Netflix changing its pricing plan, separating DVD and streaming subscriptions

Netflix announced on Tuesday that their popular unlimited DVD by mail and unlimited streaming combined package would no longer be available starting immediately for new customers and September 1 for existing customers. The new pricing options are now either $7.99 for unlimited DVDs by mail, $7.99 for unlimited online streaming, or $15.98 for both.

Netflix’s success with streaming has many fearful that they might soon be phasing out their DVD by mail service altogether, but founder and Chief Executive Reed Hastings has been saying for some time that the market would remain for at least another ten years or so due to the fact that there are a number of titles available on DVD and/or Blu-ray that aren’t available for streaming.

Netflix chief service and operations officer Andy Reich seems to agree. “Netflix members love watching instantly, but we’ve come to recognize there is still a very large continuing demand for DVDs by mail,” he said about the new changes. “By better reflecting the underlying costs and offering our lowest prices ever for unlimited DVD, we hope to provide a great value to our current and future DVD-by-mail members.”

I confess that I do both and it’s going to suck having to pay extra for it. They should at least knock a dollar off the package deal! After all, there are only so many hours in a day a person can watch movies and it seems like someone subscribing to both plans would logically use both services less frequently, right?

That being said, $7.99/month for unlimited DVDs by mail or streaming movies would have seemed dirt cheap ten years ago so who are we to complain? Heck, you can sign up for MOG and Netflix (both packages) and have unlimited music and movies for under $30/month!

Man o man do I feel stupid spending all my extra cash on CDs and DVDs for 15 years… ***SIGH***