I think much of the complaints are the result of what looks like “bait and switch.” First, Netflix added free, unlimited streaming to all accounts and many people were hooked. They implied that movies would get cheaper over time since streaming is cheaper than pressing disks and mailing them, so the expectation was for a decrease in plan cost over time.
Then they effectively doubled the price, or looking at it another way, took away the feature that they had touted as being so “future.” That’s bound to irk some people.
Well sure, provided you’re fine with watching Samuel L. Jackson declare he wants "These monkey-honking snakes, off this muck-and-flowering plane!" …then sit through a message from “your friends” at Depends Adult Dipers.
I’m always checking out the new trailers on IMDB. Most things are on my Netflix queue before they even released into the movie theaters. The trouble is that it is harder to find enough material to keep my Netflix queue full. If there is only a few movies a month that you want to watch, then Redbox makes more sense.
I have 3 DVDs (plus Blu Ray) and streaming, which I’ve had for at least a few years, and I’ll either be canceling altogether or going to streaming only. I’ve had three price increases I think within the last year to year and a half? Kinda bogus if you ask me. If you want to change your business model on the baseline, fine, but I don’t see why their plans include screwing me over too.
I’ll be perusing the instant titles to see if streaming is even something I want. Sure, old episodes of Star Trek TNG and the like are fun, but I haven’t streamed a movie in months. The selection is beyond terrible. And that’s being kind.
I’m very happy. I’ve been getting the 2-DVD-at-a-time-plan for about $16.00/month. Supposedly this came with streaming, but I’ve never used it. I don’t want to watch movies on my computer. That’s why I have a nice home theater system. Someone said I could match up streaming to my home system but I never got around to figuring it out.
Plus, of the 120+ films in my DVD queue, only about 10 are available for streaming.
So I get to stay with the 2-DVD-at-a-time plan, but now for (I think) $12.00 / month.
Netflix Watch Instantly via PS3 has been down for me since this afternoon, as it has for tons of people all over Twitter. God I hope this isn’t another Anonymous attack…
Wanted to bump and say I saw this Macworld article I thought was pretty good, talking about what setup he has at his home (ridiculous that he pays for a full cable line up, IMHO) comparing the various services including Netflix, Blockbuster, Amazon Prime, Itunes, Hulu Plus, Redbox and something I’ve never heard of called Zediva, which is a buck a movie online streaming, movies available as soon as they come out on DVD since they actually physically buy the DVD’s as they come out. Its focus is the most popular movies now and in the past year so the library is just a couple hundred. It sounds like a mash up of Netflix (streaming) and Redbox ($1).
I don’t think it’s been discussed here yet, but could Netflix do run a more ‘typical’ rental program? For example, they could still have there X at a time plans like they do now, but maybe also have a plan for people that want to use Instant only and get the occasional physical DVD. Those people would pay a certain amount for that DVD, say $1-$3, and keep it as long as they want.
I’m planning to go instant only, but I’m having a hard time pulling the trigger because I still watch a lot of movies that they don’t have available on DVD. Something I was thinking about doing is dropping the physical part and then maybe two or three times a year turning it back on and going through as many as a I can in a month (or two) and then shutting it back off. But if I could just get the occasional one for a $1 or $2 I’d probably do that. I think that would put them ahead of Redbox since you could keep it for longer (we already know they’ll keep their promise about no late fees) and they have a better selection then a rental store or Redbox. The only downside is that in a system like this, you’d almost always have to wait two days to get your movie.
I cancelled Netflix this weekend for an unrelated reason - mostly that the first six months were a Christmas gift and no one used it often enough to justify paying for it…just wish I’d remembered to cancel it on the 24th of last month - and I can’t help but cynically wondering from their exit survey if they plan to increase revenues by getting someone to pay them to turn in illegal downloaders/DVD bootleggers. I’m not saying that people dumb enough to admit to either to a website with your name and address wouldn’t be getting what they deserve, but I was surprised that they had less than above-board options listed on the “how will you be watching movies primarily now” question.
And that they didn’t include “it was a gift I don’t want to pay for” as a reason for leaving, but…
We’re planning to “increase” our subscription to streaming + one disc at a time. Increase is quotes because it’s not an increase in service - it’s what we have now - just an increase in price.
I don’t have much of a problem with their price increase, since it’s about the same as the monthly cost when we first signed up years ago, and there was no streaming then.
We mostly stream on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and have no problems since we upped our cable modem speed from 1.5mbps to 5mbps. We do sometimes have buffering issues on Friday and Saturday evenings but we rarely stream then so it doesn’t bother us.
It seems Netflix is really downplaying getting actual DVD’s. I just went to the Netflix site and had a hard time finding info about how much the DVD plans cost. In the How It Works section it states:
No information about how much the DVD plans cost or even that you can get DVDs.
Way at the bottom of the FAQ they say:
So that’s their only DVD option? One out at a time and you have to have streaming? That seems like a strange pricing model.
