Netflix recently announced some new family-oriented changes to the streaming service. In a quarterly letter to shareholders, CEO Reed Hastings and CFO David Wells noted the company intended to launch a new family plan that would allow up to four simultaneous streams for just $11.99 per month.
The plan will likely solve the conundrum affecting a number of families nationwide – who gets to use the service at any given time (or letting your buddies “borrow” your account credentials). The existing $7.99 plan only allows for two streams at the same time. With four simultaneous streams possible as part of the new plan, the only issue likely to arise is a lack of bandwidth with four concurrent streams on the same Internet connection.
Interestingly enough, Netflix anticipates that only one percent of existing customers will take advantage of the upcoming plan. It would seem that Netflix is pretty confident that the vast majority of their members are perfectly happy with the two stream limitation. Of course it’s also entirely possible that Netflix is hoping the family plan will lure new customers that have been weary of commitment due to existing limitations.
It’s not entirely clear when Netflix will roll out the new family plan but we do know it will be limited to the US when it does arrive. It’ll be interesting to see if other streaming media players like Hulu Plus follow in Netflix’s footsteps. At current, Hulu Plus allows for just one stream at a time.
