Mission Accomplished!!! One less Netflix Subscriber

In class last week people were discussing blogs and what not. A girl in the back raised her hand and announced she had dropped her Netflix account!

At this point you can image that my mouth dropped.

She said after reading Nixing Netflix she began to realize that Netflix truly is a terrible company. They played favorites, impose throttling, and bad customer service. (She did mention something about not having time either…but that is also one of my arguments, so Hah!)

I found this to be awesome on several levels. One, because at the beginning of my quest, she thought my idea about hating Netflix was absurd. She had her subscription for a long a while and always found time to watch her DVDs. But now her subscription is terminated. Two, this means that my voice has been heard and action was taken because of Nixing Netflix.

This has made my entire blogging worth while!!

Who will be next to Nix Netflix?!?!

Blockbuster & Weinstein Co. But No Netflix

Blockbuster and The Weinstein Company (TWC) have made a very interesting deal. Beginning in January, TWC will only sell its movies to the movie rental company, Blockbuster. This leaves Netflix out in the cold. Netflix will be able to purchase TWC titles, but not directly from the company. They will have to use a different company. To see the whole article visit Video Business: http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6391512.html

So why is Netflix being left out in the cold? Not that I am complaining or anything

Blockbuster’s John Antioco (c.) announced the deal with TWC’s Bob Weinstein (l.) and Harvey Weinstein.
(From Video Business)

Netflix & The Biggest Loser

On NBC’s reality show The Biggest Losers, participants go through challenges in order to lose wait. On a recent episode, the prize for a heavy weight lifting contest was a year long subscription to Netflix.

Anyone else see the irony here??

The show is all about losing weight. Watching and unlimited supply of DVDs that are sent directly to your house is not a way to encourage weight loss. This just puts Netflix in a negative light. They should not have been a prize in the show.

No Time for Netflix Part 2

Since the beginning of this blog I have been looking at other blogs that mention our DVD rental company, Netflix. Some blogs discuss news and latest Netflix updates, but these are the minorities. The majority of blogs that mention Netflix give movie reviews. I found this to be very interesting. The most common title for these blogs are something along the lines of “Netflix Review of the Week.”

People make it a priority to watch DVDs and write reviews of them. I think this is an interesting trend, but this goes back to my post about No Time for Netflix.

Who has time to write reviews every week about Netflix rentals?

Netflix vs. Blockbuster

It is finally time to talk about Netflix verses Blockbuster online. Netflix is strictly an online based company. The most popular plan advertised for both company is to rent 3 DVDs at a time for $17.99. Blockbuster has the advantage of owing actually store locations. Part of there online rental service allows their subscribers to return their DVDs at store locations. Their customers can also return a DVD and rental a DVD from that store location.

There is no waiting several days when you need a movie and you get out of the house to buy it. If there is a problem with your online service, you can ask the employees at the Blockbuster store.

Blockbuster wins in my book!

http://www.blockbuster.com/online/

Netflix Contest

Netflix has created a contest about a better recommendation system for their subscribers. The current system is based on a five star rating. When you click on a movie, automatically movies that are similar to the selected movie show up. The grand prize for the person that can improve the company’s system to be 10% more accurate is $1million!! http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/technology/02netflix.html?ex=1317441600&en=7dc76fd8981813ee&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

 

There are two things that really bothered me about this contest. I already mentioned how the company makes you feel the need to always rent movies by continuing to add movies to your queue. (See post titled Netflix Never Wants You To Be Movie-less). Netflix wants to grow and improve this movie-less thought even more. Just in case you were not renting enough movies, now you defiantly be renting more movies.

The other thing that got to me was Netflix is paying others to do its dirty work. I feel the company should develop their OWN ideas. Or why not hire a person to do this. The contest is not completely free. It is open to the public, but unless you’re a IT savvy person, you can not develop software.

Netflix: The Big Bad Company

Back in the day, there used to be this video rental store by my house. It was called Music Plus. It sold everything from CDs to video rentals. I remember going there with my dad and picking out what movie I wanted to see. (Every time I ended up renting the same movie…Labyrinth.) Eventually Blockbuster moved in a cross the street and Music Plus became closed.

 

Since Blockbuster opened many smaller music stores have had to close their doors. But it seems that there are still some “Ma and Pa” stores around. You know they would have to have loyal customers for this to happen. BUT with Netflix, it seems almost impossible for these stores to survive. I found the image below from a small video rental store that is still trying to beat out the big company. Netflix is making the small businesses that survived the Blockbuster take over close. You just have to feel bad for the little guy.

 

This image made me laugh none the less.

Why I Don’t Like NetFlix

Some of my readers were wondering exactly why am anti-Netflix. Here are my reasons:

When I began this blog, I did not like Netflix because of its contribution to what I like to call “social isolation.” A trend has developed in which people would rather stay at home and watch DVDs then go outside and leave the house. Netflix encourages laziness and a feeling of wanting to be alone. While being lazy and alone are sometimes okay, too much of either is not healthy.

While blogging about this topic and researching this company, I began to realize not only do they contribute to “social isolation,” Netflix also is just a flat out terrible company. It has bad customer service, is misleading, and plays favorites with it paying customers. This has angered me even more. That is why I am nixing NetFlix!

Netflix and the Student Film Maker

So the last post made me start thinking about student film makers. I think its appropriate to say film majors are movie buffs and most of them subscribe to the service.

A rumor I have heard about the film industry is, movies usually try to break even in box office sales in the U.S.. Films usually do well and make their profits oversees.

Let’s say we have a film student that makes it big in the industry and releases their first motion picture into theaters in the U.S.. Who is going to come see it?

I have said before I think Netflix is contributing to the decrease in box office sales. Here is my conclusion: Film students are hurting themselves by subscribing to Netflix. What happens when no one goes to the theaters to watch their movie because everyone is at home watching a Netflix DVD?

This is just a little something to think about.

No Time for Netflix

Sorry about the delay in posts. Midterms, papers, and projects have taken up my time. But because I have been so swamped with things to do, I began thinking about Netflix.

 

What student has time to watch a DVD right now???