Since Netflix is the news today for having added "Way Fewer US Subscribers Than Anyone Expected," I thought I would talk about the reason I just recently cancelled the service. On July 2nd, I got the following email from Netflix:
I haven't used Netflix much in the last year. In fact, the last time I got my money's worth was two years ago when I watched several seasons of The Walking Dead. Since then, I have kept the subscription around because I thought I might have the feeling hit and spend a few weekends watching a series I missed when it aired the first time. I was only paying $7.99 month, so I didn't even think about the service.
When I got the email above, I started thinking about my membership again. The fact is that I prefer to spend $10 elsewhere. I have a Youtube Red trial going on right now and I love the fact that I don't have to deal with commercials that come on before videos. I watch Youtube several times a week (if not more), so if I was going to spend $10 a month on entertainment, I would prefer that it go to something I actually use. Heck, Google even throws in their music service as part of the deal.
For a dollar or two more, I could rent two first run movies from iTunes or Vudu. I would much rather have the pick of the litter than a bunch of old movies. I don't spend hours of time watching movies each week, so being able to rent a couple first run movies a month is just more of an event and a better use of my money.
The other issue is that I already pay for Amazon Prime. I mainly have the service for the free shipping, but it has a service similar to Netflix that they essentially throw in for free. Why pay Netflix when I can get most of the same stuff with Prime? The other issue is that Prime offers a lot more for the money. Even if I wasn't an Amazon shopping fanatic, they have a music service, a photo storage service, and the boys from Top Gear will soon be on their video service. I also have an Echo that makes accessing their music and shopping even easier. In other words, for our use case, Netflix is too costly for what they offer. If they threw in some first run movies on occasion, I would probably keep it around, but they don't. My other beef is that they jack their price up even more if you want to watch their minuscule library of UHD movies.
All in all, it felt a bit weird to delete Netflix from my many media players, my iPad, and my iPhone. However, I have no doubt that I won't miss the service at all. They just weren't providing much bang for the buck given our lifestyle. Actually, I wasn't even getting the $7.99 use out of them, so cancelling after this price increase was a no-brainer.
When I got the email above, I started thinking about my membership again. The fact is that I prefer to spend $10 elsewhere. I have a Youtube Red trial going on right now and I love the fact that I don't have to deal with commercials that come on before videos. I watch Youtube several times a week (if not more), so if I was going to spend $10 a month on entertainment, I would prefer that it go to something I actually use. Heck, Google even throws in their music service as part of the deal.
For a dollar or two more, I could rent two first run movies from iTunes or Vudu. I would much rather have the pick of the litter than a bunch of old movies. I don't spend hours of time watching movies each week, so being able to rent a couple first run movies a month is just more of an event and a better use of my money.
The other issue is that I already pay for Amazon Prime. I mainly have the service for the free shipping, but it has a service similar to Netflix that they essentially throw in for free. Why pay Netflix when I can get most of the same stuff with Prime? The other issue is that Prime offers a lot more for the money. Even if I wasn't an Amazon shopping fanatic, they have a music service, a photo storage service, and the boys from Top Gear will soon be on their video service. I also have an Echo that makes accessing their music and shopping even easier. In other words, for our use case, Netflix is too costly for what they offer. If they threw in some first run movies on occasion, I would probably keep it around, but they don't. My other beef is that they jack their price up even more if you want to watch their minuscule library of UHD movies.
All in all, it felt a bit weird to delete Netflix from my many media players, my iPad, and my iPhone. However, I have no doubt that I won't miss the service at all. They just weren't providing much bang for the buck given our lifestyle. Actually, I wasn't even getting the $7.99 use out of them, so cancelling after this price increase was a no-brainer.
RSS Feed