Netflix

<p>The netflix rate increase has me considering cancelling Cable TV instead. We have Netflix DVD one at a time w/streaming to TV via Roku. We hardly ever watch regular TV anymore. I sometimes turn it on after the family has gone to bed to catch a little news or some of The Daily Show. It somehow makes me feel more connected to the outside world watching something that millions of other people are watching at the same time. Anyone else living without regular TV? How’s that working out?</p>

<p>I don’t have cable, and can usually only get 3 channels. That’s pretty close to living without regular TV. Actually, I haven’t turned it on in weeks, except to watch DVDs. I watch streaming Netflix and Hulu far more often.</p>

<p>I cancelled both yesterday. I am hoping that they will give us, the old customers, some kind of reduced price.</p>

<p>It was brilliant to do this in the summer. I haven’t watched a regular TV show in weeks, other than baseball games and local news. I am completely dependent on Netflix at the moment, and I have sort of found the rhythm of alternating DVDs and streaming.</p>

<p>I canceled my Netflix subscription. Their streaming options are rather poor considering I can just pick up better DVDs at RedBox or the Blockbuster Box. The onyl reason why I stuck around was because 8 dollars was a great deal. Now I don’t have any reason to spend close to 100 dollars a year for movies that take a day to get to me and streaming options that are so bad, most of us didn’t even know they were movies.</p>

<p>Netflix: You just lost another customer. Either bring back the old plans (and keep your new ones if you want) or you’ll lose plenty more.</p>

<p>My son and I just discovered that a series that used to be available via streaming is now disc only! So surprising that a company that I counted as one of the good guys one day is now one I dislike!</p>

<p>if saturday post service is stopped i would only get one movie a week instead of the 2- it will then not be worth the dvd</p>

<p>Netflix has charged my credit card 2 months in a row for $7.99 and i have never used it before. You better look at your bill closely. I changed card #'s today.</p>

<p>smile12157, if you sign up for Netflix they charge you whether you use it or not. It’s a flat membership fee. That’s why we left - we were paying the monthly fee and not using it.</p>

<p>Now if you never even signed up for Netflix… that’s a different matter.</p>

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<p>That’s what I’m thinking, too. Unless you watch each DVD the same day you receive it and then drop it in the mailbox before the next pick-up, you end up paying full price for half the service.</p>

<p>Netflix may be learning a lesson about messing with the common folk: [Netflix</a> lowers subscriber forecast, shares fall - Chicago Sun-Times](<a href=“http://www.suntimes.com/business/7676333-420/story.html]Netflix”>http://www.suntimes.com/business/7676333-420/story.html)</p>

<p>The double whammy of a hated price increase and the problem of renewing Starz content really has knocked the company’s stock price for a loop.</p>

<p>I switched from dvd and streaming to streaming only, but I may cancel that soon, too. Besides the fact that I tend not to use it much, when I look for movies or other things I want to watch it never seems to be in streaming, and much of what they have in streaming I don’t want to watch. If netflix could offer most of its content via streaming it would be worth it, but from where I stand right now they have relatively little. If I want to watch a movie, I can watch movies on demand from my cable company, or from the Sony Playstation store, and given how infrequently that is, still cheaper then netflix, and I actually get to watch what I want. </p>

<p>Netflix isn’t entirely to blame, some of the price increase reflects the cost of the licenses they have to send out DVD’s and stream stuff. The Starz package is being removed because they wanted a huge increase in licensing fees that wouldn’t be viable for Netflix to keep up with. You have to keep in mind that the cable industry especially is fighting netflix, companies like HBO and Starz want to keep the model where you pay X bucks a month for that service, rather then being able to see what you want as Netflix offers (HBO, for example, offers on demand to let you watch when you watch, but you can only do that as an HBO subscriber), they are basically clawing to keep the old model in place, and one way to do that is have licensing fees so high it basically prevents others from offering that. It is shortsighted of the content providers, because a lot of people are dropping cable these days and are watching more and more over the internet or are finding they can get by with broadcast tv, and like with the music industry, they are going to suddenly find their model is broken, without having something else in place. The music industry got hit hard because they forced you to pay for stuff you didn’t want, and until Itunes came along they were getting killed by people ripping off music and sharing it illegally, and it has taken the music industry a long time to accept the fact that digital music downloads were the way to go.</p>

<p>Did you get the email from Netflix announcing Qwikster ? </p>

<p>"<br>
Dear (name of subscriber),</p>

<p>I messed up. I owe you an explanation.</p>

<p>It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. Let me explain what we are doing."</p>

<p>…"
So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are really becoming two different businesses, with very different cost structures, that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently."</p>

<p>I am annoyed about this Qwikster thing.</p>

<p>So now you have to go to two different web sites to find a movie and decide whether to watch it streaming or order the DVD?</p>

<p>Not sure that was such a great move on NetFlix’s part – and I don’t buy this “apologetic” approach. It looks to me like they wanted to deliver wolf news (the two websites) in sheep’s clothing.</p>

<p>Yes–I think the two websites will be a real step backwards. And for some reason, the new name irritates me. It is time to do some serious comparison shopping.</p>

<p>I hate the Quikster/Netflix split. Hate it, hate it, hate it. The best part of Netflix is scanning for movies, which you can then stream (maybe, though mostly not) or put on your queue. Now I have to go to two different websites? Nope. </p>

<p>Sending out that “We apologize for screwing you. Now we will screw you some more,” message is a New Coke level blunder on their part.</p>

<p>I also received the email and thought it was the worst idea ever. It started out as an apology and then made things worse. I have already cancelled the DVD plan and this certainly won’t make me go back to it. Had I not cancelled, I would now. I don’t know how long I will stick with the streaming.</p>

<p>Neflix is doomed.</p>

<p>Totally agree – stupid, idiotic idea. The last thing most people want to do is have to keep two separate lists on two websites. What they clearly want to do is move people away from DVDs and toward streaming. Which is a fine idea if everything was available via streaming. But there are very limited options on streaming compared to DVD.</p>

<p>Not to mention that when I saw the “apology” my first thought was that they decided to reduce prices. So he set up expectations to just deliver more bad news.</p>

<p>I don’t think Netflix is doomed. I do think they will have to act quickly to make people happy again – like Coke did when it went back to the original Coke.</p>

<p>I got the email also. I am pi**** off about the name change. I think the new name and web site change should be for the streaming customers not the DVD customers. I find it hard to believe with the name change, my current Netflix queue and my past rentals list will transfer smoothly to the new web site.</p>