By 
In a quarterly letter to shareholders today, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced that online streaming company is going to offer a new pricing option. To help alleviate the problem of customers wanting to stream their ‘flix to more than only 2 devices at a given time, Netflix is introducing a new plan for big families that ups the restricting limit to a more spacious 4 devices. But it’s not free.
This new plan starts at $12, about 4 dollars more than the current $8 2-streaming rate. Netflix expects that only about 1% of their customers will opt for this pricing model, more than likely not taking into account the sheer number of users who piggyback off their friends’ relatives’ Netflix accounts (guilty). Either way, options are good.
can’t even stream 720p and 1080p on our smartphones and tablets and here they are trying to raise prices.
That’s just life for you. The prices on everything goes up. Really, $7 for unlimited streaming is still a great deal. It’s cheaper than I pay for streaming music -_-
At least when you’re streaming music, you’re getting brand new music, just released. Netflix does not have newly released movies. Not even 5 year old movies.
yeah they do, they have plenty of newly released movies, most of my queue is movies released since 2010
Maybe 5 years ago.. there’s lots of new movies and tons of newer tv shows.They change some stuff out every couple of months. Cartoon network is on there now too.
Hunger Games isn’t near 5yrs old. And they have plenty new movies from 2013. Plus staying sometime in 2013 their deal with Disney will bring all Disney content plus new releases. They’re making deals to more& more every yr.
Starting in 2016 they’ll have Disney new releases. Until then, it’ll still be on Starz. Classic Disney films are available starting this year tho… like Alice in Wonderland.
Again, they do. It’s ok to hate Netflix You’re welcome to it. But so much you have to lie about it?
How is this raising prices? The current plans are staying the same, they’re just adding another option.
They aren’t raising prices. You do not have to switch to this new plan. Thanks for reading…
I didnt even know there was a limit to devices at once. lol
Who has the bandwidth to stream 4 HD videos at the same time?? :o Is this for google fibre customers only? LOL
I get 50mbps at my house with Comcast so I think I could pull it off, but more than likely not everybody would be on the same connection. You have to remember that people can be anywhere with their mobile devices.
I have comcast and could easily do this. The 2 device limit has got in my way a few times since I have 5 devices that can watch Netflix. 3 being TV’s.
You’re thinking all wrong. This is so I can stream at my house, my sister can stream at her house, my mother at her house, and my father at his house. No more needing to text dad to give me a turn streaming the Netflix I pay for.
Dan,
Welcome to the world of mobile devices, where amazingly, four mobile devices, sharing the same Netflix plan, can now watch Netflix from up to 4 different locations!
;-)
Don’t worry, I know you would have thought of that if you’d ever experienced the cut-off (I have). Currently limited to two devices. My wife, myself, and my son all watch Netflix (thankfully the girls are a tad young yet). We’re not always watching the same show, or even watching at the same location (my wife’s got one of those cushy jobs and she can actually watch vids while taking calls at work.).
Trust me: This new plan is going to be picked up by a ton of folks. We’ve been considering purchasing a second subscription to get 4 devices…
Netflix’s high def maxes out around 5 mbps right now (unless you get those superHD streams, but those are rare). 5 * 4 is only 20mbps, my Comcast standard plan goes 26mbps.
I’m talking bandwidth as in usage, not speed. Where I live, 120gb / month will cost you over $70 per month and that’s barely enough for HD video on a single deceive for someone watching several movies a week :( So it’s either low quality viewing or less content.
Oh gotcha. I’m on Comcast here, we had a 250gb/month cap for a while.. it’s currently “suspended indefinitely” so I actually forgot all about that.
How about adding some movies to your library, that were made in the last 5 years? Then you’d have a returning customer.
Dude, they have thousands of movies. Surely you haven’t seen them all.
I’d rather watch 10 A+ movies, instead of 100 C- movies.
Give an example of an A+ movie? Not to judge taste, but when one of the best movies of last year (Safety Not Guaranteed) was available as quickly as it was, I’m curious what people expect to show up.
Dark Knight Rises, The Hobbit, Taken 2, Prometheus, Looper, and so on. These are movies I like. You don’t have to like them. Just saying this is why I don’t have Netflix anymore, because they don’t offer these type of movies.
Yeah it’s an unreasonable expectation with those. In general it takes about a year for a large blockbuster to show up on HBO/Showtime/Starz – Prometheus just recently arrived on HBO, and Dark Knight Rises hasn’t yet. The Hobbit won’t see its debut until December. It should take about the same amount of time for them to debut on Netflix if they’re going to show up at all. All-you-can-stream for “new” movies will never happen since it would destroy the sales window. Unfortunately streaming = licenses, not just popping into the store, buying 500 DVDs/Blurays and renting them out.
Ooh and if you haven’t seen them, The Hobbit and Prometheus were gorgeous but shitty movies. Taken 2 just sucked (loved Taken though). Dark Knight Rises was disappointing as hell. Looper was good. So technically that’d be two C movies, a D, a B, and an A-. Always got to insult when I can :D
Your expectations, at $8 a month, are just too much. They would either need to drastically raise streaming charges (I am thinking something around $24-$30), or convince studios to license their content for much, MUCH, cheaper. The problem is convincing the companies any of this is worth it.
It’s certainly ok that you don’t like the movie and tv show selection. But your actual expectations are way over the top.
I didn’t say new movies are worth $8 a month. I would gladly pay $30 a month for new movies through Netflix. For example. I like to watch motorcycle racing, particularly MotoGP. In order to have the SPEED channel, i have to buy a bundled package from comcast, about $40 per month. They bundle 50 channels that I don’t care for, just so that I can have that 1 channel. Instead, I cut my cable service, and pay $160 annually, to have LIVE MotoGP coverage without commercials. A la Carte is the way to go man…..
My standards are quite low. Some of those low rating moves, I actually liked. So…?
That’s totally fine, nothing wrong with disagreeing with people. One of the problems with Disqus participants lately, is people think that everyone needs to be on the same page all the time. Well I say there is nothing wrong with agreeing to disagree.
They had old school Godzilla. I was watching the mess out of that. LoL!!
I think I watched that recently, on Crackle. For free.
Hunger games was made…when?
Based on this guy’s responses, there is no reasoning with him. You present him with quality movies and shows and he calls them cramp, hiding behind “the right to his opinion”. Whatever. We have already wasted too much time on this guy.
Some people, it seems, use the internet merely as an outlet to whine and vent.
I suppose, as outlets go, it’s far better than the kind we hear about on the news seemingly every night.
Let him rage against the wind… It may be futile in our eyes, but it might be just what he needs to allow him to be a decent human being IRL.
…or maybe I’m just being too optimistic. …the snow finally stopped falling.
What’s a “quality” movie? A movie that the majority of people like? Most of those movies I don’t even care for. I love horror and suspense movies because I scare easily. Paranoid Activity 3 had me scared. LoL!!
So his opinion is actually legit.
they don’t even have old movies… their library of movies for streaming is quite pitiful. They should rename to NetTVShowsThatAreOutOfSeason.
Safe, ParaNorman, The Paperboy (the one where Nicole Kidman urinates on Zac Efron), The Hunger Games, The Awakening, etc; were all just added. Or are you talking about big budget titles like The Avengers and Dark Knight Rises? You know, something you’d watch once and be done with in 2.5 hours. (whereas in its place we get 13 hours of awesome in the form of House of Cards and Lilyhammer. Less so on Hemlock Grove, dunno wtf Roth was thinking with that.)
You can keep the house of cards. I’m not a zombie. I’d rather watch 2 hours a week of top movies, than 13 hours of crap. To each his own.
Sad part being HoC was better than almost any “top movie” released in 2012. Anyway, if you only watch 2 hours a week you’re better off with 4 x $1 red box rentals.
Sure it is… I watched a little, just a pitiful show. Like I said, to each his own. You think HoC is great, I think it’s crap.
I’m about 4 episodes into Hemlock Grove… it’s not bad.
I’m going to sign up for this so I am in accordance with their policy said no one ever.
It’s more of a requirement if you have a family with 4 people trying to stream at the same time. It currently caps out at 2, when #3 tries to stream it explicitly states there are too many other streams going.
I gave up on netflix evolved onto hulu plus, the tv shows r updated overnight and it has a vast collection
I agree, for tv. But their movie catalog is lame!
yeah, but if I wanna watch a new dvd bad enough, i’ll just redbox it
Netflix still has a better TV collection, it just isn’t as current, but at least it’s Commercial Free. Hulu Plus is getting ridiculous with their ads.
Yeah. Paying for Hulu plus just so I can have the privilege of streaming the show onto my smartphone while still watching ads is a sham. I happily watch those ads on Hulu free streamed on my home theater PC. since its a PC, there isn’t an arbitrary monthly fee (yet) for streaming. The only real downside is you get no Hulu exclusives (yeah, don’t care) and you only get something like the most recent four episodes of any given show, which is also adequate for me. We did have plus for a while but I got tied of paying extra, not really consuming much more content, and all the while still being forced to watch ads.
F You Netflix, they said their plans were only $7.99 and they charged my $8 something, WTF??? WHY SHOULD WE PAY MORE TO WATCH IT ON TWO MORE PHONE’S OE WHATEVER???
sales tax……… added to 7.99……. adds up to 8 something…
I know, but there was a big thing about them charging $7.99 and charging $8 something. So they said it would only be $7.99 from now on!!
What the hell? You are complaining about sales tax now? What store lists the price of their product including sales tax? Do you pick up an item listed $29.99, get charged $32 and change, and proclaim “F U Target! You said this was $29.99!!!”
I just don’t get some people…
Netflix is required to charge tax in most states (soon to be all if this internet sales tax law passes this week), So odds are your bill is closer to $8.50 than $7.99, but nobody includes Tax in their advertising since it varies. Also, Netflix has limited streaming to two simultaneous streams for a while now, they aren’t going to do unlimited and let people share out their accounts all over the place. $11 is a lot cheaper than the $16 that would necessary to start a second Netflix account.
The current limit is 1 device per disc you get, or 2 on streaming only plans.
I thought they separated the plans out completely, so you’re basically getting a streaming plan separate from the dvd plan?
There hasn’t been any updated shows lately..
hmm i hadnt realized theyd dropped the limit to 2. Its always been 5 streams for me, maybe since i have dvds still im grandfathered in? I’ll try a test on 3 devices later and see what happens.
Did you test it yet?
Just tested it, guess i hadnt tried it in a while. I only get 2 streams with my streaming+1disc plan. When they split the discs I dropped from 2 dvds to this plan, thats probably when they stopped giving me 5 streams. Also in terms of bandwidth, we have 15mbps internet and it can handle a super hd 1080p stream on the wiiU+2 720phd streams on laptops no problem, we do it all the time, sometimes we even do the 1 1080+3 720 streams. (we have multiple netflix accounts)
Um… This is 2 at the same time. Not only 2 devices. I’ve noticed that people haven’t been understanding what this means.
So on the $8 only 2 devices can be streaming Netflix at the SAME TIME. You can have like 10 devices, but only 2 devices can be using Netflix at the same time.
If you already understood that, then nevermind. This post will help someone else. LoL!!
Yea, I think the article made that pretty clear. Netflix hasn’t limited # of devices for years. They did limit to 5 (which is why my plan ending up being 5 at a time) back in the day before silverlight when they used windows media player codec and a few months after the switch to silverlight, they also had limited # of hours at that point.