Actually, in my Netflix account I have to specifically ADD Blu-Ray access. This involves visiting a specific page in the "My Account" section, reading a disclaimer about being charged extra, and then clicking a box that says I have a Blu-Ray player and agree to the additional charge. Doesn't look like people will have to opt-out; they have to specifically opt-*in*.

I wonder when Blockbuster will use this in their advertising (Blockbuster in my area doesn't charge extra for Blu-Ray... yet).

@SarahC83: so you can rent Blu-Ray without telling Netflix that you have a Blu-Ray player?

@nikkimarie918: No, I'm saying the way this is written it sounds like Netflix will charge everyone an extra dollar per month unless you specifically opt out... which isn't the case. You have to opt-in... that is, visit your account settings and agree to pay $1/month extra for Blu-Ray. Sorry for the confusion. I was saying that I will not get Blu-Ray because I have not clicked said box.

A dollar isn't a big deal. It's just a fact that these Blu-ray discs costs a hell of a lot more. I saw Predator on Blu-ray and DVD in Target not long ago. Blu-ray was $35 and DVD was $7.99.

I'm sure Netflix gets a better deal than that, but $1 isn't going to kill me.

@nikkimarie918: never mind, I just re-read your comment.

@SarahC83: Yes, this post does mention that this only affects people who have already added Blu-Ray to their accounts: "If you don't already have Blu-Ray access on your account, then your membership price stays the same."

I've been signed up for Blu-Ray discs since they started offering them on NetFlix, so anyone that is currently doing so would have to opt out if they didn't want to pay the price increase. I got an email about it a couple of days ago, explaining what, why, and when they were doing it, as well as how to disable receiving the discs if I didn't want to pay the extra charge. Since this only brings my plan back up to the level I was already paying before the last price drop, I'm not going to bother changing anything.

$1 isn't a big deal but it still bugs me when I can go months between Blu-Ray discs. Most of my rentals are DVDs.

@illtron: Cooking up a story and throwing it in a meat grinder looks so much better in HD.

@nikkimarie918: I know right! I hope they dont do this i would be very upset, but not really its Blockbuster

@Diet-Orange-Soda: Can't you just change your settings when you know you'll be getting a Blu-Ray disc or two? I.E., some months I know I'll be watching more movies, so I'll bump up my subscription to four-at-a-time instead of three. I also put my account on hold when I know I won't have any time to watch movies for a while, or am going on vacation. Netflix is pretty flexible like that. Of course, you have to remember to switch your settings back...

Yeah .. I deactivated my Blu-Ray access. When I start having trouble getting titles because of my selection is when I will turn it back on. I had a total of 1 Blue-Ray disk in my queue of 350+

Paying an extra $12 per year to help ensure I don't bother spending $22+ per disc to buy Blu-ray titles sounds like a good deal to me.

A dollar isn't a big deal, but every Blu-ray I actually want to watch is listed as "Very long wait" in my queue.

I don't mind waiting a while to get a BRD from Netflix because, whatever BRDs are expensive and they probably don't buy many.

Charging an extra fee and having "very long wait" on all the Blu-rays I want to watch is annoying.

IMO, the better solution would be to only charge an additional fee if you actually receive a set amount of Blu-Ray movies in a month period. If you have 1 Blu-Ray out of 15 movies per month, an additional dollar seems kind of unjustified, yet if you get 10 Blu-Ray out of 15, then its understandable.

What I would like to know is when Blu-Ray retail prices will come down so that they aren't ridiculous compared to DVD prices. And if/when that does happen, will Netflix remember the price hike or will they turn a blind eye and continue to charge that extra fee?

One final thing I would like to know is how much Netflix is actually charged for each copy of a movie. I'm willing to bet that it certainly isn't retail price as they would buy in extreme bulk, but is this fee a justifiable price based on that?

@illtron: Incorrect, as a rental license is needed. I guarantee you Netflix pays more than consumers for each copy.

Instead of raising the price to rent these movies maybe Netflix (and retailers) should go after Sony and strong arm them into lowering the costs. $30+ for a movie is incredibly expensive.

I dont think Sony understands they are losing money because the price is too high. I stopped buying DVD's when HD-DVD and Blu-Ray came out, but I also have stopped buying Blu-Rays until the price comes down.

So all because of the price of movies on br i no longer buy anything. I currently own over 600 movies, I used to buy 1-2 movies a week. You want my money again? You know my demands.

I am a Netflix subscriber that has no plans of going blu-ray.

I am glad they are only charging the people who are requesting the more expensive disks.

Another reason that shows Netflix gets it, and to love them.

@Canadian Impostor: You could always opt out of Blu Ray until the wait gets more reasonable - the way it's set up, it seems you can switch in and out at will

@yagisencho: I agree. I have the 3 at a time account and an extra $1 per month would not kill me or anyone. Still makes it alot cheaper then renting locally.

no problems with netflix.

I understand that there is actual reasoning behind this

it doesn't affect everyone, just those using blu-ray.

Its $12 a year

No problem with this at all.

Okay, here's the problem: as a business you realize that you can't rent out these movies without a drastic cut into your bottom line.

You have two solutions. First, you can raise prices for all customers, even those who don't have a blu-ray player.

Second, you can tell those with a blu-ray player that if they would like to have all those bonus features and special things that they can for only $1 more per month that they use it.

Since I don't have a Blu-Ray player, if they raised the prices for me just so other people could use that feature, I'd be upset. Once I DO get a Blu-Ray player, I likely won't rent them from Netflix but instead only buy my own when there's a movie I really like. And if I DO decide that I want to rent them, I think paying a little more for a better feature isn't a bad thing.

How many websites have levels of membership? This is the same as paying a little more for three discs at a time instead of two. You want better discs, you pay a little more.

Why everybody is so upset about this, I'll never know.

@Canadian Impostor: Maybe the extra charge is so Netflix can buy more Blu-Ray discs to decrease the wait times?

@DashTheHand: Netflix's out of pocket costs for titles is probably individually negotiated with each studio. It's likely also a closely guarded trade secret, since it is a key component in determining their business costs and logistics.

Also, I'm intrigued that the copy of this story that I read in my RSS feeder included the line "Sounds like they needed to invent a way to make more money and this fee, admittedly small, seemed the best way to go about it" and the copy of the story I get when I click through does not.

If you had a change of heart about it, that's good. Because it's simply over-reacting to think that Netflix is using this as a ploy to make more money. If they just wanted to make more money they'd raise everybody's prices by $1 a month. They've lowered the prices so many times recently I doubt it would cause much of a dent in their subscriber base.

I was sorta miffed about this as Netflix already had 'Very Long wait' listed as status for any semi-popular release even if you add it to your queue as soon as it's listed in thier system (pre release). Now they are charging more for the Blu-ray service that they can't seem to keep up with.

I wouldn't mind if I actually was able to get the Bluray that's been at the top of my Que for the last 2 months "21" With all those extra dollars they better up the inventory.

I got the email yesterday too; I really don't care, to be honest.

But they probably would have been better off just charging the extra buck for the blu-ray option to begin with rather than tacking it on later.

blockbuster doesn't charge extra for blu-ray discs, also the dvd envelopes can be used to rent blu-ray discs instore as well.

A dollar isn't a big deal, but it's a pain when I almost never get Blu-ray discs. We rent mainly independent films, and they're almost never on Blu-ray (save for the independents that go mainstream, like "Juno"). We'll probably just disable Blu-ray on our account, it's not worth it.

Thanks for rewriting the article to be less sensationalist - Netflix isn't trying to jerk anyone around here.

I'm betting they started at the low price to gauge interest and now that they know, they'll be using that extra dollar to improve availability of Blu Ray, not to pad their bottom line - something apparently the Netflix blog has difficulty understanding

I am very confused by this. I've been a netflix customer for over a year and I only just signed up for Blu-ray a few months ago (when I got a PS3). They told me when I signed up for Blu-ray there was a $2/month charge, and the email I got on Wednesday said they were lowering that charge to $1/month. So I guess everyone wasn't paying the same rates? Odd.

@Blitzgal: It was a little more dramatic when I first read it. Read through to later comments for some quotes from original version. Looks like it was amended pretty quickly. And now my original comment looks silly :-)

@parad0x360: Sony isn't in charge of Blu-ray. There are literally hundreds of companies involved, and each studio sets their pricing independently.

I dont think Sony understands they are losing money because the price is too high.

@Meiran: Agreed. Blu-ray discs cost much more than DVDs. Duh. If they didn't raise prices, they'd be "eating" that higher cost, which no company is going to do.

I'm honestly surprised it was only $1. I was expecting a $5 per month increase.

@DashTheHand: What I would like to know is when Blu-Ray retail prices will come down so that they aren't ridiculous compared to DVD prices.

Back in 1998 and 1999, DVD prices were totally ridiculous as compared to VHS costs, too. We just got a PS3 and an HDTV in the last few months but I'm going to be very slow to convert my 175+ DVD collection (you can justify almost anything when you're in film school) over because the Blu-Ray prices will be high for some time yet.

That said, where it used to cost me $29.99 for a decent DVD, I can now find them for $7 at Target so I expect that as more folks adopt the tech the same will happen here.

@Meiran: You've answered your own question in your reply. Read your reply again.

"Sounds like they needed to invent a way to make more money"

Netflix did not need "to invent" a reason to make more money. The accusation is either utterly ignorant or was intentionally inflammatory. Either way, it does not reflect favorably on the usually fantastic Consumerist website.

Blu-ray discs cost Netflix more money. It's quite obvious that when costs rise, prices soon follow. The fact that Netflix only raised their prices a buck is pretty awesome in my book.

Considering I can get a month and a half of netflix for the price of 1 blu-ray I think I'll manage. Since the demise of HD-DVD Blu costs have skyrocketed. To be honest the amount of content I get for such a low cost from Netflix is staggeringly amazing.

The concept of paying more for a format just because it offers higher resolution makes no sense to me. Until the studios stop charging these stupid prices for BR releases -- and the manufacturers stop charging stupid prices for BR players -- I see no reason to abandon DVDs. I'm also holding off on HDTV until prices come down further -- or my old but more than adequate Panasonic tube blows up. Now if BR and HDTV actually offered superior content as well as resolution -- that would be another issue...

Considering the cost of acquiring BRD's, this isn't that unreasonable of a price hike.

@InfiniTrent: Actually, Sony IS in charge of Blu-ray. It's their technology, and any other studio that wants to put out movies on Blu-ray has to pay a licensing fee to Sony.

I don't know how much that licensing fee is, or how much of the current retail price of blu-ray discs it makes up, but it's at least part of the reason for the added expense.

But, like DVD, prices will fall as they are able to sell larger volumes and production costs fall.

Netflix provides such good service and does it so cheaply that I didn't even wink when they tacked on $1.

Also, Netflix gave everyone a heads up about this months ago when they stated they were looking into it. They also made it Opt-In for those that don't normally buy Blu-Ray. I already had my preferences set to get Blu-Ray disks.

Frankly, I'm surprised it wasn't more considering how much Blu-Ray disks cost.

Maybe I'd be pissed if Netflix was a really crappy service like.. oh lets say Blockbuster. But the fact is that the vast vast majority of their customers (including me) are extremely happy with their service. IMO they EARN their money.

@audiochick: @audiochick: that's exactly what its for, and if it works, I'm all for it.

The watch it now service is becoming so great, that this 1$ Blu-Ray charge didn't cause me any consternation.
For about 23$ you get unlimited 4 at a time rentals and unlimited watch it now shows. AND you get your choice of Blu-Ray. Good deal!

Now if only they would stock enough of the damn disks. Waiting for popular items gets annoying.

@buckeye17:

Incorrect, know what you're talking about before you blurt stuff out. Look up the first sale doctrine...

More info

[entrepreneurs.about.com]

Source: I worked at a video store/I actually double checked what I posted

@GMFish: Obviously that cost existed back when Netflix started offering Blu-ray, though. This is just a result of poor business planning, and though it's not a big deal, I think subscribers have a right to be a little annoyed at being charged for something next month that was free this month.

It's not enough to make me want to run away from Netflix and go Blockbuster or anything, but quite frankly, if Netflix hadn't been jerking subscribers around on other issues throughout the year, this probably wouldn't have been a blip on the radar. I've seen too many "sorry, we take that back" statements from Netflix lately, and this is just another annoying thing to add to the pile.

Last year, Netflix *lowered* their prices by $1.