It turns out keeping Friends and constantly developing new original content ain’t cheap.
Netflix announced this week that it will increase prices across all of its account tiers in the coming months, raising what you, your parents, or that ex you haven’t called in a while pay for access to your favorite shows and movies.
Prices will increase between $1 and $2 per account level. The $11-per-month plan will increase to $13, the $14 plan will increase to $16 per month, and the $8 plan will increase to $9 per month.
Analysts and anxious consumers have been speculating for some time that the company would raise its prices, given just how much money Netflix poured into original content over the past several years. Netflix reportedly spent $8 billion on its house-produced films and TV shows in 2018 alone, and the company announced plans in October to take on an additional $2 billion in debt to finance new projects. Netflix had a negative cash flow of $3 billion in 2018 and is reportedly expecting about the same in 2019.
Investors will be happy with the price increases, given the company’s debt; shares were up 6 percent when the market opened this morning.
Netflix is easily among the most popular paid video services on the internet, with more than 58 million subscribers in the United States, and more than 137 million globally, making the price hike an effective way to raise capital.
Time will tell whether other subscription services, like Amazon Prime Video and Hulu, will raise their prices to match Netflix, or will continue at current prices to attempt to convince subscribers to switch.
One thing’s for sure: The streaming video wars are just heating up. Apple is expected to launch a video streaming service this year, and Disney plans to launch its own service, called Disney+, in 2019. NBC Universal has also recently announced that it planned to launch its own streaming service in 2020.
Looking to stream something fun before the changes hit your pocketbook? Check out our list of the best shows to stream on Netflix right now.
Instagram is making its way to yet another screen, and this time, Apple TV is getting a taste of the Reels rabbit hole. The company has launched a dedicated Instagram app for Apple TV, bringing Reels, longer videos, and live shows to the big screen. So, if watching one quick clip on a phone somehow turns into an hour of scrolling, there's now a much larger screen for that.
Instagram brings Reels and more to Apple TV
Audio-Technica, a brand well known for making some of the best studio and professional headphones on the market, has just come out with the ATH-AWX7000, which the company itself claims to be its "finest headphones ever." The new flagship closed-back headphone has debuted at an eye-watering price of $3,799. It combines hand-finished Japanese woodwork with a newly developed 58mm driver.
The earcups are made from Kiso cypress, a prized wood historically used for Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. Each housing is finished by hand with traditional Echizen lacquer, which brings out the grain and is expected to darken over time. The frame and sliders are finished in a deep navy kachi-iro shade traditionally associated with samurai.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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