Netflix Cancelled
Today I cancelled my Netflix account. Overall, I can’t say I have any real complaints about the service and would recommend it to others. My main reason for canceling was purely a usage vs. cost consideration. Before I got Netflix, I only rented movies every so often from a local video store and the whole hassle of dealing with making an extra trip to return them and late fees.
I signed up with Netflix after seeing an offer from AAA that gave you $12 for joining and keeping it a month. My movie viewing did increase and I got caught up with several movies I had wanted to see. The post office that the movies are shipped back to is right near my work. So that meant if I timed my returns correctly, I had a 3-day turn-around. For instance, if I dropped it in the mail on Tuesday, they would receive it and mail my next movie on Wednesday, and I would receive it on Thursday. Of course, if you return it on Friday or the weekend, you are not getting it until Tuesday at the earliest. Every once in awhile, there would be a hiccup in returns. I would return two at once and one would be processed the next day and the other a day or few later. I cannot say for sure though if that is a Netflix issue or a USPS issue. I know someone who works at the post office that mentioned the Netflix envelopes are trouble for their machines so sometimes they get piled up until someone can manually work them.
Because I know you’re just dying to know my usage stats, I’ve included a link to my stats report from tallrock.net. Please note though, these are only from 9/26 until today since my netflix history only went back that far. I had an earlier report I had generated awhile back but could not find it to compare. The basic gist of the report though is I did not experience the throttling that some people claim, I averaged about 5 movies a month. That averages out to about $3.80 a movie, which makes me a nice money maker for Netflix, but not enough usage from me. I’ve had trouble finding movies I’ve wanted to watch, plus time commitments elsewhere..etc that kept me from increasing that number to make it more financially sensible.
I didn’t get any retention offers when I cancelled the account, although I’ve seen some reports of people getting them. There was a short survey, asking a few questions on what you liked or wanted improved about the service.
Btw, while I’m thinking about it, have I mentioned how much I’m starting to dislike Google Desktop? I really liked the idea of being able to search my web history; the whole having it cached…privacy issues aside. It has come in handy a time or two being able to go back and find some bit of information or see what a page said previously. Now though, it seems like everytime I try to search for something, the cached item is not there. The little thumbnail may have the picture of what I am looking for, but as soon as I click on the item, all I get is a blank screen. Sometimes I am not even getting the thumbnail image, it displays a broken image symbol instead. If I can find a similar program that does a decent job at keeping a cache, I will give some serious thought to switching.