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Sunday, Jul 12, 2009
Netflix delivered any movie I asked for directly to my door. And yet, somehow, it just wasn't enough.
Jun 9, 2004 | Everyone who gets back together with an ex says the same things. This time it'll work, we say. I won't be such a fool this time, won't feel pressured, won't let our problems pile up as the costs of our relationship accrue by the month. This time it'll all be different.
And that's what I thought this past December when, for the third time, I reinstated my membership to Netflix.com.
Netflix, of course, is the phenomenally successful online DVD-rental company that has rewritten the rules of movie rentals -- and written video stores halfway out of existence. The company's advertising hook is that customers never pay late-return charges. Customers pay a flat fee ($19.95, rising to $21.99 June 15) and are mailed DVDs from Netflix's library. Customers are allowed to keep three DVDs checked out at any given time; when you're done with a DVD, you simply mail it back, postage paid, to Netflix. When the company receives it, it'll mail you the next DVD off your rental queue. Instead of traipsing to your local video store, you can watch a steady stream of films, never running out, because even as you finish watching "The Matrix Reloaded," "The Matrix Revolutions" is arriving in your mailbox.
The Netflix model is working. The company's first-quarter revenues are up 80 percent in the last year, and Netflix boasts nearly 2 million subscribers. In the vocabularies of many culture snobs, "to Netflick" has become synonymous with "to rent," as in, "Yeah, I Netflicked the 'Freaks and Geeks' box set this week." I know people who have gone buck-wild on their Netflix queues, stockpiling the maximum of 500 DVD titles for future viewing and dreamily pasting their queues to Internet message boards.
"If you stacked every DVD we ship in a single pile," Netflix's starry-eyed P.R. material claims, "the stack would grow by 1,600 feet each day and be taller than Mt. Everest within a month." The company believes itself to be a Force For Good: "If Netflix members, instead of receiving movies by mail, drove two miles each way to a rental store, they would consume 250,000 gallons of gasoline per day and release 750,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually." Apparently, nine out of 10 Netflix members are satisfied enough to recommend the service to friends.
I guess I'm that one other guy. I hate Netflix.
We go back a long way, Netflix and I. When I rejoined Netflix for the third time, I brought with me a history of failed Netflix relationships. At the time of our first dalliance, in 2000, Netflix was a tender young thing -- less than a year old, and part of the brave new world of online convenience. Just as my new best friend Kozmo.com could arrange for a smiling dreadlocked messenger to deliver a pint of Chubby Hubby in minutes, so could Netflix keep my new DVD player well-stocked. Never again would I pay late fees! Never again would I, weeping, search the apartment for something worth watching! As long as my queue was full and my heart was stout, I would never run short of cinema.
That first relationship started hot but fizzled fast, a victim of Netflix's caprice. The best DVDs were unavailable. Customer service was spotty. It all came to a head the dark night of "The Limey." As I neared the climax of Steven Soderbergh's fractured thriller -- What happened to Jenny?! -- the DVD began skipping, sending sound and picture skittering across the screen. At first I thought Soderbergh's jumpy editing had just gone feverish, but I soon realized Netflix had sent me a faulty disc. Left with no recourse at 1 a.m., I angrily broke off our courtship, canceling my Netflix service. To its credit, the company let me go gracefully, refunding a month's charges and apologizing for the snafu.
