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Domenec Reynolds

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Aug 2, 2024, 2:40:35 AM8/2/24

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It's hard to know what to do when you have millions of users and have such a huge market share. However, it seems like Netflix could have grandfathered in people, even for a period of time. I suspect their subscriber base is so large that it would not have been advantageous. I watch mostly streaming now anyway so I'll probably drop the 2 disk to 1 disk to keep my price point.

I don't really understand why people are so up in arms about this. Everyone that I know who has Netflix with the DVD plan simply did it because it was next to nothing over the price of streaming alone. The discs just sit on a bookcase or in a drawer somewhere and collect dust. It has been obvious through the way Netflix have been marketing themselves that they are trying to move away from the discs because of the hassle and cost of everything that goes along with having to mail the discs. They were probably hoping that this bump in price was the nudge that got people off their seats to find those discs, send them back, and switch to streaming only.

My thoughts exactly! The people who were with Netflix from the beginning should take a second and remember the prices and plans from back then. When the streaming was introduced, it wasn't unlimited, it was expensive, and the selection was pretty laughable.

Bottom line is, if you want Netflix to continue offering up a great selection of video AND continue (like they have) to aggressively add new content to the fold, then the pricing will have to periodically need to be adjusted. Especially since their contracts with the studios are about to end.

And I would rather have one big increase than several smaller ones. But that's my opinion. In a few days, it'll settle down (it already is), and I'm sure Netflix will be just fine. After all, they have more customers than Comcast (and if that company can hold onto customers, Netflix certainly can).

And I would much rather pay $15 or $20 to Netflix and have an almost endless supply of great things to watch than spend $80 to Comcast and be constantly flipping channels trying to find something decent to watch.

Where it gets complicated is Comcast is my ISP and I have been completely without cable television for almost 2 years. Comcast has recently set bandwidth caps for internet use. They also own several cable channels. What's to stop them from doing everything in their power from making Netflix's services run slower, lower the caps even more, or even block services like Netflix when they see that I am not dishing out the big bucks for their premium cable services?

These are interesting times we live in. As these companies that offer conflicting services along with services that rely on other companies to be fair and honest they will resort to shady actions. Not necessarily illegal, but the Comcasts and Time Warners are going to do everything in their power to make Netflix as inconvenient as possible.

I am considering the switch to Blockbuster for my Blueray rentals, the priciing is the same except you get moves a month earlier , they have a larger Blueray selection and with also having a larget inventory that means less waiting once a film is available.

Blockbuster does not have a streaming service that i would use but this means that I can reduce my Netflix bill from shy of $30- and now only pay them $8- per month or $96- per year and that is if Amazon Prime which has the same content as Netflix does not become my streaming provider.

so now that netflix has crush every mom and pop store and look's and feel above everyone knowing it was from the help of millions of people who have an account with them who thank's when someone say's i have something cheap then what you have would last forever this company did what they needed the do by putting people out of work and this company has now showed other company's if you wanna pocket millions of dollar's offer something cheap over the internet and by mail and you will shut down every local store and mall and in this store's are people who like you and i have the pay bills keep a roof over you and you kids head and food in they're mouth this company does not care cause if they did why don't you hear all hiring they're doing all you hear is how big this company is getting and all the money thats being made cause people love staying home and being lazy streaming all day so keep raving about have great is the stream and how cheap the price still is and that is the first of more the come

This is really about a price hike, with zero improvement to the plan. Netflix streaming has never been great. Typically old or foreign movies dominate the selection. Add to that the deals made with studio's to release new DVDs late, and you could argue that they are decreasing their services , and increasing prices. Not a good combination.

It's just amazing that Netflix didn't invest more in PR consultation. The method employed basically gave their customers REASON to LOOK for a better deal. It's hard to maintain customer loyalty when you basically say, "Yup, we're raising your bill! You've been getting a heck of a deal up until this point, now you're going to have to pay what you ought to for what you were (actually for less than you were) getting."

It seems that Netflix wanted to send two messages with this tactic:
1. Netflix is going to move to primarily a streaming service, and that's final.
2. Netflix is supremely confident that they have a superior service at the lowest price, and will continue providing said superior service for the foreseeable future.

As anyone who has watched the documentary "The Last Blockbuster" by Taylor Morden and Zeke Kamm can tell you, Netflix isn't technically the reason why almost all of the Blockbusters across the world rapidly went out of business. Apparently, it had more to do with the mega corporation getting rid of late fees and the slow passing of physical media out of the land of relevance.

Even if Netflix wasn't solely responsible, it certainly didn't soften the death of video stores, whether it was a Blockbuster or your neighborhood ma and pa shop. So, the outright savagery of Netflix producing a sitcom about the last Blockbuster in the world is pretty astounding, but then to not set it at the real Last Blockbuster at 211 NE Revere in Bend, Oregon, and instead setting it in Grandville, Michigan, and filming it in Vancouver, B.C., is downright brutal.

Wait, I know I said all that was savage, but then Netflix went even stabbier as I sat down to write this and announced it has canceled "Blockbuster" after one brief and poorly reviewed season. But what was the show like? What worked and what didn't? How could it have been fixed if Netflix didn't jettison the series after 10 episodes? Let's figure this out.

Just to get this out of the way up front: "Blockbuster" the series is pretty bad. It wasn't completely broken, just dented and with no windows and maybe a dead battery. Creator, showrunner and executive producer Vanessa Ramos (who didn't set foot in the Bend store before making the show) has written for a few of the great workplace sitcoms over the last few years, including "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" and the criminally underrated "Superstore." With her as head writer and a cast featuring the great Randall Park ("Fresh Off the Boat), Melissa Fumero ("Brooklyn Nine-Nine"), JB Smoove ("Curb Your Enthusiasm") and Madeleine Arthur ("Color Out of Space"), there's a deep bench of talent in front of and behind the camera.

3: The way the Blockbuster operates in the show is like the writers never worked in a video store before...or ever went to one. Everyone is always working together instead of working different shifts on different days, you know, like every customer service job ever. Does everyone at this store work open to close, seven days a week?

4: Every character is an archetype, which in a workplace sitcom is sorta normal at first, but in "Blockbuster" it feels lazy. There's the nice guy, the film geek, the out of touch Boomer, the overqualified woman rolling her eyes at everything, the disaffected teen, the goofy neighbor and, of course, The Phoebe (every sitcom since "Friends" has had one). Beginning a sitcom with archetypal characters makes sense, but they need to grow and change for the show to remain interesting.

6: But then some lines are so bad that it kills all goodwill. The one that really bothered me was when Randall Park is talking about how well his store does on Halloween. He says, "Halloween is our biggest time of the year with people looking for vintage horror movies they can't get on streamers." Sorry, but even during the heyday of Blockbuster, you could never, ever, find vintage horror movies. Fifty copies of "True Lies," for sure, but you're never finding Ken Russell's "The Lair of the White Worm."

9: By blatantly using/stealing the idea of The Last Blockbuster in Bend, but fictionalizing it, every time they do tie it to Bend, it feels sketchy and disingenuous. Sandi Harding (GM of the real store) has been called "The Blockbuster Mom" for ages. Randall Park starts calling himself "The Blockbuster Daddy" in the second episode. The real Blockbuster threw a block party after it became the last store on the planet. The fictional store throws a block party when they became the last store on the planet. And, once, they actually mention Hydro Flasks. Are these supposed to be Easter Eggs? Do they know these aren't how Easter Eggs work?

Some of this is probably nitpicking, but when adding up one-dimensional characters, shamelessly terrible jokes and no internal logic to the setting of your workplace sitcom, you have a show that plays like the rough draft of a rough draft. All the awful might be forgiven if it was funny, but...nope.

But hey, maybe I'm overcritical of a show that's just trying to be entertaining. So, I asked a few of my friends to watch as many episodes as they could handle and send me their thoughts. Here are a few of them, edited for length: