Ran across
this article while reading CNN this morning.
I will take some of the more stupider points and shoot them down because the article just annoyed the crap out of me.
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But I have misgivings about the service's usefulness, especially compared with that of a real, well-stocked video store, and about the possibly harmful effect that Netflix and other online retail outfits may have on American society.
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Real, well-stocked video store? Where? All the ones in my neighborhood have closed down, including the shitacular Cockbuster and Hollyweird Video. As for the harmful effects of Netflix on real video stores, isn't Cockbuster offering the same service as Netflix?
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And it's cheap: for the four-at-a-time price of $23.99, you could conceivably see about 50 videos a month--if you devoted your life to the task.
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Nobody forces you to get the four-at-a-time deal. We have three-at-a-time, it costs $18.65, and we still see more than enough movies to make up for that price. It is still cheaper than going to a video store and renting movies at $4-5 a pop.
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Well, I do. Specifically, I miss Kim's Video, a lower-Manhattan movie-rental landmark that housed 55,000 DVDs and cassettes of the vastest and most eccentric variety--until it closed early this year and shipped the whole stash to Sicily. Admittedly, Kim's was one of the gems, but cities large and small used to have video stores with all manner of movies that you could see right away.
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Not always. There were plenty of times that I went to a smaller place and they didn't have what I wanted. Furthermore, this quote makes this guy sound like one of those movie snobs who scoffs at big budget blockbusters.
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You must cool your jets for two to four days, dependent as you are on both the skill of Netflix employees to put the correct movie in your envelope (sometimes they don't) and the speed of the U.S. Postal Service. By the time a video arrives, you may have forgotten why you rented it.
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I have never waited longer than two days after sending off the movie to receive the next. The only time I didn't get a movie was when it was lost in the mail, so I went online and reported it lost. It took them an extra day to get me another copy out.
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Put movies in your rental queue and most will be marked "Now" for immediate rental. Some, however, will be designated "Short Wait" or "Very Long Wait." That often applies to old films that have a sudden surge in popularity and of which Netflix has only a few copies. (Did you want to compare the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three with this summer's remake? At Netflix, you could have waited five weeks to see the 1974 film.) Other titles, which may have vanished from the stockroom, are called "Unavailable"; the wait time for those could be eternity.
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True, there are a few that are marked with those things, but I usually just move them to the top of my queue and when they're available, they're sent. I have never had a problem with this, considering we have 250+ movies following that one particular movie that is unavailable at that time.
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Most online retailers try to interest customers in items similar to ones they've bought. Netflix offers "Movies Most Like ...," but the similarities can be baffling. Rent the Indian drama Fiza and you'll be pointed to Season 1 of Scrubs and the Bakker biopic The Eyes of Tammy Faye. This is when I yearn for the guys behind the old Kim's counter. Not that every video-store clerk is a budding Quentin Tarantino, eager to point renters toward some arcane masterpiece from Italy or Hong Kong, but you do miss out on a face-to-face with a knowledgeable cinephile.
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Oh, you mean the disinterested workers that wave their hand in a general direction to point you out to something you're looking for? The sullen bitches that barely acknowledge you while they take your money? Yeah, I don't miss that, and no, I'm not talking about the big retail chains, either.
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Beyond the mail delays and the botched orders, the lack of human interaction is the big problem with Netflix and its cyber-ilk. Thanks to the Internet, we can now do nearly everything--working, shopping, moviegoing, social networking, having sex--on one machine at home. We're becoming a society of shut-ins. We deprive ourselves of exercise, even if it's just a stroll around the mall, until we're the shape of those blobby people in WALL•E. And we deny ourselves the random epiphanies of human contact.
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I agree on a level with the lack of human interaction. However, I find it rather amusing that I read this article ONLINE and did not have to go down to my neighborhood newstand to buy Time Magazine.
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You can already get 12,000 Netflix titles on your TV (if you have a Blu-ray player or spring for a $100 Netflix box). So, O.K., soon there will be no more waiting for DVDs. But it'll come at a price.
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Actually, we stream them through our 360.
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Me, I'd rather go out to the movies. Or to a video store, even if it is in Sicily.
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Don't let the door hit you.
Linear Mode
