Netflix’s Price Hike is the Greatest Betrayal Since Judas’

Yesterday, while sifting through the usual maze of dick pill spam that is my inbox, I received a rather innocuously titled email: “Important Netflix Account Info: Price Change and New Plans.” “Hey,” I thought to myself, “Change makes us grow as a person, and I like new things! After all, there was a time Netflix was a new thing in my life, and boy, I sure love that!” Actually, what I thought was, “Those motherfuckers are going to whore me. I know it. I goddamn know it.” And whore me they did.

Less than two years ago, I joined Netflix so I’d have something (non-productive) to do with my time during the several graveyard shifts I worked at WTOP each week. The price of membership was $8.99 per month to have one DVD at a time shipped to my house, plus I was entitled to unlimited viewing of the few titles that were available via the online streaming service. I thought it was the greatest thing on Earth because I really do love passively watching a screen displaying characters doing all the living, laughing and loving that I should be doing myself but can’t because I’m a clinically depressed adult working in an industry that pays less per hour than I made watching kids during the summer when I was 19*. A year down the line, Netflix raised its price by a dollar, from $8.99 to $9.99, citing the increasing cost of postage. While I figured it was probably a money grab due to the fact that more and more people (myself included) were only streaming content and ignoring the DVD rentals entirely, I played along because I was a tremendous fan of the service. Netflix also used the price increase to introduce a $7.99 option to only stream content and forego DVD service altogether, but for two bucks a month, I figured what the Hell.

Tuesday’s email announced that, while Netflix was keeping the $7.99 streaming-only option, to receive one DVD at a time, I would now have to pay an additional $7.99. Blind with rage, I immediately cancelled the DVD portion of my membership, pissed for what I felt were two very legitimate reasons: First, there was a complete lack of mention of the price hike on the Netflix site itself. While $6 isn’t a lot, it certainly could be the deciding factor between wanting to keep a totally non-essential service in your life and discarding it. The email announcing the price hike could have been deleted on sight by me, as is most email whose title doesn’t contain the words “pics of my breasts” and show that paper clip indicating an attachment.

The second reason is that no one wants Netflix’s goddamn DVDs to begin with, and, if they just streamed all their content, this would all be a moot point. The ability to instantly view content is what got me into the stupid service to begin with. Do you think I enjoy waiting several days for a plastic disc to arrive in my mailbox, only to have to physically ship it back a few days later in an envelope? This is 2011. Mail shouldn’t even exist anymore. Compared to the pinnacle of technology that is pressing a button and having a movie begin airing immediately, receiving a DVD in the mail is like the Pony Express delivering thousands of boxes filled of punch cards that contain the film’s data.

While I’ll stay a Netflix member because I’ll never forgive Blockbuster for running my local video store out of business (and pop a visible erection every time I see another one of their shops fold), the fact that the majority of their titles aren’t available for streaming just got a lot more annoying in light of their price increase. As John Wayne always said, “If you’re going to fuck me in the ass, at least buy me a sundae afterward.”**

*Not an exaggeration. If you’re not a daytime personality, radio pays shit. Especially CBS Radio, who might as well send me an I.O.U. slip promising me 40 acres and a mule every two weeks.

**John Wayne never said that.

Tagged as: Netflix.