Netflix: Research Reveals How Many Viewers Might Unsubscribe After Price Hike

It was recently reported that Netflix will be raising their prices and people aren't happy about it, so-much-so, they may cancel their subscription all together.

The popular internet streaming service recently bumped some of their prices by 18 percent — which would make it the largest price hike since they started streaming to the public. The company announced their "Standard" monthly subscription would increase by $2 to $12.99 and the "Premium" price was also bumped by $2 to $15.99. However, the "Basic" tier only rose by $1 to $8.99.

Some subscribers are likely to either downgrade to a lower monthly payment or cancel their Netflix subscription all together. According to a study done by The Diffusion Group, 1,940 U.S. adults were surveyed and divided up into three categories: those who would pay extra, those who would downgrade and those who would cancel all together.

As a result, on average 15 percent said they would cancel, 19 percent said they would downgrade and 66 percent said they would pay the extra fee and keep their service.

It wasn't long ago that subscribers were in an uproar after finding out Netflix was going to remove Friends from their streaming service, but now users are blaming the show for price increases after it was reported that the streaming service dished out almost $100 million dollars to keep the show.

"I hope everyone's happy with the same episodes of Friends y'all couldn't live without," user Chandler Gibson wrote in a viral tweet — which was liked more than 108,000 times and retweeted over 26,000 times.

Something else subscribers may need to brace themselves for is bundling options between Netflix, Hulu and Amazon. The idea was introduced since internet streaming has gained popularity over recent years.

"Bundling is likely on the horizon as consumers may eventually have streaming-platform fatigue and will not want to subscribe to dozens of SVOD services separately," Kayla Hegedus, an industry data scientist with Parrot Analytics, said. "Consumers can already get premium cable platforms as add-ons through Hulu and Amazon, so bundling has already started."

Now platforms like Netflix and Amazon are running parallel with major networks like HBO and CBS, spending more than the country of Germany (who dishes out $7.3 billion on content).

Even though Netflix is pumping their prices by a few dollars, the odds of viewers leaving traditional paying ways is growing by the year. In 2015 there were 205.4 million traditionally paying subscribers in the U.S., but it's estimated that by 2022, that number may fall as low as 169.7 million if the popularity of internet streaming continues to grow.