The Internet has, if nothing else, democratized rage to an impressive degree.
Even the smallest voice becomes a booming fount of vitriol once it has access to
Twitter and a caps lock button. Where businesses found their products judged by
the way consumers spent in the past, now the court of public Internet opinion
judges goods and services long before they even hit the market. According to
Mashable s Chris Taylor, social networks like the aforementioned Twitter are
fueling consumer outrage , giving people a platform to air their discontent
where they had none before. He points to the recent hike in Netflix (NASDAQ:
NFLX ) subscription fees as a prime example of how loud consumer rage can get.
Netflixs Facebook page was slammed with more than 79,000 comments after the
announcement of the price increase. An additional 4,000 comments were posted on
its official blog, where the announcement was first made. Thats a lot of angry
customers, right? Not that many, actually, in the grand scheme of things.
Netflix has more than 25 million subscribers. Even if every one of those enraged
comments were made by individual subscribers, they still represent a miniscule
fraction of Netflixs actual business. So, how much do these rage-fueled fiascos
actually cost businesses? Netflix Subscription Hike Changes to Netflixs
subscription fees wont take effect until September, so it will be impossible to
determine just how big an impact the hike will have on the companys bottom line
until the end of the fourth quarter. Research firm The Diffusion Group has a
decent idea, though. A survey conducted by the group in July estimates that
Netflix might lose 2.5 million subscribers over the next quarter. Assuming those
2.5 million subscribers paid for the $10-per-month streaming and by-mail DVD
subscription thats being eliminated, Netflix stands to lose $300 million in
annual subscription revenue.
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