I thought it was revealed that this was only some areas. No price break in Des Moines so far.

Wow, I've been thinking about joining but all these price cuts are making my decision get a whole lot easier!

My two-at-a-time plan just went down as well, so it sounds like more than just one plan is dropping.

Don't know about it being some areas though, I'm in the D.C. metro area.

No such price break in Atlanta either, though hands down I still prefer Netflix to Blockbuster.
I briefly had Blockbuster and experienced nothing but problems: unplayable discs that weren't replaced, strange queuing, etc. Too bad about the shipping times from Greencine, my favorite of the three.

I must say this is a great and exciting trend. I would love to see it spill over into other sectors, like cell phones for instance...

It's a good time for me to break off of my ex's Netflix account and get my own :-D

I hope they don't "Low-price" themselves out of business!

No price break on one at a time, as far as I can tell. :(

Never had any problems with Blockbuster, and been an online customer since 2004. This is good for Netflix consumers, competition is a good thing.

I'm a blockbuster person, can't wait til they lower their prices.
Thought I worry for netflix, I could be wrong, but I think Blockbuster can better weather a price war.

I signed up for netflix at the beginning of the year, and I haven't yet regretted it. It used to take up to 5 days to return and get a new movie (seven if I had to wait over a weekend). Recently, they opened a shipping center in my town and now it takes 2-3, 4 over a weekend. The more business they get, the more they can lower the prices. It seems like Netflix is really thinking about streamlining their business and customer service, rather than just following blindly (*cough* Blockbuster *cough)

I once had an old professor say "NOBODY wins in a price war". It's for good reason too.

If this $1 made a difference for you, remember that you will be charged tax on top of the price. You see the price and you think "fifteen", but it really ends up being closer to $19 after tax. I just tried to restart my Netflix subscription today and it shows $16.99 on their "Sign Up" page. I decided not to complete the process today, but they I went far enough for them to authorize my card for $18.69.

@muddgirl: I guess the same could be said of Netflix's initial anti-consumer position. Raising rates every few months, no customer service available until three years after launch and even then the service # had limited hours and was only seen when you were log off of your account. Netflix has always been looking out for the consumer, since day one.

My price just dropped (here in the NY/NJ/CT tri-state area). Lovin' it!

[biz.yahoo.com]

Evidently this is not an across-the-board rate reduction.

The whole concept of "testing" price cuts is pretty funny to me...

- "Hey Reed, do you think consumers like lower prices?"
- "I don't really know, Sam. What do you say we do some research?"
- "Good idea. How about we give the existing customers that are already happy paying $16.99 an instant $1 discount and see if they become... more... customers? More existing? More happy? More more?"
- "Well, I don't know what will happen, but if it has the word research in it, it must be a winner! Let's do it!"

They're not dropping the price of the 4-movies-at-a-time plan either. Meh. Netflix is the best thing since sliced bread, IMO. It only takes a day for them to get my returned movies and for me to get the new one they mailed out. I just need an extended vacation to whittle my queue down from the 300+ movies in it.

@hebearmcghee:

I'm a longtime GreenCine subscriber, and agree their delivery times can get sketchy if you're not in the Bay Area. But they have plans to open an east coast distribution center in a few months, so stay tuned!

I have the 3 at a time plan with Netflix and this just keeps getting better. =D

No rate reduction, yet, for us in Southern California. Still $16.99.

I have Netflix's 3-at-a-time plan, and the last time a price-drop was announced here, I got it a week or two later. So they probably won't do everyone at the same time, but I'm sure they will extend the savings to everyone eventually.

I'll still stick with Blockbuster Total Access. I'll list my one gripe with their service first, to get it out of the way: Blockbuster.com has some pretty neat features, but they can at times be prettier than need be, this is especially evident when trying to update a movie queue that has grown rather large. (if I want to move my selections around, I move a few to the top and call it a night!) The site slows down to the point where you wonder if you're computer is failing, and you're not sure if things got changed.

Moving on to the good: I get my movies (on average) a day faster than my parents who have netflix. Oh wait, but that's when I MAIL them in (which I almost never do) because I can take my movies to my local Blockbuster store...and they give me a free rental for every movie I take back. Do you know how great it feels to get 6 movies a week from your local blockbuster and never spend a penny? It's downright empowering.

I'm not bashing Netflix in any way. They're good, they started this whole market (or at least made it popular) and they seem to be good at what they do. I'm just saying $24 a year wouldn't make up the difference to me.

\/\/

@GinaLouise: thats really great news, i miss their exhaustive selection.

[en.wikipedia.org]

I <3 Netflix

I dropped Netflix about 8 months ago. 8 out of 10 movies I received were so scratched up they wouldn't play. I decided to give Blockbuster a try, and I haven't had one bad movie.

I have to say that I don't like the smaller selection that blockbuster has, or how un-organized it all is (try to find the entire series of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Comples - Second Gig) but what's the point of using a mail service when 90% of you months subscription is spent waiting for your scratched movies to be replaced.

@G-Dog: I really wonder about the scratched movie thing. I know other people who've had that problem with netflix. But I've had Netflix for almost three years and only got one unplayable disc the whole time.

This happens right after Blockbuster raises the price for Total Access on new customers and removes features on existing customers.

We've been using the $5.99 plan for 1 DVD at a time, two a month for a while now. Since we return them to the store, we get two free rentals, and four movies a month is what we typically watch. With the changes last month we lost the free game rental coupon though, which makes me a lot less excited about the whole plan.

@g-dog: maybe you're mailman was trying to discourage you from getting netflix. Then when they saw the blockbuster envelopes they just gave up.

Blockbuster's pricing is more likely to rise than fall. Right now their losing money on their Total Access subscribers in an attempt to gain market share. They can only eat these losses for so long.

@pinkbunnyslippers:

Actually consumers win in a price war.

Kick ass! Every bit helps. i'm already earmarking the extra $3/month i'll have, thanks to the (2) recent price reductions! Now i can afford to buy the non-poisonous toothpaste at the dollar store. Thanks again, Netflix!! :o]

I have the following plan:

BLOCKBUSTER Total Access Premium $17.99 / month (plus taxes)
4 at-a-time, unlimited mailings
unlimited in-store free movie/discounted game exchanges
+1 FREE bonus Movie or Game Rental E-Coupon / Month

I've been using it for several months - getting ~7-8 movies between the B&M and mail. I have occasionally received the wrong disc or a scratched disc, but Blockbuster sends out a new copy as soon as you report it, and of course each one is good for a free in-store rental. I'd love to pay less, but I have to say I'm pretty satisfied with how things are right now.

I got that both E-mail notices(like the one above) so I'm glad I'll be saving 2$ a month now.

OTOH I'm disappointed that Netflix felt the need to "Snail Mail" me an additional post card alerting me to the new low price. Its wasteful and stupid. If we have netflix...then we have E-mail....E-mail notices are fine....They better not send me ANOTHER post card in the mail about this latest price drop.

/I'm In Michigan
//Besides the postcards NetFlix rocks
/// I'll never go back to BB-Online

I'm glad Blockbuster is dying. They lost my business when they decided to require videos to be returned on NOON of the day they are due, instead of before opening next morning. They don't do that anymore, but that was still bad business. ... charged me a late fee, the bastards.

they're not offering upgrades to 3-at-a-time at that price yet :( i'm sad!

@nick2588: and your point is you don't wanna pay tax?

@Ghede: my ex had a late fee of under 10 dollars and they sent it to collections. He calls them "Cockbuster". Never done business with them after hearing that story.

@Observer2121: At first they do, until a company starts driving down their own price and they have no other place to cut corners but on things like customer service, and here you are getting a product for way less than it was originally intended with no service to back it up.

*now* do you still think Consumers win?

Eventually it all ends up a big mess.

@WillACarpenter: I'm with you; Total Access is a way better deal than anything that NetFlix has to offer. Besides, I got really tired of getting unplayable DVDs from NetFlix.

@Observer2121: It may not be true that customers always win in a price war. If that price war results in a competitor going out of business and another company achieving near or total monopoly status, then the customers lose.