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I tried out NetFlix briefly when I was in college (when it first came out). It was fine but I ended up getting rid of it. Then, years later, TheBoyfriend™ and I decided to join a similar service so we checked out NetFlix and Blockbuster Total Access. At the time, the prices for the unlimited, 1 DVD out at a time plan were identical between the services: $9.99 a month. We ended up with going with Blockbuster because with Blockbuster we could take our mailed in movies back to the brick-and-mortar store where we could trade them in for a free in-store rental, essentially giving us double the DVDs for the same price and no waiting for the next DVD come in. Plus they offered one free movie e-coupon a month so if you somehow had already watched your in-store rental but hadn’t yet received you next mailed DVD, you could still go pick up a movie from the store for free once a month.
Then things changed. I got an email from Blockbuster noting that they were discontinuing our plan. They were discontinuing the monthly e-coupons altogether, and dropping in-store exchanges from unlimited to 2 each month. Oh yeah, and they were raising the price to $11.99/mo. Of course they were sure to note that we could get the same service we had previously (sans e-coupons) for $16.99 a month. Uh, thanks but no thanks, paying $7/mo. more for slightly less service just isn’t appealing.
Meanwhile, NetFlix has been actually improving their service, most notably by offering certain titles for instant watching right on your computer. Purchase a Roku NetFlix Player for a one-time price of $99, and make those films available for instant watching right on your TV. Now, I will say the titles that are available for instant viewing are not nearly as numerous the ones you can get on DVD (they have over 10,000 title available for instant viewing but, it’s looking like there are maybe 500 that might actually be worth watching), but if you’re ready for a movie on a night between DVDs, there’s almost certainly SOMETHING you can find to watch and I’d be much more inclined to try watching something instant, that I might never put on the DVD queue. That’s because if it’s terrible, I can just stop it 15 minutes into it and look at something else without having to mail it off and wait for a new DVD to come in. And guess what? All that for $8.99/mo.
Sorry, Blockbuster. You did it to yourself. Charging more for less when your chief competitor is charging less for more is just bad business. As of last night, you’ve lost a customer and NetFlix has gained one.
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September 7th, 2008 at 3:56 pmKipEsquire says:
Netflix was one of the few instances where I was an early adopter. I have never regretted it.
I also made a quick killing in Netflix stock a few years ago.
Hope you’ll become my Netflix Friend.