Netflix to raise its prices yet again, brace yourselves

You can’t hear me but I just released a disappointed sigh. Netflix is reportedly set to raise its prices yet again.

Streaming services just don’t know when to stop, do they? It feels as if series cancellations are more commonplace than ever, content is being removed in order to save money, our ad-free experiences are becoming ad-filled experiences and all of this for, checks notes, a higher price? We’ve been through price rises. We’ve been through the great password sharing crackdown, which ended up with most people adding yet another fee on top of their usual subscription. At some point, we’ve got to hit the ceiling of just how high prices can rise, surely?

Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender has recently been released to a mixed response.

In the last several years, we’ve seen regular increases across most major streaming services. In the last few months alone, Prime introduced a £2.99 / $2.99 fee to remove newly-added adverts. A tweet regarding Disney Plus’ prices in the UK is also doing the rounds. Twitter user mellyfratelli showed that she paid £49.99 in 2020, followed by £59.99 in 2021, and £79.90 in 2022. Disney Plus has recently started informing subscribers that this price will rise to £109.90 from 30 March 2024.

That’s more than double in the space of just four years. I don’t know about you but I certainly don’t feel as if I’m getting double the amount of content compared to what was available in 2020. I recently received this email from Disney Plus myself and while at first I brushed it off as a mild annoyance - after all, annual streaming rises have become the norm - I then found myself asking the question of: How far can this go?

Well, it looks as if Netflix is set to keep on pushing its subscribers to their limits. As reported by Discussing Film, analysts have revealed that the streamer is set to raise its prices once again this year. At this point in time, we don’t yet know by how much. Right now, in the UK, a Premium plan is £17.99 a month, with a Standard following at £10.99 a month. You can also opt for the cheaper ad-supported plan for £4.99 a month but don’t forget that all services will require an additional password sharing fee if you’re hoping to span this membership across various addresses.

I’d like to say we’ll surely hit a peak soon, that prices cannot keep justifiably rising, but I fear we passed that mark a while ago. Who knows when this will end.