My reaction to the Netflix increase...and, catching up blog posts...

BLOT: (17 Jul 2011 - 09:07:53 PM)

My reaction to the Netflix increase...and, catching up blog posts...

I have a backlog of blog posts approaching double digits. Since July began, I have had a blog post show up in my brain just about every day, and only four of them have made it "onto paper". I'll work on that. Fact is, I'm about to work on that right now. The plan is to write out five, six, or even seven blog posts; save them; and then release them into the wild about once a day—mixed in with new ones—until I have exhausted the backlog. It is a plan doomed to fail.

[This also explains why I am something like 5 days late posting about the first topic...]

To start off, let's crank up Robert Rich's A Troubled Resting Place and turn to an issue that impacts my friends more than my usual blog fare: Netflix's price increase. And to this, I will give my response, in a special blockquote, to make sure it stands out:

While it sounds like I am in a minority, especially reading the quotes to the above linked article, which are now more Netflix positive but include such gems as, "Bye bye Netflix, what a dumb move!" and, "Dear greedy Netfilx [sic], How stupid are you?" and some stuff about people being shocked and, my favorite, a person who makes the case that by doing this Netflix is practically forcing people to pirate movies. I get it. Change sucks, especially for your average Internet user who has probably been a member of more than one group on Facebook whining about some change on the site. And price increases suck, always. Even six dollar ones (you could declare it a 60% increase, sure).

Let's play the balance game, though. The way the new scheme is set up, you can pay circa $8 for streaming, or circa $8 for unlimited, once at a time DVDs, or circa $16 for both. This replaces their $8 for one, about $10 for both scheme. Ok. I'm not losing the streaming option. This is why I am a member, the streaming. I am not losing the DVD option. If I did, then I would have six or so other options:

• I could pirate the movies I wanted to watch. No cost, but let's assume I want to support some/most of the artists I enjoy.
• I could hit up Redbox. $1 per DVD. The only issue is that outside of mostly recent releases, their selection can be a bit rough. And, at peak rental times the movies your average Redbox has in stock are definitely the second rung fare [I am mostly ok with this]. Since I only rent about four movies a month through them, I would save about $4 but would never be able to get movies like Julien Donkey Boy or 1970s foreign horror classics.
• Amazon's On Demand video service, which I like. And is actually better for getting currently running TV shows than Netflix. But cost per movie can range from $2 to $4 per rental, and a fair number of movies are "Buy" only, which drives the price up to $10 or $15 dollars. It does have an "Instant Video" option, that are free to Prime subscribers like me, and it has the advantage of carrying some of those "Indie Released While in Theaters" movies, but those are special cases and that option is still available to me.

• Could rent from a box store. I don't know if Huntsville has many or any, any more, but assuming they did, then the cost was what? $5 for 5 Nights for older movies and $3 for 2 Nights for new? Often with some sort of Rent 4 and Get a 5th Free (for older movies). I think a few short years has warped perspectives, because this used to be how people did it, family's dropping an easy $20 or $30 for a weekend worth of flicks.

• Rent through digital cable. Which would require me, first, to drop about $50 on digital cable and then $4+ per movie to rent. Free OnDemand movies are available, but usually the good ones are only there after you also subscribe to some premium content.
• Finally, could buy every movie I want to watch. Let's assume a mix of $10 through $20 purchases, with trade in values on the ones I didn't like about $5. Every movie could end up costing, in practice, the price of a month to Netflix with both options.

The point of all that was to justify my "Meh". If I only watched four or five first-run movies a month, Redbox would win. If I could mostly stick to Amazon's free-for-Prime specials with a couple (literally, two) of rentals: Amazon might win. Box stores are basically out around here. Digital cable is out. Buying movies is something I do with glee but occasionally I need an alternative. If Netflix exceeds $20 while other things stay equal, then the other options get better. If, say, it hit something like $30, then a Redbox/Amazon mix would be the way I would go. For $16? Screw it. I still save money and support the people I like.

So, for me, who is not particularly rich nor particularly apathetic to things like price increases, my answers is still..."Meh".

OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: July 2011