So its finally official, Netflix sold out to “the man”. I have heard of it happening but I thought it was just a snopes … but today Netflix officially announced today on their blog proving this not a hoax. We Netflix customers will now pay for EITHER an online streaming subscription OR DVD shipment subscription and if you want both you have to pay full price for both. Sorry Netflix but what kind of steaming pile of hot dogshit is that? The Netflix official blog currently has over 4,000+ posts of nothing but rage comments by angry customers, most of which are threatening to cancel their service or some of which already claimed they have cancelled their subscriptions today, upon hearing the news. And that number even is climbing as the comments go up by 1000 more comments about every 3-4 hours. Their Facebook fan page has over 20,000 comments in reply to their recent announcement with the same nature of posts.
To be honest, this comes as no surprise to me because cable companies are pissed off at Netflix anyway and would love to see its demise. When Netflix first started over a decade ago, they essentially got their licensing for titles next to free (mainly Starz Play content) compared to what cable companies have to pay, for providing their services simply because movie makers didn’t believe Netflix would be the next popular thing. I’m certainly sure they never thought Netflix would grow large enough to be replacing peoples cable services in homes. Cable companies started hating on Netflix because they were like, why do WE have to pay loads of money to the movie makers for these licensings while Netflix is getting the licensings for cheap? Then the cable companies REALLY started to hate on Netflix because they offered content to their customers for $8 a month for the Starz content. Well … haters are gonna hate and haters are bitches. That licensing that Netflix originally bought the movies from those movie makers expired this year. Today I got an email from Netflix, along with millions of other subscribers, that there will be a price change that will take effect on September 1st or if you try to change your plan today:
I don’t know which insults and pisses me off more … their lame sales pitch trying to promote and convince me that a 62% crease in what I pay now is a “deal” or the price change itself. By the way, when I first started with Netflix, I think I was paying only $7.99 a month for streaming and 1 DVD rental, now I pay $9.99 for it. How the hell is my paying only $9.99 now for unlimited streaming and 1 DVD a month A VALUE OVER paying $15.98 on September 1st for the same service? Sorry for cussing but how fuckin stupid do you think I or any of your subscribers are? It’s like saying here’s an apple that costs 50 cents right now but tomorrow it will be $1.00 but hey trust me, the apple you get tomorrow is the same apple but a better deal.
For me the price change would be logical if 1. Current subscribers or new customers who wanted to bundle the service got some kind of bundling discount say around $12-$13; I would go with that or 2. Netflix offered the same content streaming as they do on DVD. Let me tell you, I’ve been with Netflix for almost 2 years and anyone can tell you that Netflix’s streaming content is horribad. I will literally spend hours sometimes surfing through all the bad low budget, bad acting B-movies, independent film, worse than SyFy channel science fiction movies just to find somethign good to watch. I like science fiction movies and alot of times, I can see that the monsters are wearing rubber suits; yea its THAT bad. (/sigh) On top of that, the movie descriptions on many of the titles are just rated and described either bad or just flat out wrong and misinforming. It will promote it like its a solid hot movie and then when I watch it, I can’t get past the first 10 minutes because the acting is so horribad … its just hot garbage. Sometimes I get so tired of trying to find something, I just fall asleep in the process. Other times I dont feel like it and just dont bother searching. And other times I just play Russian roulette, close my eyes, push my PlayStation left controller to fast scroll thru the movie and then press X to see what movie I get, I open my eyes and watch that. Most the time it just ends up being another B-movie. BAD.
My other peeve with Netflix that isn’t worth the price is say you want to watch a TV series, they dont have the most recent episodes. As well as if you want to watch an entire old show or movie that contains sequels, some episodes will be on streaming and others will be on DVD so you HAVE to have both streaming and DVD subscriptions to watch an entire series which is a load of bullcrap. For instance I wanted to watch the whole X-Files series from season 1-9 including the movies which are linked to the series. In order to be able to watch the series in order I had to also order the DVD series. And when I wanted to watch all the Hellraiser movies, I was able to watch the first Hellraiser streaming but Netflix didn’t have Hellraiser II on streaming, it was DVD only so I had to wait for Hellraiser II to ship to my house and watch that so I could watch Hellraiser III. As you can see there are so many loopholes with having just a streaming only or DVD only subcription; to use their service fully you can’t have one without the other or you’re just getting ghetto service. Why should I go with Netflix’s half ass service when Hulu+ has the whole seasons 1-9 streaming of The X-Files and I don’t have to subscribe to a DVD subscription on top of it just to watch an entire series?
But anyways, I don’t see this price hike is gonna stick with customers and I believe alot of people will just leave and go elsewhere because there’s many other options out there; Amazon Prime, Redbox, Hulu and now Blockbuster is trying to get back into the arena with their online services as well I even saw a Blockbuster box at a local 7-11. Its like Redbox but it was a blue box that said Blockbuster; I couldn’t believe it. I don’t know the details on their service though so I don’t know if its competitive or not. But I will begin looking for new options tomorrow.
Well the cable companies got what they wanted and are laughing their way to the bank at Netflix because they just killed it. It’s Napster all over again. The guys with the bigger pockets will win every single time and Netflix knows it. Too bad Netflix is just the middle man between the movie makers and cable companies. I think had Netflix played their cards right, they may have been able to avoid this. Netflix knows this is a bad news and they’re going to lose a lot of people. I don’t see any way they can remain on top when now their perks that kept customers for so long, are gone; they now cost more to access the full service than any other streaming content provider out there. They have to know its the end. But Hollywood and the cable companies got Netflix by the balls so I hope Netflix employees are going to be looking for new jobs these next coming year or two because Netflix’s shares are going to plummet astronomically. It’s Napster 2.0.
