The Netflix Unlimited Streaming Video- Good or Bad?

Netflix has been one of the movie rental industry leaders since its started offering the mail order DVD rental in 1999. The concept was new, fresh and caught on quickly.

Customers would go to the Netflix website to choose which movies they would like to see, creating their personalized, individual list. The company would take the top movie or movies off of that list for the customer and mail them to the individual. The customer watched the movie then returned it via prepaid envelope when they were finished and the next movie on the list was sent to them to start the process all over again.

It is a great concept that has since been copied by other movie rental companies. Their pricing for each individual plan was viewed as being reasonable by the majority of movie watchers so the company and their popularity grew quickly proven by their announcement in April of 2011 that their current subscription number had topped 23 million individuals.

The movies could be kept and watched for as long as each subscriber wanted. In a time when late fees were a large issue with brick and mortar movie rental companies, Netflix made it acceptable to return a DVD whenever the customer wanted without having to worry about late fees.

I have been an on and off user of the Netflix service for many years. It does have its pros and cons, depending on the lifestyle of the subscriber. I personally know people who absolutely love it but then again, just like everything else out there, I know people who absolutely hate it.

I loved the streaming video option that was originally included with the mail order packages. Whenever I wanted to watch a movie, I was able to go to my computer and look at what was available for watching instantly. The selection was spotty and it was impossible to watch a new release through the Netflix streaming video option. Those movies were only available through DVD.

Older titles such as Best in Show, Julie and Julia and other, not so popular movies were available. It was enough to keep my membership going although there was one flaw. I really didn't want to have to mess with mailing a DVD back to the company and you had to carry the membership that mailed the DVD's to you in order to watch the streaming video. It was literally an inconvenience to have to go to the post office to simply drop off a DVD that wasn't wanted in the first place.

I was happy to hear that in 2011 Netflix would be separating the streaming video option from the DVD rental option and charging separately for each one. I had cancelled my membership a year prior because of the annoyance of having to mail a DVD back to the company periodically in order to watch the Netflix streaming video. So I waited a few weeks and went into the site to check out the new options. Signed back up and started watching movies.

Well... there's been some changing in the streaming video and I've decided not to continue with it. Some of the movies that were available previously are not available through the Netflix streaming video anymore. I personally liked Julie and Julia and knew it used to be available to stream. Not anymore. It's still available through the DVD service, but that service is a hassle for me so I'm not doing it.

In my personal opinion, unless you want to watch a lot of really old movies or television shows that you can watch for free on Hulu, don't waste your time or money because the service just isn't worth it. They do offer a free month to try it though so you can see if it works for you before buying.

A great change that Netflix has made is that they allow you to pay your monthly subscription fee via Paypal. That made cancelling my subscription even easier because I just went into my Paypal account and severed the payment connection. I don't have to worry about them charging my credit card for a service that I'll never use because it just isn't worth it to me.

So in conclusion, I have to just say no to the entire Netflix experience. The cons just outweigh the pros and I can think of better things to spend $7.99 a month on besides old movies that I've already seen at least three times and television shows I can watch for free elsewhere.