If I know exactly what I want to watch (and don't get lucky enough to find it on Amazon/Netflix/Hulu) I pay for PPV. I don't expect magic for <$10/mo, especially when the going rate for a one-off viewing is nearly half that.

Yeah. My main beef with Netflix is that I'd like to just sort content based on the 5-star rating. I'll rarely want to watch something that is less than a 2.0. And I'll consider just about anything that is 4.5 and above.

I'm with you that I'd like to sort/filter by rating, though I also recognize that tends to cause a snowball effect where you're either popular early or never watched at all.

Or is that not what you are looking for?

I do have a Windows laptop, but I rarely consume content on that these days. Mostly I am watching from my tablet, sometimes from my phone, and just very occasionally from my Blueray player (because the UI is terrible, slow, and buggy).

Like in SQL all you would need to do is change this:

  SELECT * FROM movies

  SELECT * FROM movies ORDER BY rating ASC

If only this were an option. I'd gladly pay a few bucks to stream a movie. But outside of the US and Canada I don't think PPV even exists at all.

Amazon prime isnt available in my country. I dont know of any other online PPV sites (anyone?)

If I can't stream it from one of these netflix-type sites (and as everyone else has pointed out, the selection is crap) my only options are drive to a DVD rental shop or visit thepiratebay.

And they wonder why piracy is rampant.

That's ludicrously expensive if you just want to watch it once.

Do you mean that you get that content on Netflix? Or where do you watch?

At this point I'm fairly certain that I won't be able to find any movie from the list of things I'm interested in on Netflix. On Amazon maybe a few, for separate payment, which would be fine but half of their films don't offer the original audio track and instead force my local language. I absolutely don't want to see a dubbed version though. So, all things considered I think it's a mess if you have specific things to watch in mind.

I agree that if you have something specific in mind and don't already know it's on Netflix, you more likely than not won't find it. But I knew that going in, and never expected that to be the case in the first place.

They've had a handful of times where bigger-name movies burst in based on some deal or the other (Starz being the original big one, but there've been others since) but by and large Netflix has always been indie + back catalog as far as I've experienced it in the US.

I used to use Netflix to ship me DVDs, then I protested the Qwikster move by switching to streaming-only, which was great for movies (for awhile) but has been shifting to TV content.

To be honest, I don't use Netflix much, but the value I get is still worth the $8/mo. Some months I don't use it at all, other months I binge-watch The Man in the High Castle.

When I want to watch a movie, I first hit Netflix (hey, free streaming!) to search for it... then I check Amazon Prime on my Fire Stick, because some titles are free. If it's available for rental, I'll pay the $4. If available for purchase only (or unavailable), then I'll hop over to the iTunes store on the AppleTV and hope it's available for rental.

Or I just go to canistream.it, which was about my only original invention ever, until I found out someone had already done it.

I do use that site quite a bit. It's very useful.

My fingers are crossed that this gamble is fruitful in bringing the cost to license content back down again to levels that are sustainable for Netflix. I also wonder if we'll ever see Netflix license Netflix original content to another network.

This is all conjecture purely as an enthusiast of Netflix.

Hopefully.