Netflix subscribers are probably wondering why they even bothered to keep their accounts in the first place after the company raised its prices rather drastically and now because it’s cracking down on its streaming services.

Cult of Mac is reporting that customers, on top of paying a lot of money, can now only stream one video at a time. Say you’re on one floor with your kid enjoying a round of Thomas the Tank Engine streaming through your XBox while your significant other wants to stream the entire first and only season of Firefly on the iPad on another, well, then one of you is going to have to go without. As a mom to a little one, I can guarantee you that Firefly on the iPad will lose.

The thing is, this policy is not new news. In fact, Netflix has always had this policy but they never did much about it. It was kind of always there, but one of those instances where a warning would pop up and that’s about it. Try and get Thomas the Tank Engine going while Firefly is already in play and you’ll get an error message, not to mention a very upset toddler.

There is a way to bypass this mess and have both significant other and toddler enjoy what they want, and much like the new plans, it’s going to cost ya.

The Consumerist reports that the cost of getting the ability to use more than one stream is that two streams will cost $19.98/month or two DVD’s at a time, three streams or three DVDs $23.98/month and four streams or four DVDs for $29.98/month.

How’s your wallet?

But Netflix begs to differ now that we’re all up in arms about the news.

"No Netflix member is limited to less than two concurrent streams," Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey told Techland in an e-mail. "A few Netflix members have heard differently from us, which is an error that we are correcting."

Techland goes on to report that the rule just isn't being enforced right now.

I suppose that is good news considering the company has raised its prices, garnering already a lot of bad publicity.

As it’s terms of service points out,

"Some membership plans allow you to watch simultaneously on more than one personal computer or Netflix ready device at the same time. If you are on the 1 disc out at-a-time plan [or stream-only plan], you may watch only one device at a time. If you are on the 2 discs out at-a-time plan, you may watch on up to two devices at the same time. Members on the 3 disc plan can watch on up to three devices. The maximum is four devices simultaneously, and that is available for members on the 4 or greater discs out at-a-time plans."

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