Hacker Read

cobookman · 2017-02-11 15:36:22+00:00

If they lower the price they might not get more subscribers. So they are pricing it to maximize revenue.

crzwdjk | karma 238 | avg karma 1.76 · | 2016-08-03 06:07:10+00:00

Not necessarily. It's entirely plausble that they set the price lower in order to boost the number of subscribers and thus their political constituency.

nxsynonym | karma 1249 | avg karma 3.87 · | 2017-08-15 14:05:41+00:00

They've already been running this at $50 or $60 a month, why would they drop the price just to raise it again?

cake | karma 896 | avg karma 3.6 · | 2012-05-21 14:38:53+00:00

I don't get it, why would it be priced perfectly ? Why would you want it to decrease ?

mrtksn | karma 20352 | avg karma 4.42 · | 2022-08-24 23:53:11

Probably that's not the case, it looks like they introduced localised pricing similar to the one in the App Store(or Netflix, Amazon Prime etc.).

If you think about it, their costs are fixed and they should optimize for revenue and the sweet spot for the num subscribers and price is different at every market.

reply

amichail | karma 14132 | avg karma 2.47 · | 2009-10-18 16:39:12

Maybe this is just their marketing strategy? Get lots of free publicity as a result of the high price? Later they might lower it to something reasonable.

rladd | karma 452 | avg karma 3.77 · | 2019-11-16 00:18:35

My guess is that they'd get much more (more than 10x) uptake at $1.99 than they will at $12.99.

And they need volume to make it work. So this pricing seems like a big mistake to me.

reply

closetohome | karma 811 | avg karma 1.99 · | 2022-01-20 17:45:50

It's almost as though repeatedly raising prices increases revenue at the cost of subscriber numbers. Wild.

aspyct | karma 1687 | avg karma 3.26 · | 2024-05-13 06:42:32

Not saying you _have_ to lower the price, maybe I'm just a cheap bastard ;) You know what you need out of it.

EDIT: actually I just noticed it was cheaper through the "unlimited" option. Maybe a simpler/clearer pricing would do :)

reply

srtjstjsj | karma 3017 | avg karma 1.35 · | 2020-10-06 14:40:21+00:00

Or they might raise their prices to get more margin on remaining loyal users.

CobrastanJorji | karma 13393 | avg karma 7.52 · | 2022-10-26 13:25:15

You're both right. It was $15/mo, then the price went up to $18 but they didn't raise the price for existing subscribers, but this time they're raising the price for existing customers as well, so for the oldest customers, it's a 50%, $15->$23 hike, and for newer customers, it's a 27%, $18->$23 hike.

supergauntlet | karma 390 | avg karma 1.98 · | 2014-06-12 22:13:27

It's possible they're trying to drive the price down.

podman | karma 384 | avg karma 2.91 · | 2010-10-11 19:19:51+00:00

Their justification on Twitter seems to be that they needed to get rid of their free tier. That makes some sense, but that doesn't really explain why they double the price for their lowest tier and increased the pricing on their other tiers as well. It's unfortunate that they're increasing their price without adding any extra value to the product.

mhp | karma 1356 | avg karma 5.67 · | 2010-05-18 12:42:54

Why don't they change the price for new users, and leave the price for existing customers? Seems like the default way to increase your prices with minimal friction.

j1elo | karma 4797 | avg karma 4.42 · | 2024-01-19 02:55:42

But of course they won't charge less to compensate for the reduced offering, will they?

colinmhayes | karma 5802 | avg karma 1.83 · | 2022-05-27 20:50:58

That's what people are paying though. They can always lower prices when they stop selling out.

shadesandcolour | karma 405 | avg karma 2.04 · | 2014-04-21 23:51:32

The last time they tried raising prices, everyone threw a hissy fit. This is their way of slowly rolling out a new pricing model. Current users will eventually get the new price, but for right now they feel like Netflix is being loyal to them.

If perspective users really can't justify Netflix at 10 dollars, they probably couldn't justify it at 8 dollars anyways.

reply

tguvot | karma 1056 | avg karma 1.5 · | 2023-02-22 15:23:51

I am a subscriber. They increased my price a few months ago by 10%. And now they raised it again.

twobitshifter | karma 4347 | avg karma 2.5 · | 2022-04-29 12:15:01

There’s a chance they just needed to raise the price. I wonder how people land on something like $4. At that price your demand for something like this is not price sensitive. $5 and you have 20% growth, $8 and you’ve doubled. To the users it’s just a few bucks.

refurb | karma 27208 | avg karma 1.53 · | 2019-04-29 18:42:15+00:00

Well, reduction in price means reduction in revenue, so I would assume they'd target the same 17-20% of a lower number.