Amazon Prime has fewer free movies than Netflix and they are no newer or better in quality. I already had Amazon Prime as it's a great deal for the shipping, but I wouldn't shell out the 80 bucks just for the streaming.

We have had Netflix for a year now. We have the streaming plus 1 DVD. As much as I hate the price increase its still cheaper than renting. Plus the only DVD rentals we have here are Redbox and Blockbuster; neither ever seem to have any movies that we want to see. We've never had a problem with Netflix. The few times we've gotten a bad DVD they sent the replacements right away. I think we'll stick it out but if they keep increasing we may rethink.

I think another problem is that Netflix was basically undercharging for their service. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. However, they probably SHOULD be charging more for the unlimited streaming, so it's weird to me they didn't raise the price of that. Their business model seems all messed up right now.

We got rid of the streaming option. Most of the movies available were older anyway. Netflix put Blockbuster out of business....and now may do the same to itself.

I think another problem is that Netflix was basically undercharging for their service. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. However, they probably SHOULD be charging more for the unlimited streaming, so it's weird to me they didn't raise the price of that. Their business model seems all messed up right now.

Yep. The thing I found the strangest about this decision was how little sense it seemed to make as far as a strong business model. You would think they could have come up with some mixed type offers rather than a hard "either, or" like they did. Maybe a mix of 1 DVD out and 5 streaming movies a month or whatever. Instead, they come out, talked down to one of the loyalest customer bases and offered up a couple rigid, no flexibility plans.

And the reply from one of their VP's yesterday was pretty freaking condescending, something along the lines of "It is only around $6 dollars more a month, that is a couple lattes for people, they can absorb that....".

I think Marc hit the nail on the head. My ISP is talking about setting up "tiered" access, where if you only do basic stuff, you'll pay $19.99 a month (up to 20GB of downloading/uploading), and then upwards from there.

Needless to say, I run the maximum available, but now they're talking about setting the maximum at 200GB a month. That's not a lot of movies.

Comcast already has a cap of 250MB a month. Most months we don't get anywhere NEAR that, and we stream stuff through our Roku every single day (we don't have cable TV). I think how much bandwidth you use depends on the quality of the streaming. Right now, there isn't much that streams at higher than 720p (which is all our TV can handle anyway). A lot of stuff on Netflix still streams in SD. In the near future, this is going to become much more of a concern when streaming quality goes up and so does widespread hardware capability. Then the cable companies, streaming providers, ISP's, movie studios, etc are going to have to all get in the ring together and duke it out.

We were streaming +1 disk. We were tired of keeping up the disk queue anyway so we dropped the disk. Savings of $2. Plus we have Roku and Amazon prime (which is ok but not Netflix). Playon software throws a few more options out there. It seems like we always have something to watch. We also do Redbox, Blockbuster can kiss my ass!! They tried to take late fees on EVRYTHING we ever rented from them, and we don't do late fees.

I'm predicting that now Netflix will start annual or bi-annual rate hikes. Probably of a buck or more.

Probably my biggest complaint with netflix is that there is a lot of movies they don't carry, and since they destroyed previous rental companies, there is no place to rent them.

They are getting better, their streaming selection seems to be getting a lot of newer films. Of course DVD will get first priority for releases while streaming usually becomes available when the film in questions hits pay cable. I notice that if I search for a movie a lot it becomes available shortly thereafter. Might just be coincidence.