Dear Netflix,
Writing this would be hard except I doubt you’ll even notice I’m gone. Still, this is mainly for closure.
We had some good times. Remember re-watching the Mad Men to get caught up for this latest season? Remember guilty pleasures like trashy cop dramas, Japanese shock horror movies and teen vampire shows? And then there’s the mind-blowing documentaries you and I sat through, learning, laughing and tearing up. I’ll never forget the first time I noticed that you had every single Joss Wheden show, episode and web video.
Then things changed. I started to realize that I’d watched all your interesting content and you weren’t getting anything new. Your cryptic and misleading New Releases section led me to seek out the truth on “What’s new on Netflix Canada” and that’s when I realized we had to break up. For the last 6 months there’s been almost nothing I wanted to watch on that list and each month the selection gets crappier and crappier. I said to myself. It’s only $8/month but here’s the crux of the problem: it’s been sucky for a LONG time and you only ever give me enough content to barely persuade me not to cancel. Convenience is not a reason to stay in a relationship.
There are also more reasons:
- I don’t watch ultimate fighting. I will never EVER watch ultimate fighting or understand your obsession with it.
- TED talks are free. I can get them anywhere and on any device. I’m pretty sure my microwave offered to show me a TED talk last week.
- If I want to watch Being Erica (and I do! Judge me all you want) I can do it for free on CBC.ca. That goes for almost all the Canadian content you have.
- When I think “Wow. Netflix got that great movie” it’s about movies I’ve already seen…. twice…… eight years ago.
- Your terrible selection is (wrongly) making me think cinema is dying and nobody is making good content anymore.
This last one is a big problem. You and iTunes have killed all the major video rental places. I don’t weep for Blockbuster or Rogers Video but I dearly miss my independents. The problem is that while you’ve killed off the big players you also killed all the little guys. These tiny hole-in-the-wall shops staffed by underpaid, obsessive cinemaphilic curators used to offer selections of interesting movies that you and iTunes combined could never even touch.
In Vancouver there used to be Videomatica (we mourn its loss deeply) but there are still a few islands of cinematic culture like Black Dog Video. I’m going to go this week and get a membership there and pray that myself and a few others can keep it open and operating.
That’s it. Don’t try to tempt me with a new season of Arrested Development.
I think we need to see other people,
Matt
UPDATED (June 16, 2012): VIDEOMATICA Isn’t actually dead. They got in touch with me. Their rental section IS gone (donated to UBC) but their sales section is located above Zulu records on 4th just a block from where they used to be on the opposite side of the street. Go check ‘em out!
This is fantastic! And I’m so pleased to see a shout-out to Black Dog Video, my local independent video rental store.
Just wanted to let you know that the rumors of the demise of Videomatica are greatly exaggerated. Yes, the rentals part of the store closed, but the sales section lives on (with many used titles the same cost as our rentals used to be) with the same great selection only one block up the hill, sharing the same location as ZULU records.
If you could update your post to reflect that, we’d be really appreciative. It’s been an uphill battle fighting the misinfo that we’re gone, which was widely reported when the old location closed.
Gah! I hate being wrong. Thanks for letting me know. I’ll update that immediately!
Hooray for Videomatica’s donation to the UBC library! Let’s all start a netflix holiday campaign to donate one month of your netflix subscription fee to your local public library, and clamour for them to hire an ex-video store movie geek!
Great idea Mike! I wonder if I could somehow get the momentum to make this a thing!
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We cancelled out netflix subscription for the same reasons.
I completely agree! We are also big fans and regular customers of the Black Dog Video store on Cambie. Have been for years and hope to be for many more to come.
Friends keep trying to convince us to get Netflix because “it’s only $8 a month, how could you not?” But what’s more valuable to me than $8 is the limited amount of time I allow myself to sit in front of a TV. I want to spend those valuable hours watching great content and supporting a local, independent business that cares just as much as I do about that great content.
I tell this to everyone I know and, yes, they are getting a little tired of my preaching. They also keep telling me I’m trying to stop the inevitable, but I don’t care. I believe in voting with my money and time, and committing to keeping our local, independent video store in business. So run out a get yourselves a Black Dog 10-movie card for only $35. It’s a fabulous deal and you may find it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside too.
hear hear! Nothing “Innevitable” is just lazy-speak for “I don’t care enough to do something about it”.
I feel the same way .As a movie lover, it is frustrating to watch Netflix peddle years old movies and series as New releases. I wonder if we Canadians aren’t getting the raw deal.I suspect Netflix in the U.S. has better viewing choices
It is MUCH better in the US but from what I’ve heard it’s just more of the top 40 stuff. Netflix in the US still has the same problems of killing local businesses without replacing their selections.
I agree with everything….except the fact that you are worried about the video stores owners. Its like feeling bad for someone who still has shares in RIM. Everyone else jumped ship but you’re just starting to realize all the money you lost.
Hey Jeff, your analogy is interesting but I’m not sure it works. After all, I can access everything on an iPhone that I could with a blackberry. I just want to make sure that when we jump to the new technology we get a better experience than the one we’re leaving behind. I couldn’t care less about the media.
It would be like digitizing what you consider to be the top 20% of books in a library and then lighting a match. The problems I see here are threefold: A) Who gets to decide what’s important enough to make the cut B) Why would you burn so much documented human experience after so much effort went into curating it and C) Oh my god! FIRE!
The real problem I see is that right now without video stores there are thousands upon thousands of films, some really excellent, that nobody will ever see and that makes me sad. Technology like youtube is great for getting content out there but we’re just not seeing that same trend in licensed media.
This is hilarious. I actually cancelled my Netflix years ago for almost the exact same reasons. I genuinely liked browsing local video stores, but Netflix practically destroyed them. So messed up. Plus, so much of their on-demand content is just junk. Definitely not a fan of “Ultimate Fighting” and other such nonsensical garbage. Sweet post.