Netflix is Testing Even More Expensive Subscription Prices (bgr.com) 143
An anonymous reader shares a report: Every once in a while, we see Netflix test new plans in certain markets, and most of them involve price hikes. The same goes for the latest test that was spotted over in Italy, where the streaming giant is toying with a couple of different scenarios. First spotted by Italian-language blog SmartWorld, the tests suggest that Netflix is toying with the idea of either raising Standard and Premium subscription, or increasing all of its prices across the board.
Right now the default monthly Netflix streaming prices for Italy and other countries in the European Union are at Euro 7.99, or ~$9.1 (Base), Euro 10.99, or ~$12.5 (Standard), and Euro 13.99, or $16 (Premium). One of the tests that Netflix is currently conducting proposes that the Base subscription stays the same, but the Standard and Premium plans go up to Euro 12.99, or ~$14.8 and Euro 17.99, or ~$20.5 respectively.
Right now the default monthly Netflix streaming prices for Italy and other countries in the European Union are at Euro 7.99, or ~$9.1 (Base), Euro 10.99, or ~$12.5 (Standard), and Euro 13.99, or $16 (Premium). One of the tests that Netflix is currently conducting proposes that the Base subscription stays the same, but the Standard and Premium plans go up to Euro 12.99, or ~$14.8 and Euro 17.99, or ~$20.5 respectively.
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I tried that. It's amazing how terrible I am returning or losing those dang DVDs.
Now if I want the DVD version bad enough, I just buy it off Amazon. I did the math for shows like Buffy, Babylon 5, etc and even with ripping the dvd and putting it back in the mail the same day, it still ended up costing almost as much as the boxset.
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Yeah it does not work for TV shows they mail you a DVD and not the season. Check your local library and/or Family Video (amazingly enough they still exist), I've had good success there.
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Check your local library....
Yeah... many people forget that libraries have lots of DVDs available to borrow. The next series I'm going watch is The Expanse and the best/cheapest place for me to get it is my local library. The [surviving] libraries are evolving beyond just books.
You know, at some point soon... (Score:5, Insightful)
They have less and less content on there, and yet they keep raising their prices?
For what exactly are we getting for this increate of money paid in?
Original content is ok, some of it is pretty good, but they hardly ever these days have a modern movie I want to watch, which is why I subscribed to them int he first place!!!
Re:You know, at some point soon... (Score:4, Informative)
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They did for a minute. Now it seems like everything is foreign language and subtitled or dubbed and they aren't clearly labeled as such either. They don't even provide a good way to block that crap.
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Oh look, an American realizing he's no longer the center of the world...
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Well, for US citizens, watching streaming from a US company...we do kind of expect the absolute majority of the content to be US content, or at the very least, speaking English.
When it comes to watching entertainment, WTF should we have to watch foreign content with subtitles?
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And you shouldn't have to do none o' that there book-learnin' neither.
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As a US citizen, you should be aware that what Netflix is doing is simply driven by customer demand, and their customers are all over the world.
Also, you are getting all pissy over something that is considered normality anywhere else but the US.
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That is different. I mean it gets annoying at some point if there is going to be a ton of it and at some point it is nice if they switch to English after a period of that to establish the scene or whatever but for a few sketches of audio here and there the native speech and subtitling can add to rather than detract from the viewing experience.
That is all the normal stuff. More and more though Netflix is producing films natively in foreign languages and in the US we are getting crappy dubbed or subtitled ver
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Some of those are really good, but they need to put an easy indicator of what you're going to be watching so you can know exactly how much attention you need to pay to the screen vs doing multiple things with it on and half watching.
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"Some of those are really good"
Agreed, that is the problem. They would have been really good if they'd made them in English as well and not be a pain in the arse to watch. Now, I'm not talking about content that was made by the movie industry in country X or similarly some tv series that Netflix bought. I get that. I'm talking about Netflix making a deliberate choice to produce a crappy dubbed or subtitled experience when they could have made it in English in the first place.
Re:You know, at some point soon... (Score:4, Informative)
I have to pay $2.00 in a soda machine for a bottle of Coke. 10 years ago I needed to pay $1.50 and 20 years ago it was $1.00.
It is like its price rises 3% every year.
However the biggest problem with Subscription services, is that over time, they will need to raise their prices, however people have the money for the services budgeted. So Price rises tend to cause outrage. Vs having a DVD and then getting one at a higher price in the future. This doesn't cause as much outrage.
Re:You know, at some point soon... (Score:4, Informative)
While I get your point...I have to say WOW, where do you buy your cokes?
I've seen it that high at places like airports where you expect to be gouged, but in regular life, I don't regularly see coke machines THAT expensive. Hell, I don't pay that much in a convienience store...
Most places where I live, yes, I guess about $1 or $1.25 is the norm, although you can at times find them slightly less...but where do you live? Is everything around you really expensive?
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Somewhere along the line, I got annoyed enough with the soda machine prices to start bring in my own soda.
It makes me wonder what the breaking point is for me when it comes to Netflix subscription costs? $20 a month? At some point, switching over to Hulu or HBO Go will seem like a better option.
Re:You know, at some point soon... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Product sizes get smaller all the time.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4908742/Coke-shrink-size-cans-price-change.html
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There is a difference between paying more money for the same thing and paying more money for less. Netflix loses content each time their licensing deals expire. Soon you will be paying for their originals and not much else.
I'm okay with that. I don't accept eighteen subscriptions to eighteen different streaming services. So I pay the price asked by the one place where it was "all" at; Netflix. Everyone who pulls their content from there has failed to retain me as a customer. If they had negotiated a deal with Netflix such that the overall price had to go up somewhat... fine. If they negotiated a system where I had to pay for what I consume, again fine.
I liken my opinion on this not unlike groceries. I am not intereste
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I don't think people would object so much if they had good content. For a minute Netflix at least made some good original content. Then it seemed like they went crazy and flung shit at the wall hoping something would stick. Now they produced all kinds of foreign crap and mix it up with real content. It's one thing if they carry foreign content and that content is foreign language but I have a serious issue with them spending the money I'm paying on foreign language crap.
If they use only foreign funds to pro
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Many countries won't allow them in if they don't spend money to make local language programs.
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So make the dubbed local language versions or just don't do business in places with draconian laws that regulate what streaming services their citizens can use. Places that make their bed like that should have to lie in it. I'm advocating voting with ones dollar not legislating entertainment.
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So add in other streaming channels, obvious examples, a music video channel (they can also create lots of new content, advertise for hopefulls to create performances, that they will get paid for) or a sporting replay channel (after the live stream, those live to air venues can onsell that content). Can't charge much for either but they would not be that expensive and become an effective add on, to ramp up the subscription fee. I tried the higher definition stuff but even with the supposed bandwidth the Aust
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Really? Then why don't seem to have the content that goes with it?
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That was quick, wasn't there just an article about how they are loosing money to pirates because kids continue to use their parents account even after they move out.
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LOSING, not loosing....HTH.
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not the way those kids hit it
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Perhaps you can convince the dictionary writers that they finally write loosing how it is pronounced and not how it is wrongly kept in the dictionaries since 200 years.
Sorry, you write now nite instead of night, but can not accept to write loose instead of lose? Makes no sense .... funnily loose is not red underlined, seems my spelling correction accepts it somehow.
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Makes no sense .... funnily loose is not red underlined, seems my spelling correction accepts it somehow.
"Loose" and "loosing" are perfectly valid words—as in "the knot is loose" or "Mr. Burns deals with unwanted visitors by loosing his hounds." A spellchecker only flags words which aren't in the dictionary; it can't tell when you use the wrong word.
Re:You know, at some point soon... (Score:4, Interesting)
"people were tired of that model and wanted a less immense set of content for far less money."
huh? No, no they don't. They want an immense set which includes all the good content from all the offerings for the price of any one of the offerings. Hell, I'd pay as much as $50 (without bullshit add on fees/taxes) for a one stop shop that includes streaming of all the new release movies (high grade remux quality) and commercial free shows including the premiums as well as sports with titles never disappearing from the catalog. The shows could even keep the commercials so long as everything is fast-forwardable.
The last thing I want is 14 little mini apps I have to hunt between looking for what I want each nickel and diming me and adding up to more than I paid for cable.
Live by the sword... (Score:3)
Netflix, and to a lesser extent, Amazon Prime Video, have done a fantastic job of convincing me that I can live without cable television. I've been a cord-cutter for a few years now, made all the easier with the fantastic content they've been putting out. The side-effect of that is that though is that I've also lowered the value that television-based entertainment has in my life. I'm down to just two hours per day now, and I can go long periods of time without watching anything.
Obviously, Netflix needs to k
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The side-effect of that is that though is that I've also lowered the value that television-based entertainment has in my life. I'm down to just two hours per day now, and I can go long periods of time without watching anything.
Do you play video games? Because Netflix stated recently they are in tough competition with video games for people's time, particularly with consumers 40 years old.
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I have not played video games for a few years now, but I do play board games. Between that and other social activities, as well as starting a company as a passion-project that exists in addition to my IT career, time spent in front of the television is now done solely as filler.
But another component of this is I'm recently single. TV-time is often done as a semi-social activity with a significant other. Two people probably can't do three hours of engaging conversation every single day, so TV provides a back
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You cut the cord....only to replace it with more cords. That doesn't seem like cord cutting, more like, cord replacement.
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For what exactly are we getting for this increate of money paid in?
Stranger Things, Bird Box, and content from Michelle Obama.
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That's great, but I want to watch south park. Or older movies.
Or ... so many things that have been, or soon will be, removed. Yah, they've made a ton of orig. content and kudos...but how about all the old content?
Netflix is trying to become a new studio ala HBO or something and that's fine. But I'm still looking for a practical solution to watching the movies and occasional series I like without having to subscribe to 15 different streaming providers and then hunt through their apps. Oh, and needing to
Re:You know, at some point soon... (Score:4, Insightful)
You act like that's Netflix fault. It's not like they went to Disney and said "Go start your own streaming service. We don't want your content." It's not even like Netflix was too cheap to pay for it. They paid $100 million to keep streaming Friends, which while not my cup of tea is hugely popular among certain groups.
Netflix doesn't have first run movies because the studios won't give Netflix streaming rights over them. In most cases those movies aren't available for streaming anywhere but Amazon, where you'll pay a price equivalent to buying the DVD for them, and have no guarantee they won't evaporate eventually.
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....they're gonna start really losing people.
They have less and less content on there, and yet they keep raising their prices?
Sure, but if their marketing improves even faster than their quality drops, why would they care. While there is a finite number of suckers on the planet, they aren't going to run out soon. Finding new ones, or persuading old ones to come back - that's what their marketing department is for.
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....they're gonna start really losing people.
They have less and less content on there, and yet they keep raising their prices?
Sure, but if their marketing improves even faster than their quality drops, why would they care. While there is a finite number of suckers on the planet, they aren't going to run out soon. Finding new ones, or persuading old ones to come back - that's what their marketing department is for.
They have plenty more new content...it's just not the content you want. Or that I want. I only keep my netflix sub because it keeps my GF happy and that's worth 10 bucks a month. If it was just myself I'd have dropped them a long while ago.
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Wanna watch ghostbusters? Download the Ghostbusters App! Wanna watch Futrama? Download the Futurama app!
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what exactly are we getting for this increase of money paid in?
Remember those EU laws requiring that Netflix stuff their catalog with a certain percentage of locally produced content?
Gotta pay for that somehow.
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Well, then only charge the EU countries more...let them pay for it, if they are requiring it.
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Already doing this, manually, in part as a protest of the price hiking practice, effectively nullifying it. Don't want to spend too much time on any specific streaming service anyway. Pausing all streaming services is helpful to concentrate on book reading too, for those of us daring to try to make a dent in the reading list.
What I'd really like to see happen though is for the content to become entirely disconnected from the distribution channels, i.e. streaming service brands, DVD & Blue-Ray manufact
no! (Score:1)
11 (Score:4, Funny)
These prices go up to eleven.
Normal prices go up to 10, but if you need to extra push over the cliff, you put it up to 11. One higher profit.
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Tech (Score:5, Insightful)
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Amazon (and Google Play) does sell most - if not all - of the shows. Not on Amazon Prime, but via "pay $1.99 per episode or a certain amount per season."
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I don't buy many shows per-episode, but typically they appear in the listings a day to a week after it airs (depending on the show).
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I'm not sure about Amazon.ca, but they list "Digital" versions of shows on Amazon.com. You buy them like you would buy a DVD, but you can buy single episodes or whole seasons.
For example, here's a link to The Orville: https://www.amazon.com/Old-Wounds/dp/B074SY51TB/ [amazon.com].
You could click that (or the Amazon.ca equivalent link), pay for Season 1 and/or 2, and then start watching.
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Amazon should be able to sell all shows, not just be able to display certain shows. Same issue with Netflix.
You should talk to the content creators about that. Explain to them they should split their streaming profits with some other company, because.
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The Splintering Continues (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't intrinsically mind my Netflix bill going up another buck or two a month; that's about in line with inflation when they started doing the streaming thing.
The bigger issue is that they're shifting, and while I get it, it's overall less compelling. They killed Blockbuster by allowing DVD rentals in the mail without any late fees. They pivoted toward streaming, because obviously that was the next logical step. Then, they started producing original content because it was starting to cost more in licensing to keep big-four movies in the list than it cost to produce their own, and with House of Cards and Orange Is The New Black turning out to be pretty popular, I certainly can't blame them for focusing more on original content than trying to license Hollywood blockbusters.
The problem is that as the third party content continues to wane, Netflix stops being Netflix and they end up just being the new HBO, while also competing with HBO, and Disney, and everyone else who wants a bigger slice of a smaller pie.
Now, there's enough good Netflix content across the spectrum for them to sustain an audience, and Netflix has already proven that they have a market for their original content.
The question is whether their original content is something most of their customers will be willing to pay more for, and while I think they are, I think that for Netflix to continue to grow as another-HBO-on-the-Internet, they're going to start to be doing it at the expense of the companies from whom they previously licensed content. It will be interesting whether Netflix starts beating Disney at their own game, or vice versa...because I submit that the lack of any Disney/Marvel/Star Wars content is going to be a bigger tell than a $2 rate hike.
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They have some more family friendly stuff (Score:2)
Re:The Splintering Continues (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Splintering Continues (Score:5, Insightful)
The one problem media companies are not seeing is that Netflix is/was successful because it was an aggregator of content; people don't necessarily want to pay for the Disney Channel on its own at $15/month, that option always existed (more or less) via cable. I posit that as the market fragments itself, consumers will simply go back to piracy, because that's the only convenient and cheap way of getting the content.
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I don't intrinsically mind my Netflix bill going up another buck or two a month; that's about in line with inflation when they started doing the streaming thing.
It has increased much faster than inflation, unless we are talking about Venezuela.
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"The question is whether their original content is something most of their customers will be willing to pay more for, and while I think they are, I think that for Netflix to continue to grow as another-HBO-on-the-Internet, they're going to start to be doing it at the expense of the companies from whom they previously licensed content."
I doubt it, their original content was good, then plentiful with a few good gems mixed in, now it is 99% crap and it is more and more frustrating finding an interesting plot m
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"$15/month puts Netflix in line with HBO - are they equal? hard hmmmm!"
Which is sad, they used to better, hands down with a much more massive catalog. HBO has added most of the killer app features of netflix AND grown their catalog. Some of the netflix original content is good but who wants to watch a good plot made into a foreign language film?
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Stop making the foreign crap and sjw special interest crap. That will cut costs dramatically.
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Yep. In response the last increase I simply lowered my account tier and started watching Netflix less so that someone else in the family can use the account instead if they feel like it. I expect if Netflix increases the price again I'll drop down to its "single screen" tier or just cancel it completely. Netflix is not *that* valuable to me.
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"filmed it in black and white"
Just makes it annoying to watch. They need to get their heads out of their asses and stop with the artistic, foreign language, and sjw content.
15:99 My US price increase (Score:2)
Finally cancelled the DVD plan (Score:2)
Glad I gave them up (Score:2)
Had both Netflix and Amazon Prime Video for awhile.
Of the TV watching I did, did more and more Amazon and less and less Netflix. Finally dropped the Netflix. Just not worth it to me.
Amazon bundles other stuff with Prime (frankly, I had Prime already for the other stuff) ... Netflix?
Heck, at this point if I wanted a second service (which I don't) I'd probably do Hulu.
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I use Playstation Vue for the regular TV stuff. Amazon ties you into their app, which was fine with a FireTV since it was what you booted into but is really annoying when it's just an app you load. Also they censor the shit out of everything.
Even more greedy (Score:2)
Stop making the SJW crap that no one wants to see!
The networks and the medium are fraught (Score:1)
It's fine (Score:2)
...with Disney+, Hulu, Amazon, etc Netflix is losing more and more interesting content and all these walled gardens are just going to drive people back to piracy anyway.
How to fix this (Score:2)
Up the price of an improved 4K, HD service.
Take my money! (Score:2)