MYLES ARONOWITZ/NETFLIX
In May of 2014, Netflix raised the price of its standard streaming plan, for new subscribers, to $9.99 per month. Existing subscribers, however, were grandfathered into the plan at $7.99 per month for the two-stream, "HD" quality plan.
But those days will soon be over. Next month, all grandfathered customers will be moved up to the $9.99 plan. Analysts at UBS have estimated that this change will affect about 37% of US subscribers, or 17 million people.
And most of those 17 million subscribers aren't aware of the upcoming changes, according to research by JP Morgan. JP Morgan recently ran a survey of Netflix users, and about 80% of those who will be "un-grandfathered" in May didn't know the price hike was coming.
Does it matter? UBS estimates that roughly 3%-4% of affected subscribers will cancel, though many more claim they will (including around 15% of those surveyed by JP Morgan).
Despite the price increase, Netflix still has a lead in "price per hour of entertainment" over pay TV. Netflix costs 9 cents per hour of viewing, while a typical pay TV package costs 30 cents per hour, according to UBS.