Tag Archives: netflix

About to Launch My New Streaming Service

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It’ll look a lot like this except make more sense

The other day, I was watching television and realized I had nothing to watch. There was nothing new on Hulu, Netflix, Disney Plus, Apple Itunes (or whatever it’s called), Amazon Prime, HBO Go (or is it Now?), CBS All Access and Telemundo. Okay, I don’t even know if I have Telemundo, but I bet if I did, there would be nothing new on it.

I’ve reached that era of humanity in which I’ve watched everything I can possibly imagine, leaving me staring at my television screen with nothing to do. Yes, a real first-world problem, eh?

So, rather than try to find another source of television, I’ve decided it’s time for me to just launch my own streaming service, something that caters specifically to Duane. I know the whole world has been waiting for this, as I’ve queried my various stuffed animals, and they nodded emphatically (or they just stared back at me with blank faces, but I’m pretty sure they were enthusiastic).

So, I’ve decided that in order to launch my new service, I need to feature premiere Duane-programming, which means 24/7 Star Trek (but only the shows I haven’t seen yet, which limits it to, um, none of them cause I’ve seen them all, twice, plus that one where Kirk fights the lizard guy probably at least five times; I mean, quality is quality, right?).

But the shows are going to have to be really cool, so as I’m a huge fan of twists and mysteries, we’ll have to focus on a lot of those, except every now and then they’ll have to not have a twist or mystery (being the twist and mystery itself). There should also be absolutely no sports whatsoever, because I don’t like watching shows where people can do all sorts of athletic things I can’t do, like breathe normally, or anything more strenuous than that.

I also don’t want romances because they’re not believable. Never once in my life has a woman knocked on my door and then wanted to make mad passionate love to me. Nor go on a second date. Perhaps there’s more than just a coincidence there.

I don’t like reality programming because I refuse to believe that 37 teenagers can live in the same house without an adult and somehow still manage to end up with beer in the refrigerator. And people laugh at me for liking science fiction?

So, the kinds of shows we’ll have to have will be the very high-tech science fiction shows with laser battles and really cool cars that talk to the actors, saying really funny things that people don’t actually say in real life, because that would be too scripted. But they still have to sound all natural, like it’s the right thing to happen at the most inopportune times.

And ninjas. You kind of need ninjas in most shows. Which now that I think about it, perhaps romances would be okay, as long as it was a romance between two ninjas (who throw laser ninja stars at teenagers who live in apartments with no beer). I’m not really sure where I’m going with this one, but something tells me I’m on a roll.

Of course, there’s no way to really talk about this without mentioning price. I figure $3.00 a month is appropriate as long as the entire world seems interested in subscribing. Considering there’s about 340 million people in the US alone (on any Tuesday, although Wednesdays and Fridays our numbers dwindle horribly), that would be (gets out calculator…at least three dollars times 340 million, which my two years of second grade math instruction comes out to about at least a million dollars). So, yeah, this would be really profitable.

I was going to say that my streaming service should have hot cheerleaders and Scarlet Johanssen but that was much more relevant when I was a teenager, so let’s just say that as long as we’re meeting the ninja demographic, we’re probably okay.

I haven’t figured out exactly when I’m going to be launching this new streaming service, but it may have to wait until after I’m finished watching the latest season of The Expanse, on Amazon Prime. Or was it on Starz? One of these days I’m going to have to figure out where my stuffed animals have hidden the remote.

This Time, I’m Not So Upset By Netflix’s Price Increase

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This is Felicia Day. She’s not involved in this story but she deserves more attention in this day and age

The last couple of times Netflix decided to raise its prices, I was a vocal advocate against it and a denouncer of all things Netflix. The first time, Netflix decided to cut a line between its new streaming services and its CDs by mail programs, effectively charging you twice as much if you wanted to keep both, which originally were the same service. I quit Netflix then.

Then Netflix started to get better again, and its CEO stopped being an asshole to his customers. Yeah, an asshole. He treated his customers as cattle and sheep, and that’s why I quit that first time. Somewhere down the line, someone told him to shut his stupid face, and he started to act like his customers actually were people. So I was good. There is also great news on how much does Kyle Richards make per episode.

And then Netflix decided to raise prices again, and it did it in a way that eased the increases into being. I wasn’t happy about it, but I didn’t feel like I was being treated like livestock, so I generally went along with it.

Now, Netflix has decided it is going to raise its prices again. For me, it’s about a dollar more, and adding in taxes and the weird math that these companies do, it will probably end up being closer to $1.50 to $2.00 more. Yeah, that never makes me happy, but we live in a corporate economy that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about people, so I’ve come to accept it.

Netflix is struggling against a bunch of different companies that are trying really hard to muscle in on the streaming giant. However, I don’t really see the other companies as young upstarts or forces of good trying to bring quality and good prices to my door. Many of these are owned by huge corporate enterprises that are known for foot in the door strategies where they beat out the competition and then raise the prices once they’ve secured a beach head as the only game left in town.

Netflix has been a solid service for me. It pulses higher and lower sometimes based on its content, but it’s generally upfront about what it’s doing. I dumped Hulu last year after it kept losing one show after another and then tried to play it off as “we’re solidifying our offerings,” whatever that means. Amazon is cool, but I see it as an extra benefit to Prime membership because it doesn’t really offer a whole lot of content, and the majority of its content is stuff I would never watch anyway. I tried DirectTV Now, and let’s just say that I’m now in the “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, and I’m a stupid moron that doesn’t deserve to continue making choices for himself” mode. My only other real choices are buying television shows directly from iTunes (which is massively expensive), cable (which I have but rarely offers me a selection of things to watch at a moment unless I was lucky enough to remember to dvr a specific show at a specific time), or staring longingly at my blank television screen (which after 1999 should no longer have been one’s only option).

So, I’m okay with Netflix having to charge a little extra. It’s still affordable to me, but if it rises another time after this, I’ll probably dump it and treat all streaming services as a failed experiment that couldn’t live up to its promises in the wake of the realization that media companies are really only into profiting rather than providing services.

My experience with Apple TV

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One of the problems I’ve always had is that I have a tendency to buy a lot of TV shows on iTunes, yet that has always forced me to have to watch television shows on my computer, and that’s just not what I want to do. When I buy an entire series, or even a couple of shows, I want to sit down in my living room and watch it on my 72 inch television (okay, it’s a 32 inch, but one can dream, right?). Unfortunately, that’s always been difficult for me.

The solutions in the past have been simplistic. I can buy a dvd (or a bluray) and watch it on my television, but like I said, I buy a lot of stuff when it comes out on iTunes, and I kind of like that. The other solution has been to put the stuff on my iPad and then hook that up to my television, but honestly, I’ve never been comfortable wanting to do that.

And then I read an article about Apple TV and thought to myself, you know maybe that might be the solution. For those who don’t know much about Apple TV, what it is amounts to a small box that hooks up to your television that can either receive signals through an ethernet or through wifi. Fortunately for me, my computer system is set up with wifi, so I went with that option.

Almost immediately, I was able to access my iTunes library through Apple TV, so anything I bought in the past was there for me to watch. This helped when I was catching up on a few of the shows that I hadn’t finished watching on my computer. It was so nice to watch them on my main television set.

And then I found out you can access your iTunes library that’s on any of your computers by turning on Home Sharing. Well, kind of. My MacBook Pro, which receives signals through wifi, worked fine. My PC’s iTunes, which connects through ethernet, couldn’t be seen by my Apple TV no matter what I did, so the majority of my collection that’s on my main computer (where I store practically everything) was completely not accessible. So with that feature, I was very disappointed in Apple TV.

The other problem I ran into with it was that when the last episode of Breaking Bad aired and I went to watch it on my television, it wouldn’t download. It kept saying it couldn’t receive a list or something ridiculous like that. It could access anything else in my iTunes, but the one show I really wanted to watch wouldn’t show up. I ended up having to go back to my main computer and watch it there, which basically made me feel like my Apple TV was a dysfunctional step-child that obviously doesn’t work as intended. I didn’t contact Apple because my experience with customer service concerning Apple is a lot like pissing in a fan and wondering why you’re now covered in piss.

The cost of Apple TV was $99, plus an HDMI cord, which cost me about $14. So, plus tax it ended up costing me about $135 or something like that.

The jury is still out for me on whether or not it was worth the money. If you don’t use iTunes, it’s completely worthless, unless you’re desperate for some way to access your Netflix or Hulu Plus accounts (which it does as well). There are a bunch of other channels that you can access as long as you have an Internet connection, but they felt a lot like cable selections, in that you choose one you watch and the rest serve as noise that you have to forward through to get to shows you actually want to watch. But if you use iTunes a lot, like I do, then it’s a great little thing. If only they’d fix its inherent Apple-itis, which means every now and then it just does stupid stuff and Apple pretends everything is fine until enough people complain and they fix it without every acknowledging anything was wrong.

Netflix is the like that abusive boyfriend who thinks it’s okay to hit you because he’s sober the next day

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I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I’ve been in an abusive relationship for many years now. I just recently got out of it, but my partner keeps calling me back, telling me everything’s okay now, that after counseling the abuse is never going to happen again. And almost like always, I go back, and a few weeks later, the abuse starts all over again. Like most abused partners, I never learn, which is why it is so easy to keep slipping into this type of relationship.

In the beginning, things were great. Netflix told me I was the only one and that we’d be together forever. Then out of nowhere a few years back, Netflix told me that I had to start paying more money to get the exact same features I was receiving before. Netflix told me it was really my fault, that I was expecting too much for how much effort Netflix was putting into the relationship, and that it was really stupid of me not to have expected the increase in fees. So, I decided that I wouldn’t see Netflix as much any more, telling Netflix, “I think we need to spend more time apart, and possibly see other people.” So, without warning, I switched from the three dvds at one time plan to the one dvd at a time plan. This took Netflix completely by surprise. He claimed I was being emotional, overly judgmental and unfair. But backed by all of my friends (who for some reason seemed to be in the same relationship with Netflix, too…why don’t we ever see these things?), I stood my ground. I figured if Netflix didn’t love me as much as I loved Netflix, then we didn’t need as exclusive of a relationship.

After a few bouts of overnighters and even a couple of nights where Netflix had to sleep on the couch, Netflix gave in and lowered his prices again. He said, “Baby, I’m on the wagon now. I know I hurt you, and I promise never to do it again.”

So, stupidly, I took Netflix back. I raised my dvd amount to three again, and we had a pretty good relationship for the next few years. Then, Netflix started drinking again. Well, that’s the only explanation I can come up with because he went right back to his abusive ways.

Out of the blue, Netflix announced that he was doubling his prices, and then as if that wasn’t enough, he decided outright that he was going to become two people, and I’d have to pay each one of them for the pleasure of his company. Right then and there, I decided, Netflix sucks, and I no longer want to be in this relationship. So I dumped him. Sent him to the curb and moved in with my mother and her three cats.

Ever since then, Netflix has been emailing me, saying, “Aw, come on Babe. I’m sober now. I mean, I’m still going to charge you twice as much, but I decided to stop pretending to be two people. So take me back. You know we had some good times together. Do you want to end up alone with your mother’s three cats?”

Like most abusive boyfriends, Netflix just doesn’t understand that when someone moves on, someone actually moves on. I’ve started dating again, having gone on a few blind dates with iTunes, Redbox and an Amazon Prime membership. But that doesn’t stop Netflix from hounding me every other day with a “hey, Babe, I’m still the best deal you’ve ever known. Stop screening your phone calls and pick up the damn phone!”

But I’m never going back. While it doesn’t mean I’ll never be in another abusive relationship again, it just means that I’ll never be in another one with Netflix. You have to live each day as it comes and relish the victories, no matter how small or how inconsequential.

Netflix drops Quikster but Duane really doesn’t care

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I received an email today from the CEO of Netflix. How nice. Not long ago, I received another email from him, indicating that he was raising the price of Netflix by a LOT. And then he sent me another email explaining that he was going to be splitting up Netflix into Netflix and Quikster, basically forcing me to have to use two different services to get the same service I get in one place previously. And then he went on the news and started talking to Netflix customers like a mother talking to a five year old kid who doesn’t understand why mommy and daddy are splitting up, and then decides to explain it by saying that daddy is leaving mommy because you were bad.

Anyway, so this latest email was explaining to me that he decided NOT to split up Netflix into two companies, but sorry about the price increase. That’s sticking because Netflix needs to make a profit, and I’ve been getting too good of a deal from Netflix. Well, he was right. But when he sent me those rude emails a few months back, I did what came naturally. I cut off Netflix for good and decided while it used to be a good deal, I kind of wanted to do business with companies that don’t make me feel like a five year old kid. Yeah, I threw a temper tantrum, like a five year old kid. And I left Netflix. Not coming back, so their CEO can send me all sorts of emails about how he’s changed and isn’t going to hit me any more, but our relationship is over.

I moved on. It’s not me. It’s you. Sorry. And please stop hitting mommy. The neighbors are getting tired of banging on the walls.

Netflix Just Doesn’t Seem to Get It

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Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings seems to think that if he offers a fake apology, somehow his insulting rhetoric will somehow get replaced with applause. You see, a short while ago, Netflix had this “brilliant” idea of increasing revenue by splitting its company into streaming and DVD sending entities. What it didn’t do is actually consult any of its customers beforehand. Instead, it talked to them patronizingly, like an adult to a child, and told them that raising prices was somehow a good idea for all. And then out of the blue, yesterday, Hastings offered the infamous “fake” apology that companies are getting very good at offering these days.

What am I talking about? Well, you see when a company doesn’t really want to apologize, but wants everyone to think it has apologized so we can all see them as sensitive, it offers what’s referred to as the “fake” apology, which is a lot like breaking up with a mate by saying something like: “It’s really best for both of us that I dump you by stopping the car, letting you out in the middle of the most dangerous part of town and have you walk home alone. I’m sure you understand that I’m doing it in the interests of both of us.”

Hastings did that by indicating that he was “sorry” for how his message was received, not that he was actually sorry for raising prices, and pissing everyone off by treating customers like ten year olds being told it’s for their own good.

Now, Netflix has decided to up its apology to absurd proportions by completely splitting the company into two, creating some stupid-named company called Quikster, almost as if they polled the audience to find out what would cause the most people to jump ship, and the pot-smoking guy in the back yelled out: “Dude, Quikster would be so rad!” and they went with it.

I’ve been talking about the hemorrhaging of customers that Netflix has been suffering ever since they started turning stupid as a corporate business strategy. Years from now, the actions of Netflix will be taught in business management schools as the poster child of how to completely destroy your company overnight. The fact that they can’t see this is amazing to me. Yet, they keep making these types of moves, convinced that somehow its a sustainable process for growth.

As I mentioned before, as soon as I finish watching the television show I’m watching on streaming video through Netflix, I’m going to cancel my account completely, and I will never join again. I have to believe that I’m not the only person who feels this way, and at the same time there’s a sense of regret because a long time ago, I used to hail Netflix as the rebel child it was, thumbing its nose at corporate America and offering the public exactly what it wanted and felt it needed. And then it stopped doing that, and turned into Circuit City. If ever a study on anthropology was needed, the destruction of Netflix (or Quikster) so needs its own chapter.

With that said, I wish Netflix good speed at achieving whatever bizarre plan it is attempting to fulfill. Unfortunately, this time around, I will not be around for the ride. And unfortunately for them, most of their customers will probably resonate the same response as well.

Sony Proves Yet Again That It’s the Company to Go to If You Want to Hate a Company

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Not too long ago, Sony was attempting all sorts of mea culpas over the fact that its networks were hacked, and everyone who ever did business with them was royally screwed because Sony had lousy security in place. You’d think after something like that, they’d really walk on lots of egg shells around customers. Well, think again.

Turns out that yesterday Sony decided to push forth a new set of usage terms for anyone who wants to access the Playstation Network. Rather than something along the lines of “we’re here for you”, their new terms of service essentially state: “If something happens, go screw yourself.” Well, not the wording exactly, but they state that if you want to use their service, you agree to arbitration in case ANYTHING ever happens. In other words, if you want to use their service, you’re not allowed to sue them any longer. Translation: “Go screw yourself.”

Over the years, I’ve distanced myself from all things Sony mainly because their customer service has been atrocious. My last real brush with them was with Sony Online Entertainment, which were the original gangstas behind Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies. Aside from destroying both of those games, SOE made it quite clear that if you wanted to play one of their games, you did it on their terms and their terms alone. After awhile, I ended all of my subscriptions and sent any further emails (and attempts to “Welcome” me “back”) into my spam folder. Even my spam folder felt disgusted from having to deal with anything sent by Sony.

Years later, I made the critical error of buying a Playstation 3 because I wanted a decent blu-ray player. It’s been generally okay, but in order to access Netflix, I had to go through the Playstation Network, and let’s just say that it works fine until Sony decides to interject itself into the mix, and then I spend about an hour trying to get it to work properly again. And then it works fine for a week or so, so I don’t cancel it completely.

But last night, I got the indication that if I wanted to continue using my Playstation 3 in the future, I had to agree to their one-sided demands. So, realizing that to not agree would effectively turn my Playstation 3 into an electronic brick, I agreed. But I wasn’t happy about it.

Turns out, not a lot of other people are either.

At least until I discontinue Netflix, I have to deal with the Sony Mafia. And then I intend to cut them off forever. I have enough crappy companies I already have to do business with. One less won’t make me feel bad.

Netflix is starting to realize you can’t be a people business & piss off your customers

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Netflix is in a bit of a bind, but you wouldn’t know that from paying attention to anything the company is saying. Earlier in the year, they came up with the brilliant idea of raising their prices by cutting their services in half and charging customers for both (where they used to get both for the same price). Customers got angry. Netflix acted like the knowing parent, coddling children who are upset that they weren’t chosen for the football team (or to be cheerleaders). Customers got pissed because they really don’t like being treated like children when they’re actually customers.

I kind of got pissed, too. The patronizing remarks from Netflix’s leadership surprised the crap out of me to the point where I decided that if it benefited me in the long run, I’d jump ship at the first opportunity. I, too, hate being treated like a little kid, even when I might act like one.

To see it from the viewpoint of all of the analysts, the same point keeps being made: If there’s no viable alternative to Netflix, then Netflix can pretty much crap on its customers, and it’s still going to be all right. The more you read of this kind of stuff, the more you start to wonder if the reviewers are in the same world as the rest of the people who happen to be customers of Netflix.

What no one has addressed, and I find this probably the most significant factor, is that Netflix offers a service that is a luxury, not a necessity. As most Americans are seriously aware of economic constraints in a recession era, the idea that streaming video and mailed dvds are an added luxury might just be enough to cause a potential customer to think that perhaps the money might be better spent on other pursuits. After all, no one really needs movies and television shows. They’re nice and fun, but they are entertainment, not food staples or part of one’s housing needs. On the whole Maslow heirarchy needs thing, Netflix comes long after most of the other needs and desires have been met.

And that’s what I’ve started to realize recently. As I watch through the fifth season of Star Trek Voyager, a series I’ve seen a long time ago when it actually aired on television, I realize that I don’t really need to watch it. It’s an interesting way to occupy time, but I have computer games, writing, my health club membership, an untapped drug habit I could start at any moment, and all sorts of other activities that have been available a long time before television ever emerged. I could even watch network television (or whatever is on the free cable I receive). The need for Netflix is pretty low on the overall scheme of necessities.

So, I’ve been thinking that once Voyager’s run is finished (there were 7 seasons), I’m dumping Netflix completely. You see, Netflix has this belief that people will “respond” by switching to either mailed disks or streaming only (what they wanted in the first place), but there are 12 million people who may choose my option: Cancel completely and never come back. I was charged my first increased charge this month, and while I can afford it, I’m still angry at Netflix for the way it treated me as a customer. Because of that, I, like I’m sure many others like me, will dump Netflix and wish them well. They’ve already indicated in all of their press releases that they could care less whether or not I stay with them (because they expect to make bank based on the rest of the people who will be unwilling to jump ship). Well, fine. I just suspect that they haven’t read the tea leaves well enough to understand that when you cut out your bread and butter, you sometimes go without food.

But what do I know? I’m just a stupid sheep guy who Netflix doesn’t take seriously anyway.

Technology Companies Still Don’t Understand Their Business IS Customers

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Sprint PCS is ramping up its engines to try to gain new customers because their managers realize they’re just not cutting it as the third biggest cell phone company. If you looked at them on paper, they’d have everything to sell, such as the only big cell phone service that still offers an unlimited data plan (unless grandfathered in), a great all in one wireless satellite service (Clear Wire), and they’re generally cheaper. So why aren’t they defeating everyone else?

Well, let’s look at that for a moment. I had Sprint, and I currently still have Clear as my additional service. When I had Sprint as a cell phone, the first thing I noticed is that I rarely could get a solid signal. And if I did, I’d lose it. When I went in to complain, the response wasn’t “Oh, we’ll look into that” but “They’re aware of it, and we’re waiting to hear something new”. In other words, they knew they had problems and they did absolutely nothing to fix it. I had Sprint for six months before I gave up on it. When I gave up on it, of course they wanted to charge me they’re punishment fee, even though I was dropping the service because it never worked. A smart company would have said: “You’re right. It’s our fault, so we’ll pick up the charge.” That way, I might look back at Sprint with a sense of “Hey, they at least treated me with respect.” But that’s not how I left.

As for Clear, I like it, but it’s a generally shitty service for the price that I pay. I was using it at home and at work. At work, I would sometimes lose signal for a week (and no tech person on their end could fix it, other than the classic: “Have you tried restarting your computer?”). I still have it, and I paid for the modem straight out (which means there should be no fee whenever I do disconnect), but I’ll bet you every dollar the United States doesn’t have to pay its bills that they’ll try to tack on a disconnect fee, even though the disconnect fee is supposed to pay for the “great discount” I would have gotten on the equipment, which I paid full price for because they didn’t have a deal, and I really didn’t feel like renting their shit.

So, Sprint is now having trouble gaining new customers. You might think word of mouth might be their biggest problem. The woman who works in the next cubicle over from me has had nothing but nightmares with Sprint phones and service. I was on the shuttle bus going home from work last night, and two women started a chorus of how much Sprint sucks as they discussed their lousy phone service.

Now, this could be just in Grand Rapids, but I’m suspecting that if they’re screwing it up here, they’re probably screwing it up in a lot more places. Big companies are a lot like that. I’ve hated Comcast practically every city where I’ve had them, and I’ve had them in Grand Rapids, Stockton and a few other places that aren’t coming to my Alzheimerish mind right now.

Netflix is another one of those companies that doesn’t seem to get it. Oh, they think they do, and they’re all meta-like, acting like they’re on top of things with their knowledge of psychology and how people will eventually get over their price hikes, but rather than first telling their customers that the price of new content requires more money to pay for it, they just upped the price and pretty much told everyone to either live with it or leave, and then did this sanctimonious crap about how they’re the best deal in town so either live with it or stare at the walls in silence because they won’t have Netflix to watch instead.

This is NOT the way to treat your customers, especially the ones who stuck by you all of these years when you were growing and struggling to grow. Right now, I’m royally pissed at Netflix, and when September comes around I will cancel their services completely. Not drop down to the streaming only, or the disks only, but dump them completely like a cheating girlfriend who was never really good in bed in the first place. Okay, that’s a bit vulgar. How about: Like an ice cream flavor that doesn’t taste as good as…ah, never mind. Go with the first, vulgar one. It works well enough.

It’s almost as if major companies are less concerned about public relations and more concerned with handling damage control. And if your company’s focus is always how to minimize your negativity from customers, then something’s seriously wrong with your business model. My advice there is fire all of your executives, hire a bunch of kids who have watched a lot of Elmo on Sesame Street, and start over.

Saving Private Netflix…and dealing with cheating whores

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In the movie Saving Private Ryan, there’s a scene where Tom Hanks, playing the special ops captain who has just risked life and lost really good men, tells a young Private Ryan that he’d better do something great with his life, like invent a new brand of toothpaste or something, something to have made the sacrifices of his men worthwhile. And the young private, now grown up, asks his wife if she felt he contributed something important to the world, and she tells him he has. And all I was left thinking was, that captain played by Tom Hanks wanted something a bit more, not just that Private Ryan would make some family happy, and to be honest, I never really felt that Private Ryan lived up to the expectations that Tom Hanks’s dying character really demanded.

I’m kind of left with that same feeling when I received an email from Netflix yesterday informing me that it was going to be raising my rates 60 percent to give me exactly what I have always been receiving. In other words, rather than raise my rates AND give me a little more value, they’re giving me exactly what they always give me, and charging me more for it. Not very impressive.

And that action has caused all sorts of backlash from the community that makes up the customer base of Netflix. You see, they tried to do this a long time ago, and it failed miserably. Some years ago, they tried to raise rates BIG TIME, and most of their customers revolted. I did, too. Instead of quitting Netflix, I decided to switch from three DVDs at a time to 1 DVD at a time. The result was that I ended up paying less than what they were receiving from me before the change. A month or so later, Netflix completely reversed course, lowered their rates back to the original amount, and then people started to come back; I personally went back to my 3 DVDs a month.

Recently, they quietly raised prices on us. Not a huge amount, but enough to be noticeable. I thought about leaving but then just decided it wasn’t a big enough increase to cause me to leave. Kind of like the frog in a warm pot who doesn’t jump out even as the water slowly begins to boil. The slow burn and the slow increase of heat remains comfortable until you cook to death and die.

Well, this change is much different. They’ve decided that they want to be a mainly streaming company now, which is not what they were designed to be in the first place. There’s a whole lot of literature in Economics 101 about how a company shouldn’t change what it does best or to try to do more products than it is known for, but Netflix has always felt that it could buck the trend and win the brass ring no matter what it did. Rather than just increase rates, they’ve decided to charge people for both streaming AND DVDs, where they used to be lumped together in the past. I think they believe that people will respond by dropping one or the other, but I don’t think they realize the real implication, and that’s that they’re about to lose customers forever. I’m not talking about people getting pissed and changing their options until Netflix backs down. I mean people leaving in droves and being so pissed at Netflix that no turnaround will cause them to come back.

That’s where I am right now. I’m in the middle of watching Rescue Me through streaming, and when that show finishes its run (in other words, I get through the last season), I’m ending my Netflix subscription forever. I haven’t really watched any DVDs in a long time, having held onto the same ones for a long time, so that’s not a big deal. And I’ve never been all that much of a fan of their streaming service as most of the choices have been crap, and when I have watched something, half of the time the connection is not good enough to where I’m constantly watching a smooth experience. The continuous buffering thing gets old, and I won’t miss that.

What Netflix doesn’t seem to get is that they are not part of a necessity for most people. Television and movies is a luxury, and to be honest, I really won’t miss it all that much. Yeah, I could go find alternatives to seeing the same programming, but most of it has generally been crap. Every now and then a good show comes on that I’ll watch through its run, but quite often almost everything I watch has been a waste of time. Movies are almost always a waste of time because Hollywood has been making nothing but crap for years now, and for the five movies I’ve enjoyed, I’ve probably watched a hundred I didn’t. The odds just don’t make it worth it.

For the longest time, I’ve stayed with Netflix more out of nostalgia than anything else. It was convenient and comfortable. That’s it. It hasn’t been that useful. Years ago, when there were lots of things in my queue, it was wonderful. But years later, I’ve gone through my queue, and where I used to have blockbusters in it before, I have mostly second rate choices that were put in there and constantly pushed to the bottom of my queue so I could watch stuff that seemed more interesting. With that to look forward to, Netflix doesn’t offer a whole lot of wonderful things for the future.

So I’ll be dumping them like a girlfriend who has been cheating on me for years, and I’ve just been too busy at work to sit down and explain to her that we need to see other people. Well, the rhetorical job just told me to take my vacation, and I’m realizing I now have to spend a week with the cheating girlfriend, and the girl next door has been giving me the eye. Okay, it’s a bad analogy, and unfortunately all it does is remind me that I don’t actually have a girlfriend, and even worse, a social life. But at least I won’t have Netflix either. I’m dumping that cheating whore.