Netflix raises monthly subscription prices in US, Canada | Hacker News Reader

Netflix raises monthly subscription prices in US, Canada

reuters.com

23 pointsjmsflknr15 comments

Not that many years ago, HBO was still locked behind expensive cable subscriptions while Netflix cost only a fraction of what you'd pay for a premium cable tier. With HBO Max having spun off into its own streaming service, and now this price change, Netflix has become more expensive than HBO!

"The goal," says Sarandos, "is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us."

https://www.theverge.com/2013/1/29/3930560/netflix-wants-at-...

(Jan 29, 2013)

I'd say they probably did accomplish that, but now HBO is still HBO and HBO has become Netflix in addition to being HBO.

My first thought was that I might swap in HBO for Netflix given this change, especially since the more expensive HBO plan is on sale for $11.99 right now.

I’m not sure about HBO but one thing I like about Netflix is they have a lot of multilingual content.

My wife is Japanese and we spent the pandemic year in Tokyo with our then 1-yr old daughter. Netflix worked there flawlessly and had both native JP content and a lot of US/English content.

Now that we’re back in the US Netflix provides a good amount of content with Japanese subtitles and audio tracks. It’s nice that we can have the audio for my daughter to listen to. She spoke only Japanese when we were in Tokyo and I’d like to keep her engaged with the language for as long as possible because I suspect once she goes to school she’ll give up Japanese in favor of English.

> I suspect once she goes to school she’ll give up Japanese in favor of English

That's not necessarily the case; we spoke German in the home and our son remained personally comfortable continuing in German with us (speaking, reading, texting etc) through leaving the house for university.

Netflix used to be the one subscription I kept while adding and dropping others based on content.

With the limited catalog, a general disinterest in all but a few of their originals, and the raising prices I'm thinking it's time to cancel and wait until something of interest lands on their platform again.

"Netflix's subscriber growth slowed from a boom early in the COVID-19 pandemic but rebounded with help from global phenomenon "Squid Game," a dystopian thriller from South Korea released in September."

It is amazing that one big show can bring a significant number of subscribers in. Seems like most, if not all, services have at least one big hit, but it's never enough to get me to try. I want to see Ted Lasso, but it just doesn't seem worth signing up for yet another thing to just watch one show.

You don't have to stay subscribed, think of Apple TV as $5 for a one-month rental and that's a pretty good deal. Schedule a reminder to unsubscribe if there's nothing else you want to see.

Apple et al. are starting to crack down on that practice. They've gotten wise to it and are making you jump through more hurdles to cancel after such a short interval. They're also starting to flag your account if you share your credentials with someone who is in a geographically distant location (and therefore not part of the same household).

Haven't experienced that myself, but I'll check when Ted Lasso season 3 comes out.

At the very least I appreciate that Apple defaults to emailing a receipt every month when it renews, unlike some other subscriptions that go radio silent and hope you'll just never get around to canceling it.

I don't have Netflix every month anymore. The content is getting more spread out over so many of these newer streaming services. Before it was ok, Netflix was cheap enough and had most of what I watched, but no more. It's getting too pricey to keep around just out of convenience. I'm on a really tight budget so it matters.

I was just thinking of cancelling my Netflix account. This has pushed me over the edge. It’s annoying that they don’t let me do it on mobile or i would be able to do it right now

People on HN always seem to cheer about wage increases and liberal fiscal and monetary policies, meanwhile literally every single commodity, product and service they pay for is going up and inflation (according to CPI) is at a whopping 7%. Talk about disconnection from reality.

They don't have to raise prices, they're just doing it because they can. They made 1.4B on 7.4B of revenues in their last reported quarter. [0] It's not like these companies that are raising prices are losing money. Netflix is running a pretty consistent 20% profit margin.

[0]: https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001065280/19cd535...

No one is cheering them because they don't happen. They advocate for them, but it doesn't happen, even when cost and profits are skyrocketing.

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