After announcing a price hike and service change, Netflix watched as thousands of its subscribers called it quits.
When Netflix announced it was going to move all multimedia-mailing to a new Netflix-owned website called Qwikster, 800,000 subscribers canceled their accounts.
Now, subscribers pay $15.98 a month for one DVD at a time by mail and unlimited instant streaming service, or they pay $7.99 a month for just one of the two. That’s up from the previous price of $9.99 a month for both services.
The drop in subscribers caused Netflix stock to plummet 35 percent and cost the company an estimated $11 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Some students have already found alternatives.
“I would get Netflix,” said Grace Allison, 21, a U. Florida business administration senior, “but I don’t have time to sit and watch all of it.”
Allison said she uses Redbox twice a month on average. She said she watches a lot of her favorite TV shows, such as “Roswell,” on YouTube.
For watching currently running shows, such as “Glee,” Allison said she uses Hulu.
“I feel like Netflix is for old stuff,” she said. “Netflix is for ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ and ‘Forrest Gump’ and Redbox is for ‘Bridesmaids.'”
She said she and her roommates, even the one who subscribes to Netflix, use Redbox for their weekend movie fix.
“It makes a really great tool for the weekends … just Redbox it and get something,” Allison said.
Some just don’t like Netflix.
Keertana Settaluri, 18, an electrical engineering freshman at UF, said she used to use Netflix and now uses Redbox once a month.
She said with Netflix it takes too much time to get the DVDs in the mail and Redbox at the Reitz Union is just “super convenient.”
“I don’t have the constraint to watch movies like I do with a monthly subscription,” Settaluri said.
She said she had Netflix for one year before canceling her service.
Jasmin Quinones, 18, a UF nursing freshman, never used Netflix and only uses Redbox when she’s back home.
Quinones said she doesn’t use Redbox because she has no television, forgets the Redbox is in town and has no time to watch movies or TV shows anyway.