Saturday, April 29, 2006

Netflix you off.

I like Netflix (or the concept at least) but the throttling is starting to drive me crazy. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check this out.

When you first sign up, they send you movies faster than you can imagine. After your free trial, or your first month or so, they start to slow down the turnaround time. Instead of having a 1 day turnaround, we now get almost a 1 week turnaround. Oi. There is also some bizarre 'glitch' (the best word I can think to descibe it) that they haven't fixed for months now. It deals with Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Volume 4. I put the 2 disk series in my queue months ago. I received the first disk, watched it, and returned it. Then I waited for the second disk. Initially it said that there was a "very long wait" for the disk, which is unusual for anything but the first disk in a series. Then after about a month of seeing the availability set at "very long wait" it switched to "unknown" and has been there ever since. It seems like they lost the one copy they had of the second disk and refused to purchase another set. In the words of GOB, Comeon!

There are alternatives to Netflix. Two that caught my attention are Peerflix and Intelliflix. I also have to mention that I independently came up with the idea of a Peerflix-style website. Then I looked online and saw that it already existed. Damn. I was going to generate revenue for my "Peerflix" through advertising rather than charging a $0.99 fee though. I also independently came up with the idea of a barcode scanning microwave that will scan your box of food and set the correct time and power for you. Unfortunately, that already exists too. Damn.

Anyway, the biggest reason I don't switch to another Netflix-type service is because I have just over 900 movie ratings built up on Netflix. That took a long time to do and I'd hate to lose that. I also like that you can have Netflix Friends, where friends can see each other's ratings and queue.

Netflix is still cheaper per movie than going to a video store. The selection is better too, though not as good as Intelliflix and nowhere near as good as Peerflix. Also, there is a way to get around Netflix's delays. If you are tired of waiting for a movie, you can claim that it's missing in the mail and they will immediately send you another one or the next movie in your queue. The Netflix website says that if you do that often enough though, your account will be put under review... whatever that means.

On a lighter note, I happened to come across this quote:

"I saw a lady on TV, she was born without arms. She was born with her hands attached to her shoulders. And that’s sad. But then they said, ‘Lola does not know the meaning of the word can’t.’ And that to me is actually kinda worse in a way. Not only does she not have arms, but she doesn’t understand simple contractions." - Mitch Hedberg

UPDATE:

On May 5, I checked my Netflix queue again and the release date of disk 2 of Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Volume 4 has finally been changed from 'unknown' to May 16. It's about bloody time.

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