Netflix trips in its bid to raise people's bills & still sign up customers

Netflix lost paying customers in the US during the second quarter for the first time in years after it increased prices on its most popular plan to $13 a month from $11

The optimistic scenario about Netflix Inc goes like this: The company is wise to spend like mad to create a new generation of entertainment service that capitalises on the inexorable shift of people away from old ways of wasting time like television toward new modes of wasting time like staring at smartphones.

Eventually, the theory goes, Netflix will stop bleeding cash and borrowing money because it will be able to raise prices once it becomes essential to hundreds of millions of loyal customers. The profits will pour down like rain. 

That optimistic scenario just took a hit.

Netflix lost paying