AP Photos In this file photo made July 20, 2010, a Netflix customer holds up a movie in Palo Alto, Calif. Netflix Inc. announced this week it was raising prices for its services by as much as 60 percent, causing a backlash among angry customers.

AP Technology Writer

SAN FRANCISCO — Some Netflix customers called it a slap in the face. Others a betrayal. Many threatened to drop the movie service.

On Wednesday, many of them vented on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere, seething over Netflix Inc.’s decision to raise its prices by up to 60 percent for the millions of subscribers who want to rent DVDs by mail and watch movies online.

“I can definitely afford it but I dropped them on principle,” said Joe Turick, a technology engineer in Monroe, N.C., who has been with Netflix for about a decade, cancelled his subscription within an hour of learning of Tuesday’s price changes and plans to try competitors.

By Wednesday afternoon, more than 40,000 people had responded to a post on Netflix’s Facebook page announcing the change, with some saying they would switch to rivals such as Hulu.com’s paid service and to Redbox’s DVD-rental kiosks.

Outrage bubbled on Twitter, and on Netflix’s blog a posting about the new plans had garnered 5,000 comments — the limit allowed by the site’s host, Google Inc.-owned Blogger — which included many seething customers.

Netflix said company officials expected the intense reaction.

“Everything Netflix does is with extensive research and testing and analysis, so we expected some people to be disappointed,” company spokesman Steve Swasey said.

While thousands complained on Facebook, Twitter and other websites, with 22.8 million customers in the U.S., it’s clear that plenty of them are not upset about the change.

In online postings, a number of users concluded that, even at the higher price, Netflix is still a better deal than competitors.

Similar Posts:

Share