I was minding my own business earlier this week – read: wasting time online – when a fresh email caught my attention. It was from Netflix, titled “Important Membership Information.” I clicked on it immediately only to discover it was a notification of a price hike. Apparently, my number was up, and Netflix told me that beginning next month, I have to pay more than I used to for my Netflix fix.
What happened next is pretty straightforward — I did the only thing one should do in this situation.
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“When we raised prices for new Netflix members last year, we kept your price the same for one year,” Netflix’s email begins – and I’m sure many current and former Netflix subscribers have seen similar notifications in their inboxes recently. Then the company informed me that my “special pricing is now ending,” and come next billing cycle, I’ll be charged more.
Then the email invited me to visit Netflix.com and review the details of this change, as well as my options for plans and prices. (The same notification greeted me later when logging into Netflix, telling me that the price hike is needed “so we can keep adding more shows and movies you’ll love.”)
It’s at this point that I did what any Netflix subscriber should do in this situation: I closed that email tab and continued minding my own business.
No, I don’t mind that extra charge every month at all. I’m perfectly happy spending an extra $24 a year on Netflix, which is much less than what I pay for coffee in a week, let alone a year. I’ll stay a subscriber even if this happens again next year.
Sure, I get why some people are upset that Netflix is raising the subscription cost, and why some are even suing. It’s the principle of the thing. But again. It’s just $24 extra a year, and you get an amazing return for that money.
My reasons for not being bothered by the price hike at all are really quite simple, and I’ll list some of them here in no particular order: House of Cards, Stranger Things, Orange Is the New Black, Master of None, Narcos, Bloodline, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Making A Murderer, and so many others.
I guess you can see where I am going with this. Unlike any other studio, Netflix is able to come up with more and more exciting shows and movies (yes, there are a few good ones that I didn’t even list above) at a faster pace, and it typically releases all the episodes at once so subscribers can binge.
Of course, I do understand that some of you are outraged that Netflix promised it would never raise the subscription price on your account, and you feel like you have to sue and/or close your account. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
But for me, there’s only one conceivable option. Ignore that price hike as long as Netflix keeps doing a tremendous job of coming up with must-watch content. So yes, Netflix, take my money so that you can keep adding more shows and movies that I’ll love.
