Is Netflix losing customers?

It can be the only reasonable explanation I got this email today:
 
When we raised prices for new Netflix members last year, we kept your price the same for one year. Your special pricing is now ending and as of Saturday, October 29th, 2016 your new price will be $9.99 per month.

Canadians got that notice a couple of months ago. I doubt they have any worries, they just haven't changed their pricing in a few years.

It's a clumsy attempt at psychology: "we're raising your rate, but you should be happy because we didn't do it a year ago!". Does the IRS know about this tactic?
 
Well, it still beats cable. 

I got that email a month or so ago and then as I mucked about the account preferences or whatever, I mistakenly downgraded my service, ie quality somehow, just by looking around. Now I'm at $8.43 a month and my wife and I notice no difference. So I actually saved money when they raised my price :)

Generally price goes up with demand. So I should think they're probably doing quite well. I think the idea is probably to keep raising prices bit by bit until they start to see a drop in active subscribers. And even at that point where they're losing a few customers, it might still result in a higher profit.
 
Raising prices on your customers is riskier in some businesses more than others. Netflix has a huge market share and is still the "Google" of video streaming (i.e. the name Netflix has effectively turned into a verb) so they can probably get away with a price increase a lot easier than someone like me, a small fry business owner with a lot of local competition. 
 
However I'm about to raise my prices too, and I'm wondering how to go about it. It's always dicey to raise prices for existing customers along with new customers because they're so used to paying the previous price, unlike the new customers. They also might expect some kind of loyalty from you in the form of treating them better than newcomers. So I'm wondering whether to tell existing customers that the price for new customers is going up now but that I'm going to show my appreciation of old customers by giving them another few months of the old prices, or do like Netflix did and just spring the new price on existing customers somewhere down the line and soften the blow by telling them that they're lucky I didn't spring it on them 6 months ago along with everyone else. 
 
I think if you're raising prices on existing customers you have to give them something in return for their money though.  A new service, updated features, something to sweeten the deal. I'm offering a new online client portal with GPS tracked services and some other goodies. What's Netflix offering? 

If they don't stop adding Steven Seagal movies, and don't add series 4 of Braquo soon, they'll be losing me as a customer.

BUT if the lose customers
 
how are all the players going to CHILL without netflix??

I got an email from Comcast/Xfinity a few weeks ago telling me that Netflix will soon be included with Xfinity X1. This could explain some of it. I'm not sure what is going on but it seems to imply that Comcast bought or is buying Netflix. There was no mention of a charge but there may be one, I don't know yet. They made it sound like they were going to just add it to the lineup (but I will believe that when I see it and use it).
J

bitflipper
Netflix has actually been dropping content. Something in excess of 4,000 titles this year. No more South Park!
 
Their rationalization is they want to become a TV network and produce more original content. I support that, given that a lot of what they've produced has been high quality stuff. Some of it (e.g. Sense8) has been spectacularly good.
 
But I am still dismayed by the lack of quality classic movies. My grandson and I share a love of sci-fi, and I've been turning him on to decades of must-see films (he's 15, so he'd never seen The Thing, Alien(s), eXistence, The 13th Floor, Big Trouble in Little China or even the Star Wars series). So far my hit rate for finding these on Netflix has only been about 5%. They'll often have the crappy sequels but not the originals, or they'll have the low-budget knockoff versions.
 
Luckily, I have an extensive collection of DVDs to mine.

It's not just that they want to produce more original content, it's also that the TV networks have become hostile to them to some extent. And it's understandable since they're leeching millions of people away from TV. So the networks are probably less willing to provide content to Netflix. 
 
I'm not sure how that will pan out though. If the networks are thinking they'll get viewers back by withholding content from Netflix then I think they're sorely mistaken. Once you've experienced TV on demand without commercials, promos, jingles and all the other inane crap that you have to sit through to watch a show on network TV, you can never go back. Sometimes I throw the TV on in the gym and I last about 3 minutes before I'm jabbing my finger on the screen to turn it off. It's excruciating. 
 
South Park, by the way, you can watch on the South Park site for free, yes?