Netflix’s price hike reveals its monopoly grip
Only a month after losing its bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery in late February, Netflix gave customers a glimpse of its true colors.
The world’s largest subscription video provider raised its prices again, its second price hike in just over 14 months and the sixth since 2017.
Netflix may have pretended it would play nice while it was courting Warner Bros. Discovery. Co-CEO Ted Sarandos told lawmakers that the company would “will give consumers more content for less” when it was hauled before Congress to justify its proposed merger.
Fortunately, that effort failed — because in many ways, Netflix is already a monopoly.
As a variant of the old saying goes, if it walks like a monopoly and talks like a monopoly, it is probably a monopoly. Netflix wears all the hallmarks, even after its failed attempt to buy up the competition. Customers are seeing it flex its muscle.
Despite its public relations campaign to convince policymakers and the public otherwise, Netflix dominates the subscription video space and, increasingly, the industries upstream and downstream.
The Bull Moose Project has been warning Americans about the insidious effects of these quiet price hikes for months. To get a comprehensive sense of how Americans feel about this burgeoning monopoly, we commissioned a June 2-3 survey of 1,500 Americans by the Cygnal market research firm.
Our poll underscores the squeeze Netflix’s market consolidation has put on its subscribers.
