for me.

i also buy music cds that i like so i can own it forever, too.

We don't use streaming anymore (no home internet) so we just dropped streaming.

I can see why they would charge more though. Its super easy to go crazy with the streaming and watch far more programming than you ever could with a 1 or multi disc plan. Bandwidth isn't free, and streaming really seems to have taken off, imo it was only a matter of time before the price got jacked. When we were able to use the streaming (with a 1 disc plan) I TOTALLY felt like I was taking full advantage of them.

The disc plans increased in price slightly, I guess to partially cover the cost of your streaming asses

Uh, NOPE. The fact that people still want discs is why the price when up. The streaming price has stayed the same. On top of that, they are taking titles FROM the streaming list and putting them on the disc-only list....then charging more.
Oh Vovaderrik, slightly higher isn't 60% in any book.

novaderrik wrote: it's funny when people complain about silly stuff like this- Netflix isn't a charity or non profit organization.. they need to make money. so they raised their artificially low price point to a slightly higher but probably still artificially low price point... don't like it or don't think it's still a great deal? then take your business somewhere else and see how long it takes for that other company to raise their artificially low rate, too.

I think you are completely missing the point.

We ARE discussing taking our business somewhere else because we no longer like it.

Nobody's whining- we are talking about doing exactly what you recommend.

I am perfectly OK with NetFlix (as a for-profit company) making whatever decision they want to, as long as they are OK with me doing the same with my purchasing dollars.

My MediaCom account warned me that it was an introductory rate. My NetFlix account did not. If it was artificially low, they should have dealt with it in a manner other than a 60% unannounced price hike.

They chose to present the product in a deceptive manner. I am now choosing to take my business elsewhere.

SVreX wrote: </cite

My MediaCom account warned me that it was an introductory rate. My NetFlix account did not. If it was artificially low, they should have dealt with it in a manner other than a 60% unannounced price hike.

They chose to present the product in a deceptive manner. I am now choosing to take my business elsewhere.

What the heck are you talking about introductory rate. They have not raised the price that I can remember if ever. What the hell. Its a price increase. If you think this is some sort of shady act I'm going to put you on notice that the price of stamps, gas, electricity and everything else will increase. Did they tell you it was an introductory rate?

I don't understand how it was unannounced. The price increase takes place on september 1st. I got the notification last week. So that's more than 6 weeks notice. How much advance warning do you need?

Keith wrote: I don't understand how it was unannounced. The price increase takes place on september 1st. I got the notification last week. So that's more than 6 weeks notice. How much advance warning do you need?

While the unanouced bit was a bit silly... a 60% hike is pretty damn big to expect people to just swallow without question. So I fail to see the point in taking someone to task for said questioning. As far as I can tell the price is going up and the service is getting worse. That's a big pill to swallow without more information made readily available.,

Keith wrote: I don't understand how it was unannounced. The price increase takes place on september 1st. I got the notification last week. So that's more than 6 weeks notice. How much advance warning do you need?

Quoted for truth.

I don't love the fact that it's going up, but big deal. Skip one meal at Five Guys' a month, and you have your extra 8 Netflix dollars.

Probably better for me in the long run anyway.

Would you guys get over the "ZomG it's a 60% price increase?!?!?!?!?!" We're talking less than a 6 pack of decent brew.

Dr. Boost, I and others have outlined why the price is going up. Studio's are demanding more and more money for movies, TV shows, etc. Also the dramatic increase in the use of streaming has increased the AMOUNT of bandwidth they need to maintain, also a cost increase.

Unannounced was the wrong word. Unanticipated. Unexpected.

It was a response to the comment that the rate was "artificially low". I saw no reason to expect that it was artificially low.

I didn't say it was a shady act. I said 60% jump is too much.