It was simply inevitable. After years of giving entertainment lovers tons of premium streaming content at a cheap price — with its highest cost still cheaper than some movie tickets sold in this country — reports say Netflix is taking the steps towards raising their asking price in the near future.

The news comes from an investors meeting with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, reported by The Guardian via Slashfilm. During this time, it was announced the company wants U.S. consumers to graduate towards higher-priced HD plans throughout the next couple years. In the process, prices will naturally rise, but this isn't going to happen immediately. In the next quarter or so, they won't put these plans to action. But do expect them to rise gingerly throughout the next ten years.

Hastings says to the trade they're going to "take it very slow," promising that as this happens they'll "be able to add more content and have more value and then price it appropriately." Give it to the site: they're playing it very smart. They've learned from experience how upset people get if they do this, and they're going to make sure they give people the best service they can before they ask for more coin out-of-pocket.

This is sad for Netflix fans, of course, but by no means a surprise. As stressed before, the site hosts a bountiful library of movies and TV shows available in three tiers: one screen at a time in standard definition for $7.99, two screens at a time with HD for $8.99 and four screens at one given moment with HD and Ultra HD for $11.99. And their studio heads are currently creating an estimated $1.5 billion worth of original content — not including spending over $60 million to fund the Brad Pitt-project War Machine, just to name one example — and pundits predict the streaming service is worth more than $43 billion. To have that much power and not take advantage of it would be astounding.

Considering the outrage created by pushing up their prices at one time, it's best from a marketing perspective to make these increases come at a more steady, less discernible pace. Plus the prices have raised over the course of the last year, so to expect them to settle is kinda silly. So long as they continue to produce strong content and satisfy a popular demand, this shouldn't be too huge of a problem — even if our wallets may begin whimpering louder over the course of this remaining decade.