Will Price Increase Be the Last Straw for Frustrated Netflix Subscribers?
by EG
Netflix isn't making anyone but investors happy with its just-announced biggest price increase ever. But the increase in cost could be the final straw for subscribers who are already sick of spending hours scrolling and still not finding anything worth watching. Read on for details.
Via Marketwatch.
Evynn McFalls loves movies and television, but he’s been watching Netflix less of late — and now he’s thinking of giving it up altogether.
“I just don’t know if it’s really worth the time suck of endless scrolling or the money,” the 27-year-old New York City-based marketing professional told MarketWatch, hours after news broke that the content streaming giant was making its largest subscription rate increase to date, with its most used plan going to a $13 monthly price from $11.
The Associated Press reported the subscription cash influx will go towards Netflix’s NFLX, -0.30% bet on original programming and its debt, incurred to beat back competitors. Lavish original series like “The Crown,” about the life of Queen Elizabeth II of England don’t come cheap. Its stock price jumped Tuesday on the news.
‘I just don’t know if it’s really worth the time suck of endless scrolling or the money.’
Yet McFalls — who also has an Amazon AMZN, +1.47% Prime account and finds himself watching some more cable TV lately — said the original Netflix programming “tends to be hit or miss.” For instance, he loved “Maniac,” but was “less enthusiastic” about “Birdbox,” the apocalyptic science fiction movie starring Sandra Bullock. He would’ve passed on it, if it wasn’t for the horror flick’s buzz.
At this point, being in on the latest release just might not be worth it all, he said. Unless he knows precisely what he wants to see, McFalls said he’ll browse for a couple minutes reading descriptions. But he doesn’t like to invest too much time doing that. “I usually end up doing something else,” he said.
And watching Netflix with friends is a whole different issue. “We get caught in a war of attrition. Nobody has an answer,” he said — it’s just “awkward” scrolling. “It’s bad enough to do that alone.”
Netflix executives have previously written that they strive to grab a viewer’s attention with a selection in the first 60 to 90 seconds of browsing, but there may be others like McFalls who come up empty despite their searching.
Get the rest of the story at Marketwatch.
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