Oh, Netflix . . .
Netflix has two awesome distinctive features going for it:
- It knows my taste enough to effectively recommend content.
- They do streaming and DVDs!
Right now I watch old TV shows on the streaming service, and maybe 1 DVD/month. For this I pay $10/month. That’s a good deal.
But now they want to cleave their business between DVD operations and streaming, and charge most customers more. Plenty of folks have gotten upset over this. Personally, I am irritated that they’re screwing the pooch on one of their distinctive features. What I had perceived as “hey, in order to satisfy our customers, we do DVDs and now we do streaming” now sounds more like “we want to be a streaming company but shipping DVDs is so expensive so we need to separate these different operations to keep the DVD taint off our streaming business!”
Which makes their distinctive feature list look like this:
- It knows my taste enough to effectively recommend content.
They do streaming OR they do DVDs.(Oh wait, that’s nothing special!)
Amazon.com offers me a bunch of “free” streaming through Prime and newer TV shows a la carte. I can get DVDs from the local library, not to mention any number of commercial outlets. I don’t need Netflix for only one or the other.
For my existing plan of 1 DVD at a time plus unlimited streaming, I pay $10/month. The new price for this same plan is to become $16/month. That’s a 60% increase.
I could go unlimited streaming only for $8/month. There goes the $2 extra I had been paying to watch the occasional DVD.
They do have a limited DVD plan for $5/month, but I called and confirmed that I can not combine that plan with unlimited streaming. That’s too bad, because $8 for unlimited streaming plus a few dollars more for limited DVDs is basically what I want.
So, for now, I am downgrading to their $5/month limited DVD plan. If Netflix wants to be a streaming-only provider they need to have way better streaming content. If Netflix wants to stick with their original plan of providing entertainment I like at an affordable price via the most cost-effective delivery option, then I look forward to signing up for an unlimited streaming plus limited DVD plan.
