Netflix introduced a streaming product back in 2007/2008 which seems like decades in Internet time. Before the iPhone and Foursquare and before Kindle and iPad, Amazon was streaming video to us on a limited basis per month but only supported Windows (Mac support was coming soon). Since then, Netflix has expanded their streaming service to Mac, iOS, Android and dozens of set top boxes like the Xbox, AppleTV, Boxee, Roku and PS3 among various television sets that come equipped with an Internet connection. It’s remarkable to think how well Netflix has done at expanding their streaming service beyond a limited offering to Windows PCs via the web browser.
DVDs are low quality and look terrible on my television screen but Blu-Ray disks are clunky and cumbersome. I had a Netflix Blu-Ray + Streaming account but the 5 minute power up sequence of my Sony Blu-Ray player paired with another 10 minute load time on disks that were usually scratched up forced me to cancel that subscription. If I pirated movies, I could just as easily download the high def version of these films just in the time it took to get the disk going, not including the time it takes for Netflix to ship me the content via US Mail. With that in mind, I cancelled my Netflix Optical Media subscription 6 months ago and went with an $8 streaming program.
I haven’t used it.
Sure, I’ve played 2 of the total of 20 South Park Episodes available and have watched a few old MST3K movies that I wouldn’t have watched anyway but Netflix, to me was the service I browsed on the Sunday afternoon that I had absolutely nothing else to do. Netflix to me was channel surfing. It’s the thing I do when there’s nothing else to do. I’ve used Netflix at home a total of 5 hours in the last 6 months. The fact that Netflix is hogging so much of our nation’s Internet traffic during prime-time is a huge surprise to me. What are people watching? I don’t really like TV shows enough to watch those and I don’t like movies that were box office hits 30+ years ago so what is there on Netflix for me to actually watch?
Well, maybe I’m spoiled because Hulu is so good! Every SNL clip ever? Yes. Every South Park and Daily Show? Yes. Every prime time show available anywhere I have a 3G connection? Yes. Only 2 commercials per show, subscription queues, favorites support and it works on every device I own? Yes. Hulu has everything I want and is quickly adding the same 3rd rate shitty movies that Netflix has. Netflix does now have The Criterion Collection which is nice but, if you really want to watch a shitty movie that never made it to theatres, Hulu can help you out with that. So, Hulu costs the same as Netflix, has 60 seconds of commercials per show (netflix has none) and it has current TV shows that just aired with a nicer UI.
I’m keeping Hulu and cancelling Netflix.
Well, I was just going to let it keep rolling over every month in the event that I really felt a hankering for watching MASH or ER. Then, they decided to change how they bill subscribers.
You can now have streaming for $7.99 a month or DVDs for $7.99 a month. To have both, you have to pay for both. The only way this would work for customers who actually want decent movies + convenience of streaming is if they finally started offering good films on streaming. Right now, streaming works for people who like old films OR people who want to watch a lot of streaming TV shows. if you want the latest movies, you must do the DVD plan and, if you want the DVD plan plus some occasional streaming, it’s going to cost $7.99×2 not $7.99+$2 for DVDs and streaming as it was before. Netflix explains why they did this:
Last November when we launched our $7.99 unlimited streaming plan, DVDs by mail was treated as a $2 add on to our unlimited streaming plan. At the time, we didn’t anticipate offering DVD only plans. Since then we have realized that there is still a very large continuing demand for DVDs both from our existing members as well as non-members. Given the long life we think DVDs by mail will have, treating DVDs as a $2 add on to our unlimited streaming plan neither makes great financial sense nor satisfies people who just want DVDs. Creating an unlimited DVDs by mail plan (no streaming) at our lowest price ever, $7.99, does make sense and will ensure a long life for our DVDs by mail offering. Reflecting our confidence that DVDs by mail is a long-term business for us, we are also establishing a separate and distinct management team solely focused on DVDs by mail, led by Andy Rendich, our Chief Service and Operations Officer and an 11 year veteran of Netflix.
Now we offer a choice: Unlimited Streaming for $7.99 a month, Unlimited DVDs for $7.99 a month, or both for $15.98 a month ($7.99 + $7.99). We think $7.99 is a terrific value for our unlimited streaming plan and $7.99 a terrific value for our unlimited DVD plan. We hope one, or both, of these plans makes sense for our members and their entertainment needs.
This only works for people like my parents who don’t use Netflix streaming and want to only to DVDs. For them, this is great news! If you want both, too bad.
This is just getting too confusing and I don’t use Netflix anyway. For cutting edge, brand new movies, I’ll rent for $2 on iTunes. For cutting edge, brand new TV shows, I’ll stream those on Hulu. For times I’m really bored, I’ll stream shitty movies on Hulu and for times that I realize how shitty the movie selection is on both Hulu and Netflix, I’ll go ride my bike because that’s a far better use of my time.