Netflix Eyes Yet Another Price Hike As It Slowly Devolves Into Comcast
Clearly keen to not miss another opportunity to show how they're slowly turning into Comcast, Netflix this week indicated they'd be pushing yet another price hike in the wake of the recently successful writers' strike:
Netflix is planning to increase the cost of its streaming service yet again,according to a report fromThe Wall Street Journal. The streamer will reportedly issue the price hike a few months" after the Hollywood actors strike ends, which could happen in the coming weeks."
The financial compensation writers were demanding was a pittance compared to Netflix's ongoing earnings, so this is likely just a lazy opportunity to blame writers for the price hike the company was probably already planning. According to the WGA, the cost of their new contract will amount to just 0.2 percent of Netflix's annual revenue.
The increase comes on the heels of an unpopular price hike the company implemented last year. It also comes shortly after the company's decision to start nickel-and-diming users who share passwords with friends and family members, something Netflix openly supported until a saturated market forced the company to start chasing its tail in the never-ending quest to please Wall Street.
The unyielding quest by streaming companies to endlessly jack up prices as their product catalog shrinks and the overall quality deteriorates is the exact doom loop that traditional cable giants have been stuck in for the last fifteen years. Impatient Wall Street wants its improved quarterly returns at any cost, forcing most of the streaming companies to start nickel-and-diming their users at every opportunity.
Amazon recently announced it would be charging Prime users (who already pay $140 annually) an additional $3 a month just to avoid ads. Disney recently announced it would be following Netflix's heels and cracking down on password sharing. Then there's whatever nonsense the jumbled mess of detritus created by the pointless Time Warner Discovery merger is up to on any given week.
There's still a bit of runway for these companies in terms of the consumer perception of value, but it's becoming pretty clear they're just going to keep pushing their luck until that relationship ultimately breaks. That will open the door wider for the streaming industry to be disrupted by Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok in the same way Netflix once disrupted Comcast.