The only reason I’ve kept my Netflix subscription for as long as I have was because the instant streaming was convenient even though I have had DVDs out for as long as a year, continually forgetting to send them back. The pricing structure change is annoying to say the least and I could just cancel the DVD portion and stick with the streaming but I’ve got some major bones to pick with them about that.
Firstly, WTF is with all the outages? They’re becoming a little too common these days. Then there are the horrendous updates that are mandatory or their app on the PS3 forgetting my credentials frequently which leaves me scrambling for the wireless keyboard and mouse so it takes less than 10 minutes to peck through the onscreen keyboard with the remote. That’s just seriously irritating.
The biggest bone I have to pick with them now though is the lack of content online. There are movies available on Showtime, HBO, Cinemax and Starz that aren’t yet available for streaming online. Compound that with the bad moves they’ve made trying to get into the content creation business that have pissed off the other pay networks it’s leaving them with pretty much nothing from HBO, Showtime and Cinemax. Starz is looking to end their agreements with them and has already pulled the plug on original programming until 90 days after a season ends and movies available on demand through Starz are appearing to not be available on Netflix streaming. Add to that the additional delays they’re having to deal with in making DVDs available in order to keep the content companies happy…it’s really a bum deal in my book for the $7.99 a month when I watch more content on Starz for $11.99 a month, only $2 more than my current $9.99 plan with Netflix.
Showtime came free with my FIOS subscription and I’m getting 3 free months of HBO/Cinemax which comes with HBOGO and MAXGO that contains pretty much the entire back catalog of their shows. Granted, when you add up the pay channels I’d be about $10 over where I would be with both the streaming and DVD plan with Netflix, but the lack of content to watch makes it not that compelling to pay the $7.99 to watch what’s available on Hulu for free, aside from there’s no ads to suffer through on Netflix.
A year ago, streaming was awesome and easy to give up cable for. The infrequent DVD for the things that weren’t available through streaming was a little help. Now, it just seems like a content vacuum. Sure, I’d be willing to pay more, if they had plentiful content but a price hike so they can go out and hammer out better agreements? No thanks. I’d rather not start paying them more while waiting for them to deal with the content providers dragging their heels so we can see things months later than they’re everywhere else. Considering my FIOS TV service is pretty much free (the triple play is $20 cheaper than taking internet only) for now, I think I can cancel Netflix and shell out an extra $10 over the cost of that for the pay channels that have shows I watch. The only thing we’ve been watching on Netflix for 2 months now is Heroes (available on Hulu for free) and Hoarders. That’s a bit much to be paying for those 2 shows!