SAN FRANCISCO • Netflix customers vented Wednesday on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere over Netflix Inc.'s decision to raise its prices by up to 60 percent for the millions of subscribers who want to rent DVDs by mail and watch movies online.

Netflix customer service lines were jammed throughout the day. Rich Greenfield tried to call Netflix 35 times and got through 15 times. He cited wait times of nine minutes to 15 minutes. He was told that almost all the calls were from subscribers complaining about the increase.

"I can definitely afford it but I dropped them on principle," said Joe Turick, a technology engineer in Monroe, N.C., who has been with Netflix for about a decade, canceled his subscription within an hour of learning of Tuesday's price changes and plans to try competitors.

Netflix is splitting its DVD-by-mail and online streaming fees in a subscription shuffle that means customers who want to retain both options will have to pay almost $6 per month more.

Jessie Becker, Netflix vice president of marketing, said the new rates will become effective Sept. 1 for existing subscribers.

Currently, Netflix members can pay as little as $9.99 per month for unlimited streaming and still receive DVDs by mail, one at a time. But the Los Gatos, Calif., company is discontinuing this option.

Netflix will now offer two DVD-only plans — $7.99 per month for one disc at a time and $11.99 per month for two at a time. And unlimited streaming, with no DVDs, will cost $7.99 per month.

To get both DVDs and streaming, customers will have to pay $15.98 per month.