Netflix is hitting our wallets once again. The streaming giant announced on Tuesday, January 21, that they are raising their monthly subscription prices in the US across all of its subscription tiers (price hikes are also coming to Canada, Portugal and Argentina). This has me thinking it may finally be time to switch things up and adopt a churning strategy to only sign up for Netflix when they have something I have to watch.
The official slate of price hikes include raising Netflix’s ad-supported tier from $6.99 per month to $7.99 per month; the Netflix’s Standard plan from $15.49 per month to $17.99 per month and Netflix’s Premium tier from $22.99 per month to $24.99 per month. This will make Netflix ad-free options more expensive than Apple TV Plus, Disney Plus, Max, Paramount Plus and Peacock (only Hulu’s stand-alone ad-free plan costs more).
Netflix will argue that it is worth having one of the heaviest price tags because of its slate of programming (which it says it will use part of the increased fees to invest more in, presumably including more live events), but I see it a bit differently. Yes, Netflix may be developing as much or more new content than any other streamer, but honestly a lot of it is stuff I have little to no interest in, and if there is something I am interested in watching, I finish it in a week or two and then have to wait months sometimes for another show or movie I’m actively interested in watching. So why not just cancel Netflix when I’m done watching what I want to watch and add it once again when the next show I want to watch premieres?
Looking ahead at what Netflix has coming in 2025, while I’m intrigued by TV shows like Zero Day, the only ones that Netflix has currently that I am full-on committed to watching are Stranger Things season 5, Full Swing season 3 and the next season of The Great British Bake Off, which won’t arrive until the fall. On the movie side, I definitely want to watch Happy Gilmore 2 for pure nostalgia and Wake Up Dead Man for the next Knives Out mystery.
Outside of those titles, it’s going to be word of mouth that will bring me to a Netflix show or movie. And if there is something that I hear is great and I need to watch, I could always just wait until I’m ready to re-up for Stranger Things or another of my must-see titles and then use the rest of the month subscription I have to catch up on anything else I may have fallen behind on.
The old argument that Netflix is the best place to stream old TV shows and movies doesn’t hold up as well anymore, either. Netflix still has a good sized library, but with other streamers holding tighter to TV shows and movies that they own, there’s less than there used to be. And personally, rewatching series I’ve already seen before isn’t high on my to-do list.
Admittedly, watching TV shows and movies so I can share what are the ones worth spending your time on is my job, so this is not as simple of a call for me (also being married, I wouldn’t dream of removing one of our streaming services without talking about it with my wife first; don’t want to risk that potential argument). But the fact that I’m even considering churning Netflix (and possibly other streamers) should speak to the issue at hand and the viability of it as a strategy for you as well.
Factoring into the Netflix price increase into my monthly budget, I’m paying more than $130 a month for the likes of Apple TV Plus, Disney/Hulu/ESPN Plus bundle, Max, Netflix and YouTube TV. That’s a solid chunk of change, especially over a full year. Am I really getting the value of that cost? What are the services that I absolutely need?
In all honesty, I’m not sure Netflix is one of them, at least not one that I absolutely need at all times regardless of cost. This Netflix price hike has truly brought that into focus.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
