Netflix price increases, when is enough enough?
Netflix price increases, when is enough enough?
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Discussion

Mr Whippy

Original Poster:

31,362 posts

257 months

Monday 3rd March
quotequote all
It looks like standard is going from £10.99 to £12.99 a month, an 18% increase.

A year ago it was £7.99 and went to £10.99 for a 37% increase.

We're now at 63% price increase in just over 12 months.


I think they're the best streamers out there, and largely have put some great content to market (shame some of it hasn't made it to BR like Love Death and Robots etc)

But I was curious, these increases aren't likely to stop. They're just going to keep rising and rising until the market says no.



At what point do you stop paying?

Or going to month on and month off? Or just buy it over the darker months?


I think if they try another inflation busting rise again I'll call it a day for constant subscription, though I get a feeling it'll be 12mo contracts before long.

JagLover

44,984 posts

251 months

Monday 3rd March
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On the plus side they have got better at buying in content and a number of the Paramount+ shows are on there now.

What I find a bit harder to accept is all the waste, such as ruining The Witcher, when they are charging prices like that.

Crudeoink

1,085 posts

75 months

Monday 3rd March
quotequote all
Mr Whippy said:
It looks like standard is going from £10.99 to £12.99 a month, an 18% increase.

A year ago it was £7.99 and went to £10.99 for a 37% increase.

We're now at 63% price increase in just over 12 months.


I think they're the best streamers out there, and largely have put some great content to market (shame some of it hasn't made it to BR like Love Death and Robots etc)

But I was curious, these increases aren't likely to stop. They're just going to keep rising and rising until the market says no.



At what point do you stop paying?

Or going to month on and month off? Or just buy it over the darker months?


I think if they try another inflation busting rise again I'll call it a day for constant subscription, though I get a feeling it'll be 12mo contracts before long.
Death by 1000 cuts with all of this isnt it. Spotify, Netflix, Audible, Sim card, broadband, water, gas, electric all going up by £3/4 a month don't seem too bad in isolation but when you realise you're paying an extra £50, 60, 70 a month it starts to grate. We tend to use Netflix off and on. Cancelling for a few months and then signing back on and watching a few things for a couple of months

Pablo16v

2,416 posts

213 months

Monday 3rd March
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I received an email on Friday about a price increase coming in April. Currently paying £4.99/m and it will rise to £5.99, so I'm quite shocked to see those prices above.

P-Jay

11,078 posts

207 months

Monday 3rd March
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It sort of passes you by, doesn't it?

The sad thing is when I look at netflix, we're mostly watching ITV and BBC stuff from 5 years ago, their recent films / series haven't all been great. Even Squid Game S2 was a bit of a disappointment.

Drive to Survive is back Friday I suppose.

ThingsBehindTheSun

2,208 posts

47 months

Monday 3rd March
quotequote all
Crudeoink said:
Death by 1000 cuts with all of this isnt it. Spotify, Netflix, Audible, Sim card, broadband, water, gas, electric all going up by £3/4 a month don't seem too bad in isolation but when you realise you're paying an extra £50, 60, 70 a month it starts to grate. We tend to use Netflix off and on. Cancelling for a few months and then signing back on and watching a few things for a couple of months
Spot on. My Thames Water bill has gone up 53%, Netlix has gone up again, no idea how much council tax will go up but I suspect it will be a lot, mortgage in more expensive due to coming off our fixed rate, house insurance has gone up 30%, food shop is going up, two drinks at the O2 is now £32 etc.

Luckily I got a 2.5% raise this month, that will cover it....

Personally I am hundreds and hundreds of pounds a month worse off than I was a year or two ago.

If it was up to me Netflix would be instantly cancelled. I don't want to watch some foreign show with subtitles which it seems most of the new shows are now, or some crappy Netflix Rom Com.

JagLover

44,984 posts

251 months

Monday 3rd March
quotequote all
P-Jay said:
It sort of passes you by, doesn't it?

The sad thing is when I look at netflix, we're mostly watching ITV and BBC stuff from 5 years ago, their recent films / series haven't all been great. Even Squid Game S2 was a bit of a disappointment.

Drive to Survive is back Friday I suppose.
Yes, when I think of great Netflix original content I am mainly thinking of things from a few years back. Like

The Crown S1-S4
Dark

More recent stuff has tended to be OK at best and they have mishandled things that could have been great like The Witcher.

They are having to buy in more content to cover the lack of great new content that they are producing.

Mr Whippy

Original Poster:

31,362 posts

257 months

Monday 3rd March
quotequote all
There is a lot of good on NF that I really like. And I like the concept of supporting it by paying over time.

But they were doing really interesting stuff years ago when it was cheaper, and I was happy with the new/interesting/unique stuff vs cost ratio.

Today I just feel like I'm paying for a lot of stuff I don't want in order to access the more unique stuff they used to offer.


I think I'm going to take a look through my library and see what's important to me and just look up BRs and stuff and see how much it'll cost me to get it all for keeps.

I can see NF being £200 a year by about this time next year which to me is just bonkers given I can pay less for TV licence and legally record everything for keeps.

Otispunkmeyer

13,382 posts

171 months

Monday 3rd March
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My Wife pays for NF as she pays also for her mum to have access... But I am certainly pushing this year to bin the TV license and bin Amazon Prime.

We're using it less and it seems anything you want to watch is now plastered with ads and if its not, then you actually have to pay to rent or buy whatever it is or sub to Paramount+ or some other service. So I think that should be binned.

As we have a 5 year old, sadly Disney will have to stay.

I'd quite like to have Apple TV as there seems to be some really good stuff on there. But its all getting a bit silly now isn't it. Its pushing me back to the open seas in all honesty.

Pablo16v

2,416 posts

213 months

Monday 3rd March
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Yes Disney is the one that has increased most for me over the past few years and it's currently £12.99/m, but both kids watch it a lot in their spare time so I don't think I'll get away with cancelling it just yet. I subbed Paramount+ twice to get Frasier over Xmas '23 & '24, but cancelled it straight after.

SP_

2,970 posts

121 months

Monday 3rd March
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Pushing more and more people back into piracy.

Evil Jack

1,632 posts

244 months

Monday 3rd March
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ThingsBehindTheSun said:
Spot on. My Thames Water bill has gone up 53%, Netlix has gone up again, no idea how much council tax will go up but I suspect it will be a lot, mortgage in more expensive due to coming off our fixed rate, house insurance has gone up 30%, food shop is going up, two drinks at the O2 is now £32 etc.

Luckily I got a 2.5% raise this month, that will cover it....

Personally I am hundreds and hundreds of pounds a month worse off than I was a year or two ago.

If it was up to me Netflix would be instantly cancelled. I don't want to watch some foreign show with subtitles which it seems most of the new shows are now, or some crappy Netflix Rom Com.
I was going to post something like this but wasn't sure the TV section was the place for it...personally I'm running out of things I can give up, just so I can hand the money saved over to energy companies etc. It's fking horrific tbh.

Mont Blanc

2,039 posts

59 months

Monday 3rd March
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I barely watch anything on Netflix anymore. I browse it weekly yet there barely seems to be much of interest on there. It just seems rammed with Netflix 'own brand' films, which really do seem to be the Tesco Value of entertainment.

I watch far more on Amazon Prime. Always seems to be a better selection of films.

WY86

1,555 posts

43 months

Monday 3rd March
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And they wonder why people buy dodgy Firesticks… £50 per annum and its like sky of 20 years ago (so i have heard) all the sports, all the content all in one place.

KobayashiMaru86

1,672 posts

226 months

Monday 3rd March
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SP_ said:
Pushing more and more people back into piracy.
Some of us never left

Kamov

625 posts

27 months

Monday 3rd March
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For me if I'm watching at least 2 films a week or watching on going series, then its worth it. If i ever went 2 months and hadn't watched Netflix I'd cancel it.
Right now as a family we watch about 2 to 3 films a week so 10 films divided by 12.99, not bad.

Puzzles

2,962 posts

127 months

Monday 3rd March
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Oh it’s close. Everything is a subscription these days.

I had the basic sub so now have adverts. I don’t want to pay any more.

P-Jay

11,078 posts

207 months

Monday 3rd March
quotequote all
It does feel like we're on the cusp of going full circle.

We used to have Sky, not even Sports, but it was about £90 a month, including the internet and a phone we never used and £100 is always going to be a milestone of "how fking much!"

So we got over the FOMO of not being able to watch everything we MIGHT want to watch and instead embraced streaming, got rid of Sky, got NowTV (sky in all but name), Netflix, iPlayer etc, saved a fortune and never looked back.

5 years later and there are so many streaming platforms, they used to be £5-£6 a month, all you can eat, no adverts, HD, 4K whatever, Now they're double or treble that. None of them really produces enough decent original content to fill a premium channel of TV of old and with so many platforms it's hard than ever to see the wood for the trees.

I won't even start on ranting about fringe sports being swallowed up by major ones like football. No, I'm not paying £32 a month to watch 6 Downhill MTB races a year, so they can broadcast a lot of other stuff I don't watch.

There's a massive market for a single app that could offer you them all at once, with a simple UX anyone could use, it would probably cost £90 a month and hey presto, someone has reinvented Sky Plus.

Mr Whippy

Original Poster:

31,362 posts

257 months

Monday 3rd March
quotequote all
I found Disney easiest to give up.

But I do record lots of TV via satellite to a PC server, and also buy BRs on Music Magpie or deals at HMV etc.

The kids generally watch certain stuff over and over again, and for the most part the kids stuff on Disney stays the same, it's not like they have tons of new series each year or lots of new films.


As much as the Fire stick things sound great, it is all basically dodgy and IPTV streams. As much as I don't see too much risk from a personal perspective, the chances of paying for one and then finding it all not working tomorrow for some reason... or content being really hit and miss, or whatever.

I can see this being a bit issue in coming years as more people just go for that vs paying up. It's going to be like Napster again.

sjg

7,604 posts

281 months

Monday 3rd March
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Flipping back and forth with a month on Netflix then a month on Disney+. More than enough on either to keep the kids happy, and I don't mind waiting if something good comes along on either.

Netflix at least make it easy, when you go in to your account to cancel there's an option to pause it for a month instead.