I, like most college students, enjoy a good movie now and again, but most of us are not able to pay to go to the movie theater every weekend to indulge this luxury. It’s at this time we turn to the ever so popular Netflix and the wonderful Redbox. Both provide movies at a cheap price and they pride themselves in having great accessibility. This is perfect for college students.

So here we are just living the good life, watching our favorite movies and shows for cheap when all of a sudden I received an email, like many other Netflix subscribers, that it would be raising its price. I later found out that Redbox is also raising its price in some locations. What happened to the $8.99 unlimited movies?

Netflix has put into effect its new price for both online streaming and DVD rentals at a whopping $15.98 per month. Now, although it’s only a $6.99 increase, that’s still money that us college students would much rather see go somewhere else. To go along with Netflix raising its prices, it lost its deal with Starz. Netflix even offered to pay more to keep Starz on board, but Starz still said no. This means movies from Sony Entertainment and Disney will be unavailable starting after February 2012. If this doesn’t drive people away, then the price definitely will. The Los Angeles Times calls Starz, “Netflix’s most valuable source of new movies.”

Now, Redbox is raising its much appreciated price of $1.00 up to $1.15 and in some places all the way up to $2.00. But before everyone freaks out, from what I read on Redbox’s website, its price increase is experimental. Which means there’s the possibility of the price going back down. Everything is going up in price, so I’m not going to be surprised when prices don’t go back down. Since Redbox is putting other movie rental places out of business, places that would normally have to pay for staff and other maintenance fees, why are the prices of its movies going up?

To me, Netflix decided to increase its price because it wanted to prove to Starz that it can offer them more money. Now, in the long run, I think this means that we can only expect Netflix to raise its prices again.

As far as Redbox goes, I don’t know what it’s doing, and though they are still cheaper than normal movie rental places, people, me included, are not going to be happy about this price increase. Before long there is going to be another way of watching movies at a cheaper price. Oh wait, Hulu has already started that with Hulu Plus.

The Internet and movie distributers just continue to look for ways to make movies and TV shows more accessible so they can make money faster.

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Kaylyn Peterson/Sports editor
Kaylyn Peterson can be reached at [email protected].