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Given the already impecable service we are receiving from Netflix, it looks like we are getting blessed with a price-hike as well for Blu-ray movie access.
When HD disks (Blu-ray and HD-DVD) first dropped at Netflix, they were free for months. Then after Blu-ray won, Netflix shortly announced a premium price-hike for Blu-ray access that was minor, around $1 or so. Now Netflix has announced a 500% increase in that price bumping the premium Blu-ray access from $1 to $5 for the 4-at-a-time plan… no ideas what the new bump looks like for 8-at-a-time folks, but I imagine it scales for them as well.
Have the cost of HD disks become a necessary evil for rental companies? With Netflix pushing so much weight behind it’s streaming media service (offering more movies in “HD” quality recently) I have to wonder… again… if the goal here is move people towards Netflix-enabled streaming devices and away from the actual disk-rental service.
As has been pointed out in the past, Netflix’s original intent has always been to deliver movies over the internet, that’s no surprise, the question is: “Is Blu-ray really costing Netflix so much more now that they need to increase the price 5x or is this just a way to slowly deflect people into the streaming-only camp?”
My guess is streaming-only… if anything Blu-ray would have cost them “too much” years ago when it first dropped, not now after it’s become the defacto HD standard and production is cheaper.
I’m also going to go ahead and make another prediction… expect ad-supported streaming from Netflix in the future as well; something akin to what Hulu is doing.
Update #1: Thanks to Engadget HD for the pricing chart:
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March 30th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Ridiculous. I will stick with my VUDU Box. If my math is right renting a few movies in HDX will be less than paying for a Netflix subscription with Blu Ray.
As for pushing users to streaming, I don’t see how they can at this point. They need a lot more improvements like better HD and maybe adding a hard drive to the box.
April 14th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Funny thing is, they have kept their monthly fees basically the same for years. In that time, the cost of DVD’s has dropped significantly. As well, their business has increased dramatically. They should have been making outrageous profits over the last few years until BD came out. It’s one thing to raise the monthly fee for my overall plan a little each year. That’s understandable, and practical in a business setting to cover for inflation and rising costs of business. But to jack a rate at such a high percentage at one time? Very bad business.
Just a side note. I am very disappointed in the new online movie viewer. It is constantly kicking out of full screen mode on its own. And I have tried everything I know to fix this. Another in a risng number of personal complaints.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Agree Nick, also the bit about the new player — there has been nothing but ranting about it online… Netflix has a massive contract with Microsoft for dissemination of their content via MS-controlled channels and in turn Microsoft has gotten Netflix to agree to use their Silverlight technology stack … as soon as that new player rolled out everyone started flipping out about it. The blog entry on the Netflix blog with the announcement has over 700 replies of “It sucks” for various reasons.
I’m not sure if they thought the bar was really that low for online viewing or if they didn’t anticipate the backlash… but with other services like Hulu working just fine multi-platform and being easier to use, I don’t know that Netflix has the choice to be so excluding with it’s implementation of watch-it-now.
Although in another thread I mentioned that Netflix’s play is more business-savvy than Hulu’s… Hulu is gunning for “Ease of watching” while Netflix is nailing licensing deals with the Xbox, Roku, LG, Samsung and other hardware manufacturers to get into “Netflix-enabled” devices… their PC-viewing experience is a necessary evil IMO and not part of their core business strategy.