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Netflix Testing New 'Ultra' Tier of Service That Cuts Premium Plan Streams From Four to Two
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My ISP plan allows streaming uncapped from other suppliers providing a streaming service. This ISP plan I have added 4k sport provided by my ISP glass to glass and so a comparison to Netflix 4k quality is easy. My ISP shows what 4k streamed well should look like. Netflix needs to up the rate. They really do. I suspect HDR is just a bait option. If I want films I now get them on Apple TV.
However if people are not seeing HDR on a particular makers app, then complain as I did and get the run around, it is clear the customer care is not really there, the bottom line is the number of streams. HDR makes it worse for my set and the only real way to get full fat 4k when they load on HDR is to run it through the Apple TV and disable HDR.
Original content has had some interesting stuff but wasting 4k on standup comedians is not really doing anything. Marco Polo was great and Luke Cage a bit meh. For me there is no killer must have. For a family keeping the kids quiet, probably. The few that are seeing this and cease subs will not affect their bottom line.
Will they mis me when I leave? Absolutely not. Can I still have a moan about it? Absolutely. Just hate to see a great opportunity missed to appeal to the masses where they make their money.......... oh, I get it
However if people are not seeing HDR on a particular makers app, then complain as I did and get the run around, it is clear the customer care is not really there, the bottom line is the number of streams. HDR makes it worse for my set and the only real way to get full fat 4k when they load on HDR is to run it through the Apple TV and disable HDR.
Original content has had some interesting stuff but wasting 4k on standup comedians is not really doing anything. Marco Polo was great and Luke Cage a bit meh. For me there is no killer must have. For a family keeping the kids quiet, probably. The few that are seeing this and cease subs will not affect their bottom line.
Will they mis me when I leave? Absolutely not. Can I still have a moan about it? Absolutely. Just hate to see a great opportunity missed to appeal to the masses where they make their money.......... oh, I get it
And here we go back to cable TV except over the Internet. Also, since net neutrality is gonna die...
It’s already dead unfortunately. For now, anyway.
But on your first point yeah, i don’t think people want to give up their broadcasted network television. Sure, they want access to their favorite shows on demand, but they also want to choose to watch them live if they so choose. Streaming services like Hulu aren’t enough for me, I definitely need my Directvnow as well. So you’re right, cable isn’t going anywhere, it’s just changing forms right now.
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I said I am fine with Netflix raising prices, just don’t do it sneakily.
By the way comments that say if you don’t like it vote with your wallet are not constructive and pointless.
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Did you even read my post.
I said I am fine with Netflix raising prices, just don’t do it sneakily.
By the way comments that say if you don’t like it vote with your wallet are not constructive and pointless.
What's the difference between paying more for your current plan or paying more to upgrade to a higher plan? Why is that such a problem for you? Are you saying that if they simply jacked up the price of your current plan, you wouldn't be complaining on this forum?
Your analogy is incorrect anyway. If a food producer reduces a product size, everyone who purchases the product is affected equally. However, in Netflix's case, by moving certain features to a higher plan the only people who are affected are those who need said features. The other people who don't need those features continue to pay the same price for the features they use.
Simply because it is a sneaky way to increase prices. I'd rather companies were honest. Look at they way they are trying to introduce this by testing the waters on just a little area.
They have already jacked up the price of my plan and yes I wasn't on here complaining. I felt the value I get from my subscription to still be worth it. However, If I see sneaky practices, I will voice my concern. I know that companies watch for mentions of them online and threads like this are visible to them.
My analogy is sound, Food producers who decrease the the size of products to avoid showing price increases are being sneaky in the hope that you don't notice.
What about those users who use those features? Now they have the inconvenience of having to change plans. Price increases on the other hand leave the users with no actions to take, it is automatic.
Surely it is obvious to you that the sensible thing to do is to keep features that users use in the plans that they are subscribed to and hence what they signed up to. Netflix shouldn't move the goal posts so to speak. Think of it from another point of view, a family is using netflix fine on several screens, then they get a message popping up that they are using too many screens at once. But how could that be? We use the same amount of screen that we always have? Its just a PR nightmare and I bet Netflix back down.
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The idea of a cap is unfathomable to me. Competitive internet markets don't have caps. I live in Cincinnati where I have gigabit fiber from the local phone company (Cincinnati Bell) and could get similar speeds (300 Mbps to 1 Gbps depending on neighborhood) from Spectrum if I hated myself and wanted to inflict their customer service on me. Cincinnati Bell and Time Warner/Spectrum have been competing on high speed internet for almost 20 years at this point.
If you have a cap it's probably because government at different levels has limited competition in your area over the years.
Perhaps, but "Account Sharing" has very legitimate uses beyond giving your neighbor/friend/cousin/etc. access to your account. Families use this all the time. Given that Mom & Dad could watch MovieA in the living room, while Kid1 watches MovieB in the bedroom, Kid2 watches TVc in the backyard... the idea of multiple streams is born!
IMO this is nothing but a price hike. BUT... if Netflix continues to offer a wide range of Tier A and B products then it's still probably worth the cost. I don't resent a company making a fair profit as long as I get a fair value in return.
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Not quite. The "Majority" of today's US Population is not well represented by the "news" media. We are quiet, hard-working, self-reliant individuals who don't expect anyone else to take care of us... and resent taking paying for others just because they are too lazy / irresponsible to do it themselves.
I think you are in the minority. I live in the area where the Gov't gave Verizon a metric F-ton of money to put fios in the ground to which they never did, kept the money, and had no reprocussions. As a result, my internet choice is A) Capped, slow, Comcrap, or B) Nothing.
I vote with my wallet when it’s necessary. It’s not really sneaky. It’s actually quite transparent. A new tier that’s more money. Pretty cut and dry kiddo.
sounds like Netflix is going to let another company "supercede" theirs at the rate they are going with yearly fee's hikes or plans changes such as this one... I mean they are ridiculously valuable on the stock market but I guess they failed to remember it wasn't too long ago they were on the brink of chapter 11. With competition heating up with Disney, Warner and Apple looking to start or ramp up their streaming video services they are likely to take a hit. At some point how many subscriptions can you really have for video content...there's only so much hours in a day.
So the government meddled and nothing happened. Perhaps they scared off a competitor who might have made an investment.
In Cincinnati, competition happened, and we have more than 70% of Cincinnati with fiber from the phone company, and they're still building. (They say they expect to reach 80-85% before the ROI gets too low to justify the investment.) And we have Spectrum now upgrading their infrastructure to compete.
Whatever the history, I can feel your pain. I've never had to worry about data caps on wired internet service. We would regularly destroy data caps with multiple 4K streams, a home video server, and a nearly 9TB cloud backup. You really need some competition.
LOL! Can you even point to one ISP that has announced a data cap since the reversal of "net neutrality"? I've googled a good bit for it and can't find any. Just articles that say it's "possible ISPs will introduce data caps", but none that actually announce new data caps. Heck, more data caps were implemented under net neutrality than before.
This is an interesting point, exactly the opposite of what came to my mind when I read OP's post: I thought the government clearly didn't do enough (if there are no repercussions or fines, of course there's no reason for businesses to comply).
It's great to hear someone else's perspective on this one.
Equally, I'd argue that more competition might help, but I strongly believe that government's interventions are necessary in order to ensure fair conditions for customers.
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While you're right, the point OP was trying to make (I think) is that ISPs can now arbitrarily cap 4K streaming in particular, and leave all other services uncapped. This is the problem with net neutrality.
EDIT: I put "problem" in quotation marks first, changed it to italics so as to avoid inducing a debate about net neutrality. Highlighting is used for emphasis only.
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Thank you FCC and Trump you are making America more generous.
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In this case that isn't the real issue Premium or Ultra lacks 4K HDR content there aren't so many of them for a price hike it has nothing to do with their Original movies/TV Series people are complaining about really.
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In this case that isn't the real issue Premium or Ultra lacks 4K HDR content there aren't so many of them for a price hike it has nothing to do with their Original movies/TV Series people are complaining about really.
I've never looked at this in-depth before now. Didn't even realize there was a cheaper tier below $10.99. Thought about switching to it but I guess it doesn't have 1080p which is kind of a problem. Didn't realize you had to pay more to get 4K. Hopefully 4K will become standard at some point but probably not before they raise the standard rate some more in the coming years. I'm finally going to upgrade to a 4K TV sometime early next year so I'm not very excited about that.
Not a bad deal. 4K costs money to support. I don't wanna pay for 4K to play on my 720p TV. I don't want to pay for live streams I never use.
Cox
Time Warner
Verizon FiOS
Google Fiber - stopped all production and further roll out plans
AT&T - DirecTV - Horizon ISP
Comcast
Centurylink
All of these have data caps and are now rolling out to more states. Before they were in "test markets" that weren't enforcing Net Neutrality. Now that it's dead it's starting to roll out to all 50 states.
A new tier is fine if they are adding something new.
Here they are not, they are taking a plan where families can watch 2 streams at once just now, then at some point they are going to get a message saying "sorry you cannot watch 2 screens at once anymore, if you would like to continue, ask your parents to upgrade their plan" From a pr point of view that sucks. From a parents point of view, they are just creating lots of angst.
If they want to raise prices, make it explicit and just raise them.
Just don't go messing with what people already have and make millions of people have to take unnecessary actions.
I'll bet Netflix won't go through with reducing the number of screens we can watch on the standard plan.
I was intentionally making the opposite of the obvious argument. I don't know enough about the history of the OP's market to know what happened with Verizon. Obviously Verizon should not be able to breach a contract without repercussions. I do know that in some cases interventions have the opposite of the intended effect.
It's also true that some government interventions may (or may not) be necessary to kickstart competition in uncompetitive markets created by decades of government-enforced monopolies. (I remember as a teenager in Cincinnati in the 80's that every city still had an official government-sanctioned cable operator. No competitors allowed.) We're fortunate in Cincinnati that we have ended up with a competitive internet and video market because Cincinnati Bell (founded 1873) has remained independent and aggressive. (It could have turned out differently. Cincinnati Bell almost went under after the dotcom crash.)
Never underestimate the unwashed. They have to have their netflix. Cuttin the cord is somehow cheaper for these folks even though they pay more now than ever.
Good point and I hope it’s true. Majority of population you meet outside.
If Netflix to continue to offer premium shows and etc they should be compensated for it. In addition $6 a month is really nothing, a cup of coffee from SB.