Netflix plans to raise prices for Blu-ray subscribers
An upsetting move from Netflix who recently lowered subscription rates, President and CEO Reed Hastings recently announced a rate hike for Blu-ray subscribers was in the works.
Purchasing Blu-ray DVDs costs more both at retail and wholesale than standard definition DVDs, and consumers are used to paying more for high-definition content in every other channel, including video rental stores, video-on-demand, and cable channels. Because of the higher cost of Blu-ray and the consumer expectations around high-def content, we are planning on implementing a modest monthly premium for access to Blu-ray some time this year.
He did not give any information concerning when this increase would take effect or how much it will be. I hope it’s no more than $1.00 per month.
While I do agree that Blu-ray is a higher quality product and worth the extra cost, I feel this is not a competitive move while Blockbuster is offering this for free, plus they include free rentals when you return a movie to a store location. While I prefer the Netflix service, if Blockbuster starts offering more features for less I might have to revisit that option.
yup, I already made the switch to blockbuster…the deal breaker was being able to return for additional movies and the fact blu-rays were well stocked at the Blockbuster just down the road.
netflix can watch their customers leave and their blu-rays will be expensive place holders.
Where I’m at there aren’t nearby Blockbusters, and the service was slower and didn’t have as much of a selection. This is why I am still with Netflix after 4 years.
Well I guess everyone wants in on the increased profits by overpricing Blu movies now that they’ve won. Let’s hope it backfires on them soon and they are forced to drop prices to a more realistic level.
I would obviously prefer to watch the Blu-ray version of a film every time, but with the increased pricing and only 1 Blu-ray player in my home (in the living room), I will probably be sticking with DVD rentals for now.
We watch the majority of our films in our bedroom and we do not yet have a Blu-ray player there. So at this point, I’m waiting for Blu-ray player prices to drop & new models to be released so that I can purchase a decent priced BD-Live player that doesn’t break my bank.