Why video stores should be out of business and turned into a Walgreens
On Valentine's Day of 2005, my husband and I drove to Blockbuster to get a movie. This was shortly after they started their no late fee promotion. Well, needless to say, they didn't have the movie we wanted because nobody HAD to return it! So, we went home without a flick. I called my younger brother the next day to gripe and he reminded me (for the millionth time) that I should get Netflix. I have been using Netflix for 21 months now. I'm the first to say I love it (besides my brother...who left it and went to Blockbuster's version only to return to Netflix). I have gotten many other people to love it too! But, today, I decided to see if it was worth it...money wise! Well, the answer is yes!! So for all you 'not so sure about Netflix' people maybe this will help persuade you. (Keep in mind, I am not promoting Blockbuster online or anything other than Netflix--they truly are the best and most efficient!)
Here's the run down:
21 months of membership
$18.91 per month (3 movies at a time...tax already included)
185 movies watched in that amount of time comes to
about 9 movies a month.
That's $2.10 a movie. I like it!
If I continued by usual trip to Blockbuster to get a movie I would have paid $4 per movie which comes to $740 for all of them. But, I didn't. I just went to my mailbox and ended up only spending $397. That means I have saved my family $343 in almost 2 years! Imagine what you could save???!!!
www.netflix.com
Labels: Netflix
posted by Erin at Sunday, November 26, 2006
3 Comments:
I expect to get half of the money that you've saved!!!! Glad to hear you like it and that you're recommending it to others. I think it's fun to see what everyone has at their houses and what they have coming up. Also, I also know now that I have more in common with you than with Eric & Dad. I wouldn't have guessed!
I like the Netflix thing, but for me it's kinda like cable and a game system. Sure, these things are fun to have, but at the end of the week I look back and find myself saying, "Sure it was nice to watch ______ or to play ________, but I wish I would have spent that time reading or doing something more interactive with my family."
When you have Netflix you watch more DVDs than you otherwise would have...at least I know I have. Since I always have a new movie and another on the top of my queue that I want to watch too (plus I don't want to waste the cost of the Netflix subscription) there's self-inflicted pressure to watch more movies.
So, sure you get a better bargain per disc, but I guess I can't say that having an on-going Netflix subscription actually improves my life since there's other activities I probably would have done had I not had the option of watching a movie.
So, I agree, it is a bargain and a nice way to rent movies. But I guess my question to you, Erin, is how have your hobbies and other interests, like reading, faired in the 21 months since you've started Netflix?
To give you something quantifiable to answer, let's try this:
In the past 21 months you spent $400 to watch approximately 370 hours of movies.
Had you stuck with the traditional Blockbuster method and spent the same amount of money, you would have only watch 200 hours of movies, leaving 170 hours to read.
Let's say you can read a page every 90 seconds or so (I don't know if that's a good statistic for you, but that's really conservative for me and I'm not a fast reader at all, so it's a starting place). That means that with the Blockbuster method you would have been able to read about a little more than one 300-page book a month.
So, here's my specific question:
Would you rather have spent $400 to
watch 185 movies or
watch 100 movies and 21 books?
Obviously, from my tone you know that I'd prefer the more balanced approach. Just curious to hear what you think. How about you, Tim?
Oh, I still have read quite a few books in the last couple of years. Of course, if I didn't have a child I would have read more (and watched more movies). But, I guess my main point was that if you are going to rent movies, Netflix is the way to go. I like watching all these movies and I still have time to read. I can't say if I wasn't watching a Netflix movie I would be reading. I would most likely be watching crap on daytime TV. I have always, my whole life, gone through spurts of watching movies and reading. I also still make a lot of homemade cards and do my other hobbies. I don't think Netflix has taken away from any of that!
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