Unacceptable!

A popular sentiment expressed by angered Netflix customers following an announcement by the movie service company of its plans to raise prices by up to 60 percent.

Response was fast and furious to the news, which was posted on Netflix’s Facebook (News - Alert) page on Wednesday, as thousands of customers responded with complaints and threats of dumping Netflix in favor of competitors such as Hulu (News - Alert).com and Redbox.

Netflix’s blog account was also abuzz, pushed to capacity with angry customers postings.

Although the thousands of intense responses were palpable; in the grand scheme, they are just a small amount of Netflix’s close to 23 million U.S. customers, many of whom pointed out that even with a higher price tag (News - Alert), Netflix is still a better option than its rivals.

“I can definitely afford it but I dropped them on principle,” said Joe Turick, a technology engineer in North Carolina who cancelled his subscription within an hour of learning of the price changes.

Netflix said company executives expected the intense reaction.

“Everything Netflix does is with extensive research and testing and analysis, so we expected some people to be disappointed,” spokesman Steve Swasey said, in a Yahoo article. Swasey wouldn’t provide a figure as to how many subscribers have actually cancelled their subscriptions in the last few days, saying the Netflix will discuss subscriber metrics during its earnings conference call on July 25.

A poll conducted by Business Insider revealed that a whopping 41 percent of customers “plan” to cancel their subscriptions.

Netflix announced on Tuesday that it is splitting up its two services, meaning that subscribers who want both streaming video and DVD-by-mail access will now be forced to get separate plans. The price changes take effect immediately for new subscribers, and will begin Sept. 1 for current customers.

According to the Yahoo article, the changes are expected to help Netflix bring in additional money to cover the rising costs of buying and shipping discs while licensing more content for its streaming library.

The question remains as to how many customers it will hemorrhage in the interim.

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