That sounds exactly like what Netflix promised originally: cheap subscriptions, growing revenue through reach not higher prices.
Y'know, like when they offered a $11.99/month subscription in 2017... which now costs $15.99/month - a 33% rise in 1.5 years, whilst reducing the amount of content available.
This is the part that bothers me the most. I've been a subscriber to Netflix since 2008 and I'm getting pretty close to cancelling the streaming service.
I subscribe to the "standard" plan which is about to go up to $12.99 next month (from $10.99). Realistically the +$2/month isn't going to break me but it's the lack of content that will.
Almost every time I want to go watch something on Netflix, it's like "oh yeah, I remember watching Contact a few years ago on instant watch, let's do it up!... Oh wait, it's been removed". Then I'll think about 5 other movies I want to watch which I know I've watched in the past and they are gone too. Before you know it, I've spent 15 minutes trying to find something to watch where I end up just turning it off and doing something else.
It feels like you have to watch what Netflix is adding / removing every month instead of being able to select what you want to watch. To make matters worse I have an older smart DVD player and the Netflix UI doesn't show titles that are going to be removed if you have them added to your watch list (it only shows either or, and the watch list text always wins), which makes it a huge pain to tell if a title is about to expire since I have to use a third party website which breaks me from the watching / browsing experience.
I'll probably cancel in a few months and just stick with the 1 DVD out at a time plan which has nearly every movie. Sure the DVD plan is horrible for watching shows because of how long it would take to finish them due to shipping logistics but I watch more movies than shows.
And now some content isn't there at all, some is buy-only and some is rental. Factor in that everything Disney will be gone soon that sucks. Streaming got me away from "alternative" sources, if they continue like that might just return
Disclaimer: That counts for Germany
But when I am just taking a break for an hour or two in the evening and want to "see what's on", I fire up Netflix and flip through newly added movies/shows or skim through the familiar category listings.
It's certainly not perfect, but for (now) $13/month, it serves the same purpose as basic cable used to serve for me and it's about as much as I used to pay just for the stupid cable box rental.