Re:The bottom is dropping out of Netflix
by svachalek on Friday April 22, 2022 @04:28PM
(#31127640)
Netflix used to be an unlimited dvd rental service. It turned into the same thing without the mail step, so of course we stopped using it. I think if we had known what streaming would look like today, a lot of people including myself would have held on tighter.
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I let go of DVDs for quite some time but have re-enabled https://dvd.netflix.com recently. Good selection, plus the much slower act of selecting, receiving and exchanging is sort of a welcome restricted diet compared to the endless buffet over the past decade.
It's OK although the back catalog has rotted a lot. I suspect that they repurchase a lot fewer disks that have been reported as defective for older films. I agree in general that most people dismiss this as an option--or even consider it weird--but many people I know who are much more into films than TV find this a good option. I do off-and-on myself.
The one thing about the DVD aspect of it is that DVD content just looks bad on my current viewing screen. Blu-ray discs are okay. However, the DVD catalog is much much larger. Whachagonnado
I admit I'm still at just HD. And getting rid of that TV with a higher-res one would be something of a task. So I mostly just stick with regular DVDs and HD streaming content.
Except back in the DVD rental days, Netflix could rent out basically everything instead of having to fight for exclusive content rights. You could subscribe to Netflix or go to Blockbuster but you could get the same selection more or less at either.