It hasn’t been that long since Netflix raised the price of their streaming service but the insanely successful carrier, hot off winning multiple awards and praise for Roma, is about to do it again. The service announced today that prices for U.S. customers will go up by13-18 percent effectively immediately for new customers and phased in over three months for those who already subscribe. I guess some folks will be luckier than others over those three months?
Heres a quick rundown on the price increases.
- Basic will go up by $1, from $8 to $9
- Standard HD (the most popular options) will go up by $2, from $11 to $13
- 4K Premium will go up by $2, from $14 to $16
It’s not hard to see why this is happening right now. First, Netflix dropped a metric ton of content over the last year that’s been highly successful including the aforementioned Roma, the viral hit Bird Box, and massively popular shows like Stranger Things, The Crown, and Black Mirror. They’ve spent the last year becoming a must-have service for great shows and movies and now we’ll have to pay for it. It’s arguably fair too. Better content costs more, folks.
Second, they’re about to have some actual competition. For years Netflix has outpaced every other service in content and quality, with Hulu and Amazon just starting to catch up. However, 2019 should bring us Disney+, a WB streaming service, CBS pushing hard, and Apples streaming service. That’s a lot of subscriptions for people to pay and Netflix may be hedging bets by pulling in more money from each person in case they lose market share.
The third reason? It’s because they can. I mean there’s really no reason for them not to make more money and they’ve got us hooked. Honestly, it’s just not that much of a gamble for them. People are going to stick around, especially since the company raises prices at such small incremental levels. This just really isn’t a risk.
At some point, with all the new streaming services and rising costs of them, the industry is going to fold in on itself. We know it’s coming. This is how any consumer-based industry works. It will expand until it can’t any bigger because people will eventually be paying as much for streaming services as they were for cable. Then everything will collapse in on itself, the studios will get together and offer packages, and we’ll be right back where we were. Circle of life, my friends. Circle of life. This price increase isn’t the line, though.
I know I’m sticking around. I mean, it would be hard to even do this job if I didn’t, but aside from that the stuff on there is just too good to miss. I’ve still got old seasons of shows I haven’t caught up on yet not to mention everything new the put out constantly. Maybe it’s too much content but all that content just means folks need to keep coming back and they can appeal to the widest audience possible. Well played.
Netflix Is Raising Prices Again [Collider]
