Wednesday, April 04, 2012

Netflix

A few months ago, before all the gyrations of Netflix spinning off their ship to your home DVD business into Quickster, I was seriously considering signing up for Netflix.

Previously I had skipped it because my family doesn't rent more than one or two movie per month, so $2 per month at Redbox was way less than Netflix.

I started thinking about movies that are not new releases that we might watch if they were at Redbox. That started to sound a little closer, but still would only be another movie or two per month, which I could probably just get from Amazon or Walmart steaming as needed and still be money ahead of Netflix.

As time went on I started thinking about old TV shows that I have tried to share with my kids that they really liked.  We have had trouble finding some of the seasons.  If Netflix had TV shows I thought it might be worth it.

My boss had a Netflix subscription, so I had him do three searches for me.  I picked Happy Days season 3, the movie Twister, and I can not remember the third thing.

They had Happy Days season 3, but only on DVDs that I would have to wait on to be shipped to me.  Maybe that wouldn't be a big deal to wait for the disks, since I don't have to send them back until I am done with them, but I also can't get anything else until I do and then I have to wait for the next thing.  Then I have to keep track of the disks and make sure they do get sent back before my kids lose them.

They had Twister, but only on DVD.  When my wife and I feel we are in the mood for and have time for a movie we want it that night.  Waiting to have a disk shipped to us is unacceptable.

The third one they did not have at all.  I don't remember what it was, but I seem to recall that it wasn't any more obscure than Twister and Happy Days.

Netflix had a customer ready to buy that day.  Since they had none of the things I was looking for via streaming I walked away and fell back to my previous position of disinterest in Netflix for my family.

I have heard that their pricing for streaming is lower now that they have spun off the DVD business, but if they don't have the things I want, then it is pointless even if it was the same as I would pay each month at Redbox.

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