Good news for people that have too much money: soon you will be able to pay nearly twice the amount you once did for the same Netflix service! It’s such a great deal for loyal customers, I am going to put SO MANY exclamation points at the end of this sentence!!!!!!!!!!!!

Announced today on the ol’ Netflixy blog, options for streaming and receiving DVDs will change. Right now, $9.99 gets you unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs (1 out at a time). When this plan was announced, the peasants rejoiced, and we have all lived in the land of milk and honey for almost a year now. The new plan is as follows, from the post that has caused much uproar:

So for instance, our current $9.99 a month membership for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs will be split into 2 distinct plans:

Plan 1: Unlimited Streaming (no DVDs) for $7.99 a month
Plan 2: Unlimited DVDs, 1 out at-a-time (no streaming), for $7.99 a month.

In total, you are looking at $15.98 – or $5.99 extra per month or a 63% increase – for the same service you are getting now. For existing customers, like I know you are, on September 1st this change will go into effect. New customers get the charge right now.

As someone who has used Netflix for seven years or so, this is the first time I have ever felt a bit disappointed in the company/service. There have been times when I couldn’t find something to watch on their streaming service and would become frustrated, but I would always fall back to the thought of, “It’s such a good deal, I can’t really complain.”

And I still don’t know if I can complain about this price increase, but I will because of the fact that right now it simply feels like a “oh, shit, we could milk some more money from these people” plan.

Last November when we launched our $7.99 unlimited streaming plan, DVDs by mail was treated as a $2 add on to our unlimited streaming plan. At the time, we didn’t anticipate offering DVD only plans. Since then we have realized that there is still a very large continuing demand for DVDs both from our existing members as well as non-members. Given the long life we think DVDs by mail will have, treating DVDs as a $2 add on to our unlimited streaming plan neither makes great financial sense nor satisfies people who just want DVDs.

You have to please the shareholders, I totally get that. But when the perceived value of your service jumps from $2 to $8 suddenly, it’s kind of a kick in the pants. Pretending that the new prices are such a great value to customers when the current prices are a far better value is a little backhanded. “…nor satisfies people who just want DVDs” is a great line. Currently, people that just want DVDs would sign up for the unlimited streaming/DVD plan and simply never use the streaming. No one is complaining that they have the option to also stream even if they don’t have the physical hardware to do so.

I am not giving up on Netflix even though this change might be frustrating. After September 1st, I can’t say with authority that I will continue getting DVDs by mail, however. At the end of the day, it’s a business and they can do whatever the hell they want, but for a company that has been so great for so long, the first major nut-jab stings just a little more than it might otherwise. At least they could lie to us and say movie studios are now charging out the face to allow them to stream things.