Netflix hikes subscription rates before Stranger Things, Longmire, other premieres
Today, the streaming service announced that beginning later this month, their most-popular streaming plan will see a price hike from $9.99 a month to $10.99 while the premium plan will go from $11.99 to $13.99. This is the first major price hike for the service in the past few years, and it comes at a time in which Netflix is providing new content on an almost-weekly basis. We mention Stranger Things and Longmire because they are two of the more-popular upcoming shows coming presumably this year, but there are plenty more coming on the other side of that, including net seasons of GLOW, Orange is the New Black, Luke Cage, Santa Clarita Diet, and many more.
The statement put out by Netflix on the price hike is about as corporate as you can expect such a statement to be:
“From time to time, Netflix plans and pricing are adjusted as we add more exclusive TV shows and movies, introduce new product features and improve the overall Netflix experience to help members find something great to watch even faster.”
The word “exclusive” is the one that matters the most here; while Netflix does still host many seasons of classic and current shows, it’s shifted slightly to become more about its own original programming since its last price hike. We used to personally love watching some of our favorite shows like Psych and Chuck on the platform, but since then their model has shifted more towards programming you can’t get anywhere else. Hulu is becoming just as great (if not better) in some ways if you’re looking to stream programming for non-exclusive shows; if you have subscriptions to both it and Netflix you’re covering a substantial amount of ground, but those plus a cable subscription start to get a little pricey.
This price increase was fairly easy to predict given that Netflix is spending insane amounts of money on some of their original programming these days and they are still running their subscription prices below one of their premium competitors in HBO. We do think that it’ll be catastrophic for them if they start to hit $15 or above with either one of their plans over the next few years, but we don’t see the jump in the popular plan from $9.99 to $10.99 a month being a deal-breaker for the majority of their subscribers. Nobody’s going to like it, but Netflix has become an essential part of entertainment for many people out there and they’ll probably be fine to pay it.
Are the Netflix subscription rates getting too high?
Let us know what you think about that subject now in the attached comments! For more news on when Longmire could be returning, you can read more about that here.
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