This is the email Netflix sends you when your price is about to go up
Netflix is raising its prices this year.
To those who pay close attention to the company, this isn't a surprise at all. But there are still bound to be plenty of long-time Netflix customers surprised when they get an email from the company saying they'll have to start paying another $2 per month.
A little history:
Back in 2014, Netflix announced it was raising prices from $7.99 to $8.99 per month for new customers, but current customers were able to continue paying $7.99. Then in 2015, the company announced another price hike to $9.99, which would eventually affect Netflix's older customers paying $7.99.
So while it seems like Netflix was only raising prices $1 at a time, it was effectively charging its oldest and most loyal customers $2 more per month in one go. The price increase started rolling out to customers in May.
I've been paying $7.99 since I first joined Netflix in 2007, back when it was mostly a DVD service. (Remember DVDs?) I just got the dreaded email from Netflix saying I'd have to start paying $9.99 per month in August:
Is this a big deal? Should we all panic?
No way.
Netflix is a tremendous value, especially for someone like me who doesn't even have cable. And plenty of people who do have cable are happy to pay even more for Netflix because it's a fundamentally superior experience to discovering and watching shows compared to the clunky cable systems we have today. Netflix is worth every penny of that $9.99 per month.