Here’s what I say to Redbox’s price increase

If you haven’t heard, Redbox will be raising their prices on DVD rentals from $1.00 to $1.20. The Blu-ray and game rental prices will remain unchanged. The price increase is effective October 31, 2011.

You want to know what I think about the price increase? Well, all of the following two word sentences pretty much sum it up for me.

Big deal. Yippy skippy. Who cares?

Sure, on paper, it’s a 20% price increase but c’mon people! 20 extra cents for a DVD rental?!? Back in the days of Blockbuster, movie rentals were $3.99/night. Amazon Instant Video rentals are $3.99. DIRECTV CINEMA movies are $4.99 for standard definition and $5.99 for high definition. Even if I keep a Redbox movie for 3 nights, I come out ahead.

And for all of you nay-sayers that are comparing Redbox’s price increase to Netflix’s recent (and disastrous) price increase, I say phooey to you as well. Netflix raised the subscription price 60% for people wanting to keep both the one DVD at a time an the streaming service resulting in a nearly $6/month increase. If I rent 5 movies per month with Redbox, I’ve spent an extra $1.00. Whoopee.

Let me just state for the record that if Redbox raised their prices to $3/night, I would still use their service. It’s about convenience for me. I order online or on my smartphone, I drive a couple of blocks down the road to pickup the movie. When I’m done watching the movie, I drop it off at whatever Redbox location I want.

Absolutely a steal, even at $1.20/night.