No, it's just the market self-correcting itself.

Heaven forbid someone run a business like a business. I'm sure if you had a highly sought after product, you wouldn't bother with the whole "highest bidder" thing -- it'd be charity all the way.

Misplaced anger.

Nope, not charity in the least; but if I were making multi-million dollar profits already, I wouldn't try to put the screws to the public (as this will) to rake in even more. It's all part of a societal culture of greed that disgusts me.

The public? Or just Netflix and its subscribers?

It looks like Netflix's "monopoly" on this market is over and now actually has to compete for content. I see nothing wrong with that?

I don't see it that way at all. Anyone was/is free to negotiate separate contracts of their own; Netflix had no monopoly on this. All we as consumers will see is higher cost for our entertainment because old media can't tolerate this newfangled tech letting people watch stuff online without their getting more cash for the privilege, on top of millions of dollars they've already received from advertising, DVD sales, and existing multi-million dollar contracts with companies like Netflix. I'm not suggesting that they should be benevolent overlords doling out free entertainment to the masses.

My house, and my sister-in-laws home as well, have become huge on-line streaming users.
I expect a cost increase eventually.

Fuck.

Netflix just made a HUGE price hike.

OK, for those of you who stream only, you're unaffected.

And now you can get discs without any streaming at all for cheap.

But if you want streaming and 1 disc, you're now paying $16 instead of $10, and streaming and 2 discs is $20 instead of $16.

Fuck me. Going back to streaming only.

Yeah, I don't know what to do. I use both the streaming and the actual discs a lot, the latter for all kinds of movies that aren't available at the local rental stores (which is pretty much 80% of movies made before 2002, plus 99.9% of documentaries and foreign films). I'd like to keep both, but $16 is a lot of movie to only have one disc at a time, even along with streaming.

Wow, really? I just switched back to 2 discs at a time... looks like I'm switching down to streaming at this point.

Plus, I haven't seen any announcement from Netflix about broadening its streaming library, plus achieving some consistency with it, particularly with movie franchises. It doesn't make much sense to have a third of the James Bond movies or the first and third Die Hard movies available for streaming but not the others, for example.

Ok, looking at the site, I get the normal price until September. Then it's "streaming only" for me.

Netflix hikes prices, adds DVD-only plan | The Digital Home - CNET News
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20078 ... only-plan/

I share a NF account with a friend. Haven't s/w her yet, but I suspect we're going to cancel. As I posted on the last page, NF brings in almost no real new dvd's anymore.

The "monopoly" thing was a joke, hence the quotation marks -- it was just my way of saying they pretty much had the market cornered for awhile because they were the only game in town. Now that others are looking to get into the game, they'll have to pay the actual value of the content they provide.

Your "old media" argument doesn't take into account that (as far as I know) revenue from DVDs and other "old media" avenues of entertainment has been declining -- and why shouldn't it? Just as sales for physical CDs declined once people realized they could get the music they want instantly and not have to pay for an entire album of content they don't want, people are realizing there's little reason to own a DVD or Blu-Ray if you can stream it instantly for a low price, especially when you can watch it anytime you want and pay one monthly fee.

It just happened to me recently -- I was in the mood to see Aliens and thought about going out to buy a copy but decided to check Netflix and there it was. Added! When the month turned and I went to watch it, it was gone -- hello, cheap used copy on AmazWAN. I wasn't going to buy it when I can get it plus tons of other entertainment for a mere $10 a month (and only $5 for streaming only at the time), but when it came to paying to rent it individually via AmazWAN or just buying myself a copy, I choose to buy myself a copy.

The "all you can eat buffet" system probably cuts deep into revenues for these media companies and when a single film can costs well over $200 million to produce, advertise and distribute, they're not looking to have anyone take giant bites out of that. You can look at all the money these companies generate and say they're overly wealthy fatcats -- and they are -- but when you look at how much they spend on productions throughout the year, you come to see it as the balancing act it must be. I mean, didn't MGM have to cease filming of the last 007 movie because it was nearly $4 billion in debt? I'm sure they're not looking to lose even more money so people can watch all their stuff for $8 a month.

At the end of the day, they're really not doing anything wrong. You don't need streaming movies and TV shows, as fun as they are. It's not like fuel or food, where big companies are actually fucking the little guy over. If the price ain't right, just don't give them your money.

I think what the studios don't like is that a lot of folks use Netflix as "rent & rip". Streaming eliminates that.

I'm sure they hate it but I don't imagine it's enough to dent their wallets like streaming is -- most people aren't looking for extra hassle, which ripping is for a lot of people who don't need to build a massive collection or keep a movie "forever". However, streaming is perfect for people who love convenience and if they can save a bunch of money, why not? If a movie is always available to be streamed, it's essentially "in your collection" (unless you lose internet connectivity) anyway.

I've used the streaming on the computer sporadically, so most likely I'll just stick with the DVD rentals, but this is a nice slap in the face to someone who's used their service for over 10 years.

I guess I'll be streaming whatever I can until September..

I'll go down to streaming but probably won't quit altogether... however, if their streaming library becomes any lamer, I'm out.

I guess I'd better stream How I Won The War while I still can.

Considering how much use my family gets out of the plan, $4 a week isn't going to cause me to quit.