Netflix = Qwikster?

When Netflix upped their prices, I took to the nets to complain just like a million other customers. Now that the price change has taken effect, I’ve dropped streaming from my account. Here’s one of the reasons I’m ticked off with Netflix.

In 1998, when I got my first DVD player, you couldn’t rent DVDs from Blockbuster, so I went in search of an alternative and I found the newly launched Netflix.

At the time, their service worked just like Blockbuster, with late fees and all. When they launched their subscription service in 1999, I immediately signed-up and have been a customer ever since. For a while, my status as one of their original customers got me a better price and extra movies. I used to get 5 movies out at a time for what most folks paid for 3 at a time. But over time, they did away with that. And now that I just dropped streaming, the best deal I can get is 2 DVDs at a time, for about the price I used to pay for 5.

Streaming Not Worth the Additional Cost
Streaming was nice during the summer when there was no one at the school, and we lunched on our own. I’d sit and watch a documentary or TV show. But as far as using it at home, that’s a rarity. I have a Mac mini that I keep loaded up with DVD rips for picking out movies. And I rent Blu-Rays from Netflix that I have to keep on hand. When there’s a big summer blockbuster that I want to see (we rarely go to the movies anymore), I want to see it in 1080p with uncompressed surround sound, not in a highly compressed video stream.

Here’s a good take on why Netflix changed its pricing, which includes some of the legal issues they have to deal with regarding the first-sale doctrine. I think the cards are stacked against Netflix in the streaming business.

The content owners really don’t want Netflix to succeed because there’s just not a lot of profit in it for them vs. consumers using pay-per-view, and they don’t want to allow one service to have all the power over them, the way the music industry gave all its power to Apple’s and iTunes.

And now this morning we find out that Netflix is splitting off its DVD rental service. It’s the end of an era. I think they are trying to slowly kill DVDs by mail in favor of streaming. I agree with the article I linked above. Qwikster is a horrible name. Why not MailFlix?