As expected, DVD rental company Netflix will raise the monthly fee for subscribers by $1 for customers who rent Blu-ray Discs. The new addition to the monthly fee will start November 5th, and customers who don’t want Blu-ray rentals will need to change their account settings on the Netflix website.
In an email to Netflix subscribers, the company said the additional $1 reflects the price of high-definition Bu-ray discs, which are significantly higher than standard definition DVDs.
Considering that most HD VOD rentals are $1 more than their standard-def counterparts, and understandably so because of the higher bandwidth requirements, this seems like a reasonable charge.
What I find questionable is the fact that customers must change their own account settings or be charged more. Sure it’s only a buck, but a more customer friendly way to introduce the additional charge would have been to only increase subscription amounts to subscribers who currently rent Blu-ray discs.
