Earlier this summer, Netflix pissed off a bunch of people by raising their prices. Apparently a not insignificant number of people followed through on their threats to quit.

I shall now, at the risk of confusing you, bash both the Netflix-bashers, and Netflix.

BASHING THE BASHERS: OK, yeah. My bill went up "60%" -- which is like six bucks. Quite frankly, in the grand scheme of things, I could give two shits, and I don't understand quitting over it (unless you were really on the edge of not using it enough to make it worth it). $20 a month for unlimited streaming AND unlimited two-at-a-time DVD's straight to my door is still, in my humble opinion, a fine deal. Back in the days of the (not so) friendly neighborhood Blockbuster, you were paying $4.50 for one DVD. And you had to get up off your ass and go there. Only to find they didn't have what you wanted. I daresay people are getting a tad spoiled.

BASHING NETFLIX: What does bother me is that the rate increase is part of a larger, not-so-clandestine effort to Jedi Mind Trick everyone away from DVD's by mail, to the Netflix streaming-only plans. This is not cool. I understand that all that mail is getting expensive. But they can't in good conscience pretend like their streaming offerings are actually an acceptable substitute for a DVD plan. The offerings are pretty awful. I don't know the percentages, but I feel like a truly tiny portion of TV shows and (actual good) movies are there for streaming. Almost every time I look something up, it's DVD-only. Yet they've changed several aspects of the website to steer us that way. I dare you to try to buy a Gift Subscription for someone that covers X months of a DVD plan. I believe the Netflix company line is that the higher fees will give them the money to add to their streaming offerings. We'll see. But for now, it pisses me off.
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