Jul 14, 2011
Crackflix
By now you’ve probably heard the news regarding Netflix and their hike of movie rental fees, which they accomplished by dividing their services into two distinct subscription categories:
This is less than favorable news for Bossy, who tends to watch a lot of movies, especially when depressed. And about that, Bossy isn’t going into any details, except to say My how she has enjoyed a movie title or two during the past week.
Bossy doesn’t know what she’s going to do about this 60% increase for the overall Netflix subscription — and when Bossy says she doesn’t know what she’s going to do, she knows exactly what she’s going to do.
Alternatively, Time.com has put together a list of faux Netflix options for those not willing to pay the new rate, including:
- Redbox. It’s exactly like Netflix, only the movies are available at kiosks. This means the movies aren’t delivered directly to your door. Or your laptop. So it’s nothing like Netflix.
- Hulu Plus. It’s exactly like Netflix, only it’s a streaming service whose catalogue features mostly television shows and few movies. So it’s nothing like Netflix.
- Amazon Prime Instant Video. It’s exactly like Netflix, only it’s a yearly subscription service allowing customers to access only a handful of titles and none of them box office hits. So it’s nothing like Netflix.
Or Bossy has a fourth suggestion that’s exactly like Netflix: Live your life instead of watching one.
What says Bossy’s council regarding the movie rental racket?
I don’t KNOW?!?! And it’s making me mad. A lot of the stuff I want to watch isn’t available on Netflix streaming so what exactly am I supposed to do? Is it available streaming elsewhere? Do I just have to wait? WHAT?
I love my movies and this peeves me.
I too will probably drop the mail delivery and keep the streaming. I will have to give Redbox a try for my new(er) release fix.
…I really don’t watch movies so I’m not affected. I know, I know, Bossy is all like, “what?!! you don’t watch movies?!!”… Yeah. *shrug* I’m kinda boring like that. *sigh*giggle* ;o)
…This Bossy Council member feels bad for Bossy and the fellow Bossy Council members who are more cutting edge, hip, delightful to talk to at parties regarding the latest movies and can quote movie lines at the drop of a hat. Bad Netflix. Bad.
\
…Blessings
)
…And streaming. Does that involve a canoe? Just wonderin’… ;o)
Blockbuster has an option that allows you to both get movies delivered to your home, and then you can exchange them at the store for another free one. AND unlimited streaming. For $6 less (assuming blu-ray). I’d jump on it in a heartbeat. Except. My device won’t stream Blockbuster, and there’s no plan to update it to do so. If Netflix had given some sort of bundling option, even a couple dollars off, I’d stay and do both. But charging me full price to do both just honks me off.
Well, like the Internet racket and gas prices racket the cable racket and the tax racket and the iTunes racket and the other rackets I can’t seem to live w/out, I will probably just grumble and get used to this racket….except I don’t have cable. My little way of stickin’ it to the man.
I’m with Kizz…I don’t know! I can’t (okay, I could, but I don’t WANT to!!) give up streaming, but I also like to watch newer releases.
I’m also outraged about this. Well, not outraged but sad. Well, not sad but, well, outraged.
Netflix have stated that they want to get rid of the DVD service and move to all streaming, so I guess this is a test to see how many people will give up the DVDs.
I’m with you, I’m going to dump the DVD service and rent new releases from the video store in my neighborhood.
It’s a dick move basically (if I may use such language here). We moved back to streaming only because our DVD queue was so slight. It wouldn’t be much of a big deal if they would get off their butts like Apple and make deals with the studios for streaming. That library is as sparse as our DVD queue.
–>Hate the Hike! I like the DVD’s in the mail and my child likes the movies on demand. In the middle is my husband who likes both and how else could we get through a summer without picking up a new series like Dexter or Prison Break to watch without commericials? Sons of Anarchy, anyone?
(Also, Hulu even with their premium service still has commericials. My DVR just snickered.)
Because of a fund shortage I gave up all cable TV back in January. And took my blood pressure daily, to see when it was time to call 911.
What I discovered was that I wasted a lot of time watching TV. I missed it for about a month.
The price is increasing, but it’s still a great deal if you think about the number of movies you watch and how much you’re paying, right?
I actually stopped the streaming (which I never use. my internet is tooooo slooooooooow for good streaming) and kept my sad little one DVD at a time option.
We are not amused by the price hike. Will keep both for now. Many older movies are on dvd only too. Hate the thought of having to choose just streaming. Video rental places have folded here, thanks to Netflix and the like.
New smart tv with blu ray player, not even a month old. Loving the streaming, but watched Boyz in the Hood on dvd this week (himself had never seen this American classic). Introduced him to Damages via streaming last night.
Yes, for me it is Crackflix!
Wow, Bossy. Did you see Mary and Max and Phyllis and Harold and Chris and Don A Love Story, too? I didn’t think Bossy watched those sort of films, and I didn’t think Netflix streamed them.
I have to have my two-DVD set (one for current non-streaming releases, and one “for exercise only” use — when I exercise). And I have to have streaming so my wife and I can sit near each other watching totally different things on separate screens and not talk to each other.
Seriously, though, in the grand scheme of things, Netflix was way undercharging for what they were delivering (all the movies I can watch??? Really????), and the studios are trying to squeeze them on licensing because they were getting too successful (no, you can’t have streaming Showtime stuff anymore, Netflix, Hahahahahahah!).
It’s still a fair price, all things considered, and still the best content. (And their user interface has given me lots of cool suggestions, along with the mountains of stupid suggestions — still finding interesting things to watch). So for now, I think we stay with it.
But we’re open to other suitors. Somebody give me a better streaming library at a better price.
I think they could have avoided a good half of the caterwauling had they offered *some* sort of bundling discount for ordering both services…..
I’ll give Netflix points for trying to gouge their way to solvency in our on-demand cable world. But yeh, I hear ya. Also gotta say that, aside from The Piano, I am unfamiliar with those films, and I’m a movie watcher. My film education, I fear, is lacking. I looked up a few on IMDB. Wow, heavy stuff.
Back in 1991 when I was separated from my first (now ex) wife, I lived in an efficiency apt, sans TV. By choice. While I don’t consider it a “happy” time, it was one of my most prolific as a writer. Got 17 poems published in 14 journals that year. And I’m talkin’ typewriter writing… ankle deep in paper tumbleweeds just to get out one decent poem.
Rock on, Bossy. You’re a sail on the horizon.
#11 Suzy
I gave up cable for ten years for the same reason. In that tenth year became unmarried from person who really didn’t much care about movies (or me anymore as it turns out).
Now, go out to see new movies a few times a month and watch many more at home with my guy. And he is the one who can afford the new equipment. But I have the Crackflix account and activated it on the blu ray machine. Can watch You Tube too – so far just the IBM mini movie and a whale being rescued from a net.
TV is hazardous to my health. Sanity not an issue.
I don’t think watching High Art is a good idea when you are blue.
When people realize that you have to leave your house in a timely fashion to return a DVD to Redbox they will begging Netflix to take them back.
I’ll be giving up the discs and just paying for the streaming…it’s going to be way cheaper for me to get movies at the Redbox or Blockbuster Box which is walking distance from my house….therefore encouraging me to WALK!
Libraries have a ton of DVD’s + CD’s to borrow for free! Plus, the borrowing time period is longer than Redbox or Blockbuster Express.
Too bad Blockbuster stores all went out of business before this happened. That was a coincidence, right?
My library does not have good movie stock. Funds are primarily used for community outreach, other things. Understand but felt deprived on first visit.
Old one did, the one sharing neighborhood with college faculty who taught Art of Film and stuff.
Eventually will go all streaming I’m sure.
have to say I’ve saved on not using netflix or other movie watching at home, other than to wait for it on cable, or stream what’s free. If a new movie comes out that I want to see (like the 2 new Jason Bateman flix out), I use the discount movie tix I get or win at work, then wait the 2 weeks until they’re good. I make up for my savings via cable, books, and itunes. I’m old fashioned, I guess. I do need to learn more about the streamer things.
We’re doing the opposite of you. We’re keeping the DVD in the mail option– and ditching the streaming feature (which we never even tried). The result is that for us our Netflix subscription is going down in price– which is a cool thing.
But for the rest of you caught in this Netflix Flack, my sincere condolences.
I always knew it was too good to last. I wasn’t sure how Netflix was making any money. Anyway, I think we’re gonna go your route, and stick with streaming, and do redbox or on demand for the more recent movies…
Also: why depressed? Would you like a strawberry shortcake? Can we help?
Don’t have cable. Don’t do Netflix or Blockbuster or anything else. Do have broadband internet but don’t stream much of anything except YouTube videos others link to. Pretty much have a life wherein I go out to a movie in an actual theater maybe a couple of times a month, usually with a friend. And if it’s a slow night and I’m stuck at home when nothing’s on free broadcast TV, there’s a Redbox at the 7-11 where I get gasoline and the Walgreens where I get meds and the grocery store where I get pretty much everything else, all within 3 blocks of my apartment.
I’ll be doing the same as you, Bossy. Not at all happy ’bout it. Netflix will be getting less of my $$ and Redbox will be getting it instead.
Live your life instead of watching one? You are severely out of touch with the post-meta-postmodern world. There is no more life to live. It has all been used up; the teat of life has been sucked dry. So now we get to read books that romanticize what we lost, play video games that bath in the blood that no longer pumps through our hearts and watch films that have made off with the dreams that we grew up with.
dropping netflix and going back to my library which rents movies for a dollar…
grumbling madly and waffling out here in the wilds of eastern WA, about the whole Netflix thingy…we don’t have cable as an option–although we did recently upgrade to WIFI beamed in from the local mountaintop so we can at last stream movies–but the netflix streaming library is limited. We have liked streaming TV shows we’d never otherwise have found (Dexter, etc.) but I do like the DVDs – better quality than the streaming. I’ll probably stay on until the rate hike (delayed a couple of months for current subscribers), then quit and re-enlist to get more FB points as a tiny bonus. But that would mean losing my 100+ movie queue. Crud…mumbling grumbles…
If the new bundle price was discounted instead of 100% of both options, there would be no hesitation to stay on as-is, with less grumbling.
I am so glad I did not succumb to my husband’s insistence that we jump on board the Netflix ship. Will continue paddling about with the stream
What #31 said. Except for the husband part.
I’ve always thought that Netflix was like a dreamy too cheap miracle and the people who ran it were buddhist monks. I pay for my mom’s 2 at a time delivery and she must watch at least 40 movies a month so yeah, I’ll pay 10 bucks or even twenty bucks for that.
I think everyone in my family BUT me uses our Netflix subscription, but I get stuck paying for it. What a bunch of shit.
Wow.
I had no idea CrackFlix was that addictive.
Miss Carol and me have the one-at-a-time plan and we’ll cheerfully sit on a movie for weeks and weeks promising ourselves we’ll watch it.
It’s embarrassing, right?
For some reason, I can’t stream anything on my laptop, so I downgraded myself to the 4.99 limited plan of one movie at a time (no more than 2 DVD’s per month). This will work for me because I mainly use Netflix to watch old TV shows (Mad Men, Rome, True Blood, etc…) and I tend to sit on a movie(hi, rory!). We still use our local rental store (the owner is so nice!) so, I say screw Netflix and their 60% hike/racket!!
I cancelled all Netflix services this week. I cannot find anything I want to watch streaming. Have much better luck with Charter on Demand.
OK, so with three teenagers in the house, the Netflix stays.
Movie? What’s a movie? I’m with tj #3. Who has two hours to watch a movie? If I’m lucky, I can scare up a 1/2 hour.
What ever happened to the eight hour work day?
I cancelled the DVD in the mail portion. I find we got movies and they sat here for months at at time anyway. My kids use the streaming option though so I kept that for them. We pay enough for cable so I figure we’ll just wait for movies to be shown on HBO or Showtime now. Or get it from the library or Blockbuster or Redbox if I really want to see it. Need to start cutting costs somewhere. Everything keeps going up except our salaries!
Well, Olivia isn’t a movie watcher, unlike her DH who sees every movie that comes out and Olivia does mean every! However, he likes the big screen/moviehouse/jumbo popcorn experience so we don’t do the movie rental/streaming thing.
But as for this streaming thing – Olivia sometimes tries to stream TV shows that she missed and she would like to question the word “streaming” since her broadband service is so pathetic that it’s more like going through a series of locks – some video comes down the tube (or over the ether or whatever) and then halts while the “lock” fills up with water again. It’s more like stream, stumble, stop, stream, stumble, stop . . Olivia doesn’t think that would work for movies should she ever decide to stream one. She thinks she would be in a Nursing Home by the time the movie was over.
Netflix WANTs you to drop the mail option. That was the expensive portion of their service (for them). You’ve played into their plan by keeping the streaming.
Me – I’ll keep my Blockbuster by mail w/in store returns, although I never watch the movies I order or rent. I prefer to drown my depression in the internets…
Buck out of the depression, Bossy. You are too fabulous-us.
I lived for the first 8 years of my adult life without tv. Then I decided I had no cultural context shared with my fellow Americans, so I bought a TV.
But 24 years later, I think I should can the TV. I use antenna, so that limits how much I watch, but still…
So my husband decided we needed to ditch Netflix and he bought that Apple TV doohickey which enables us to watch iTunes movies on the television and spend a whole lot more money we should absofrickinglutely not be spending.
My son streams kiddie stuff A LOT, my hubby watches movies on HBO, and I get stuff on DVD from Netflix. Netflix rarely has anything I want to stream. I did stream & watch the first season of Glee this May when I was sick. So we will stick with the Netflix dvd & stream, & cable.
I say big deal. TV and cable are dinosaurs and who watches them anymore anyway? So what if Crackflix increases–it’s still way cheaper than cable. We don’t do the converter box or cable so it’s still a bargain and totally worth while!