The Letdown that is Netflix
Netflix, the company that made us believe that we could finally be free from the cable company. The company that made us believe that there was more to be had than just what was at Blockbuster. Also, they happen to be the company that was, and is, the biggest letdown of the modern age.
Seven months ago, in the wake of Netflix’s disastrous decision to nearly double the prices of its basic services, and in the same breath decide to split its streaming service and DVD delivery service into two separate web sites, I cancelled my service with Netflix. Now, to be fair, I also deployed, and Netflix is unusable outside of the United States. It just made sense to cancel and save the money.
I liked Netflix. I thought it was great. I loved watching movies from my computer and on my Xbox while I wrote on my computer or laptop. It was amazing.
The one thing that a seven-month deployment do well, though, is it provides perspective.
The plan was to simply reinstate my cable service for the internet access, and then use Netflix and Hulu as my source of entertainment. Hulu would handle the TV shows and Netflix would handle the movies.
When I signed in, I had all sorts of expectations. To get caught up on Spartacus, watch the movies from 2011 that I missed. It was then that I realized that I had just signed up for one of the worst services on the planet.
First, I learned the hard way that Netflix had a falling out with Starz and would no longer carry any of their programming. Goodbye Spartacus.
Not a problem. There were still movies, right? Insert audible sigh here.
I used Rolling Stone’s list of the 10 Best Movies of 2011 to try an experiment. I looked up each movie on Netflix just to see if any of them were there. Not one movie was on the web site. Maybe 2010 was better. So Rolling Stone offered up their list again. A bit better. Three movies out of the list.
In essence, Netflix is at a point where it needs to decide. Is it actually going to be in the streaming business or is it going to be an “also ran?” Based on its current fare, Netflix should move to something else because it just is not very good at the streaming business. In fact, it is so not very good that I think I am done with Netflix as well.
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