Netflix Streaming Video

January 17, 2007 – 12:00 am

When Michael Arrington penned the phrase “So I cancelled Netflix and signed up with Blockbuster” [link] I immediately emailed my wife to tell her to pack her bags, say goodbye to the family and put the dogs up for adoption on Craigslist because we were about to cancel our Netflix account and drive straight back into the land of Blockbuster.

I had been waiting for a sign to get off the Netflix gravy train after I had initially heard about their “slow delivery.” What’s more is that ever since I moved into the illustrious Bernal Heights neighborhood, I was in walking distance of a Blockbuster. But my wife protested the switch, citing some preprocessed bit on “corporate America” and as much as I had my finger on the trigger to switch products; I acceded to my wife’s demand.

Well it seems that every dog (in this case, the proverbial “dog” being my wife) has it’s day; after reading Michael Arrington’s newest Netflix post “Netflix, I Was Just Kidding About Breaking Up With You” I knew I was in for 1 email, 1 text message, 1 voice mail and 1 long night of “told you we shouldn’t switch” from my wife. Sure enough, not moments after reading the final words of Michael’s post and heading off to CrunchGear and Gizmodo for some further reading, did I receive a taunting emailing from my wife and a link to CNN’s cover of the Netflix story.

Truth be told I am happy for Netflix; while my wife has been a die hard fan from the beginning, I have always been happy with their service and the move to stream movies will keep me around for a bit longer. And if I was going to switch service, I really have to start questioning “Do I really want to have to review ALL those movies again?” (I’ve got 984 and counting!)

It I did have my wish list then I would definitely but mobile service (for streaming movies) and better community tools on my list. I also might sprinkle in a partnership with all the mom-and-pop video stores that are going out of business because of Blockbuster – maybe try to beat Blockbuster at its own game while doing the going service of helping keep small businesses alive?

If you need anymore reading (besides the links that I have already included) there is a demo video and a few pages on Netflix.