Netflix's longtime customers will start paying $9.99 per month in May

Eventually, we'll all be paying $9.99 for Netflix. Until the price goes up again, anyway. A massive wave of Netflix's longtime customers will see their monthly subscriptions move to that price point next month, up $2 from the glory-days price of $7.99. $9.99 is what new subscribers to the company's most popular plan have been getting charged since October. But even before that, Netflix had announced a different price hike — from $7.99 to $8.99 — in May 2014. Back then, Netflix promised to let existing customers keep paying the old $7.99 for another two years. And that's where many of us (myself included, per the image below) have stayed. Everything changes next month, when we get hit with the higher $9.99 subscription cost. Netflix has said it will be emailing affected customers to alert them about the pending increase, since most people don't remember news stories from two years ago.

I'm not going to be cancelling Netflix over a $2 increase, though — and I'd wager that's true of a lot of people. $9.99 is still that "reasonable" ceiling. Hike it to $14.99 or $19.99 and the conversation would change drastically. But for now, I'm still in. The movie catalog might be shrinking, but many of these original shows are getting too good to go without. And if you ask people whether HBO or Netflix is the company making superior original content, well, the answer is beginning to change:

Meanwhile, if you were impacted by the original subscription jump to $8.99 each month — that's everyone who signed up for Netflix after May 2014 — you won't actually have to pay $9.99 until October. If this all seems hopelessly confusing, just head to the account settings page on Netflix's website, where you'll see a "Your price plan is guaranteed until _____" message that spells out if and when you'll start paying more.