Today Netflix officially raised the price of its streaming service by a whole dollar, bringing the price up to $8.99 (instead of $7.99), via The Wrap.
In a statement to customers, Neflix said, "In order to continue adding more movies and TV shows, we are increasing our price from $7.99 to $8.99 for new customers. As a thank you for being a member of Netflix already, we guarantee that your streaming plan and price will not change for two years." So... if you sign up after today, there's a chance that they could hike the rate in the next two years? Yikes.
The decision comes right before the summer start dates for two insanely popular Netflix original series: "Orange Is the New Black" and "Hemlock Grove," both returning for their sophomore seasons this year, and comes ahead of a whole bumper crop of intriguing properties set to arrive in 2015, including a gaggle of new Marvel series and the third (and presumably last) season of the Kevin Spacey-led political thriller "House of Cards." So, something tells me you'll get your dollar's worth, people-who-are-actually-paying.
It is also worth noting (as The Wrap did) that the announcement comes during the height of the debate over net neutrality. How the two will affect each other remains to be seen.