Netflix is Too Good to be True

I predicted it would end and it seems that Netflix is on its way out. I hope that I'm wrong about this but Netflix may have jumped the shark. The recent price hike combined with splitting the DVD and Streaming service is the first major sign of the possible death of Netflix.

Since my first red envelope arrived with a Netflix DVD I have thought that it was too good to be true. It was what I always wanted in media content. No annoying advertisements and I pick what I want to see when I want to see it. When they added streaming it was even better and far too good to last.

The problem is not Netflix. The problem is Hollywood. They want us to watch their morally bankrupt content by either paying for the movie tickets and/or the DVD's or by watching the show with 1/3 of the time taken up by advertisements.

Along comes Netflix. Now, for about the cost of one movie ticket I can watch exactly what I want commercial free when I want it. It takes up no storage space on my shelves or on my computer hard drive and I can watch as much or little as I want.

This is simply too good to be true and the movie companies and cable companies will not stand for it. The streaming takes up a great deal of cable bandwidth and people are watching Netflix instead of their advertisements.

Hollywood and Big Cable Provider X want to charge us for the bandwidth and to price Netflix out of business. We will probably watch the media whether Netflix exists or not but Hollywood controls the content. Why should they want to give any control over to Netflix?

I can do $11 a month but $16 seems too much for having to deal with two websites. First you raise the price by 60% or so and then you tell me that I can't search on the same website for a DVD and the streaming. I don't really care if it is streamed or on DVD. I just want to see the movie or TV show.

Because fuel and food and just about everything else but my wages are going up in price I have seriously been considering pulling the plug on my Netflix subscription before this price hike for less service announcement. I expect that many others are in the same boat.

I could be wrong about this jumping the shark thing and I hope that I am. Netflix may have it right that streaming is the future. The move will either end up in the business school textbooks as what not to do or it will turn out to be the right move. As Hastings said, only time will tell.

Netflix still has by far the best selection and there are many customers out there who, like me, either watch Netflix or nothing at all. If I have to choose between commercial television and nothing, I'll take nothing. So it is commercial free DVD's or streaming or nothing. I'm also far more interested in watching natives climb trees, a panther hunt down its next meal, or how the Allies clobbered the Nazis than watch the latest he man action hero or the barely dressed bimbo that Hollywood likes to send my way. The documentaries are not the high grossing and high demand type shows that Hollywood will charge a premium price for so Netflix may be just fine in the long run.

My finger is hovering over the "cancel my subscription" button on Netflix and Qwikster but I want to see what Qwikster and the streaming only Netflix has to offer first. If they will throw in video games for not much more then it might be a great deal.