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Comment by zavulon | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't matter that they cut costs compared to "what was traditionally available". What matters is they RAISED costs compared to what they had before. For a long time now, I shared a plan with my parents - they used the DVD's, I used unlimited streaming, and we were happy. Now we have to get two separate plans, and pay more. Since there's no better option, we'll do this, but I think we're fully within our rights to complain.

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This may be one of the exact scenarios they are after. I share a Netflix plan with my parents as well - I stream, they get DVDs. By separating the plans, Netflix has the opportunity to cut away at the plan sharing and cater separately to me and my parents.

"I think we're fully within our rights to complain."

Wait, what? You were violating their terms of service and you're complaining because they're raising the price you will have to pay to keep violating their terms of service? It's not like they're even threatening to cut you off.

I'm pissed they're raising my plan, but certainly you must have known you were getting away with something.

Surely it is only a TOS violation if he doesn't live with his parents.

So between you and your parents a few bucks a month is a problem? Since it is clear you live at your parents house, are you aware of the cost of TV service?

I think I have a 'good' deal with DirectTV at $65 (and that only because of a promotion and only having 1 HDTV/DVR box and 1 regular HD box), and it's still 2x the cost of Netflix.

>Since it is clear you live at your parents house

Not really. You don't have to be in the same physical location for streaming. I don't live with my parents and use their login for streaming too.

> I don't live with my parents and use their login for streaming too.

Then you're breaking TOS and the free ride is over. Netflix is no longer the disruptor and getting comfy as an incumbent now.

It depends on what you mean by "better." I have never once watched a Netflix stream without the movie's video freezing while the audio continues on. Usually happens at least twice, and "threatens" multiple times during a movie by the video jagging for a bit.

Amazon's pay per view streaming rental has consistently been all but perfect play.

So Netflix is better on price. Amazon is better on getting absorbed in the movie and not being thrown back into your living room because the movie stopped.

Youtube/Google's streaming rental quality is good, even great, except three out of the four movies I tried suddenly stopped and reported elapsed time as that the entire movie had suddenly been watched. Movie had to be started over, virtually ruining the experience. They did refund the rental fee without question.

Given that you have had a problem with both services, do you think the problem is perhaps with your computer/internet connection? I rarely have a buffering problem on Netflix and have never had the audio and video go out of sync.

It's possible. Then I would say that Amazon is much more tolerant of my problems.

> So Netflix is better on price. Amazon is better on getting absorbed in the movie and not being thrown back into your living room because the movie stopped.

For you.

I've watched hundreds of Netflix streams from 4 different states and a dozen internet connections over the last year and I can count the number of freezes on one hand.

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