02/25/2007   English German
  Edition # 66  
San Francisco, 02-25-2007

Netflix

Michael Do you know Netflix? It's a new service that will drive video rental stores into ruin. Except for the mega-chain Blockbuster, of course, which is currently trying to drive Netflix into ruin. Welcome to America!
Figure [1]: A Netflix envelope with a DVD arrives in the
mail at the house.>

Netflix has a website where you can select DVDs like in a video rental store. Of course, Netflix has a few more DVDs, just like Amazon has more books. And just like Amazon, Netflix has a "recommendation engine," a computer program that suggests what you might want based on data from other people with similar ordering behavior. This way, you can create a long wish list that you then work through step by step. By the way, the selection is very good; practically all new movies are available. Only for very obscure art films are some video stores in San Francisco better stocked.

The selected DVD almost always arrives the next day, as a regular letter that the mail carrier drops into the mailbox along with the other mail. That's cleverly done, because the Netflix team has distribution centers spread across the entire country to prevent long waiting times.

The DVD can be kept for as long as you want. However, it would be foolish to dawdle, because if you send the DVD back in the same red envelope it arrived in, Netflix will send the next DVD on your wishlist the very next day!

Netflix offers different subscription plans, and I chose the following one: I pay Netflix $9.95 per month. For that, I receive one DVD at a time, but I can exchange it as often as I like.

I once calculated that you could get up to three DVDs per week this way: Tuesday, 1:00 PM: take the DVD out of the mailbox, watch it, send it back, run to the mailbox, it gets emptied at 5:00 PM. Netflix receives the DVD on Wednesday, sends the next one, which arrives on Thursday. Thursday, 1:00 PM: take the DVD out of the mailbox, watch it, send it back, run to the mailbox, it gets emptied at 5:00 PM. Netflix receives the DVD on Friday, sends the new one, which arrives on Saturday. Watch it, the mail is also picked up at 5:00 PM on Saturday, Netflix receives the DVD on Monday, sends the new one, which arrives on Tuesday. And the cycle begins again.

Figure [2]: My Netflix queue: Movies that Netflix will send
me one by one as soon as I return the DVD that I currently have at home.>

Sometimes, however, Netflix throws a wrench in the works. A DVD might be "unavailable" at a shipping center and then promptly sent across half the continent, which takes three days. I call this: "Shipped from Romania." This brings the whole well-oiled machine to a standstill. But they can't do this too often, because otherwise they'll get hit with a "Class Action Lawsuit," as happened some time ago. But all in all: Definitely recommendable.

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