You people and your internets nuttiness!

[trinityvixen]

As was pointed out to me, I generally talk about media stuffs on LJ and not a whole hell of a lot else. Even in my last post, I managed to sneak in media stuff. Impulse control, what is that?

Anywhoodle, I read blogs like this some times, and they had a post about this article in Time. It's neither an original complaint about Netflix--"I have to wait for movies!"--nor an entirely honest one as Time, being part of Time-Warner, has an interest in denigrating their competitor for paid streaming video service.

You can take apart this guy's fuddy-duddy curmudgeonly gripes far too easily to be worth bothering with. What I find hilarious is people on Hacking Netflix leaving comments to the link to this article saying this:

Yeah, let's tar and feather Richard Corliss! How dare he exercise his right of free speech in Time magazine; and of all places, in the USA.

Is it too much to ask that we all express just the Netflix Kool-aid drinking opinion on this blog? ;-)

Personally, I enjoy browsing video and book stores.

Left by Edward R Murrow! Of all people!

I just...you know, anyone is allowed to be an idiot on the internet. That's what it's there for (besides the porn, I mean). But going to a website that is pretty much dedicated to updating Netflix devotees on company developments and saying, "Gosh, do you have to like this so much?" is tantamount to wearing a Dolphins jersey to the Meadowlands. You just don't do it unless you're colossally stupid. Not only are you probably going to be savagely attacked, but...just...did you not think!? This is a site for people who worship the god of little red envelopes. Of course they're going to defend Netflix against all heathens.

(Amusing side note: that Time article hilariously generated a pop-up ad for Netflix when I clicked on the link.)

Comments

[saturn-shumba.livejournal.com]

Oh, that Time article amused me so. Cause, yes, after I queue a movie on Netflix and am forced to wait a day, a whole day, I forget why I even rented the movie in the first place, and I'm thrown into a black pit of despair at how I've just lost all my connections to the wooooorld. (Seriously, what was with the doom and gloom of that writer's last paragraph. Netflix will doom us all, apparently.)

Also he says he misses a face to face with a "knowledgeable cinephile." I have determined this to be impossible. Mostly because it's a rare occurrence when the customer and the video clerk's movie loves mesh to perfection. And very rarely is the customer so open minded to say "I want a movie...recommend me something!" I used to work in a video store and nobody ever said that to me. Also, even though I've seen a lot of films, they're all cult movies that the rest of the world doesn't give a shit about.

So the customer would turn to me and say "Is [Insert Mainstream Movie Title Here] a good movie?"

And I would reply: "I haven't seen it." Sorry, miss/dude. I only know crap related to Evil Dead.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I used to work at Blockbuster. I do a mean impression of the two kinds of people I remember from working there. One is the no-neck guy who bullies his girlfriend into renting Scarface for what must be his fifteenth time (unless it's out, which it usually is because there are plenty of that kind of guy with that kind of girlfriend who insist on renting it). The other is the middle-aged woman who insists that I made up her late fee and that I'm pocketing the money. (At the time, my hourly wage was about par with a rental. I wish I could have pocketed those fees.)

Long story short, I remember maybe one or two people ever asking me for help or to express an opinion. They were usually really grateful, but almost no one wanted it in the first place. Can I ring them up? That's what they want.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

renting Scarface for what must be his fifteenth time
Why not just buy it? At that point, you've already paid enough for it.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The sort of guy who makes girlfriend of the month see Scarface probably isn't the most intelligent bloke on the planet to begin with given what that movie is all about. Not a date movie in any sense of that phrase.

[saikogrrl.livejournal.com]

I am constantly surprised how many customers in our bookstore just take my initial recommendation and buy a book straight off without hearing much more about it. When I am spending my money on a book I want to aak more questions and read some of it and think about it more.

Either these people don't really care what they buy or they trust me a lot! Muahahahahahaha powerrrrrr

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The. One. Time. I vaguely inquired about a book at the bookseller's, I got like a twenty-minute lecture about it and what the best versions were and I just couldn't smile politely and back away fast enough. Since then, I rely on my bibliophile friends and magazines to recommend my reading. :)

[saikogrrl.livejournal.com]

lol, well I may be enthusiactic sometimes about a book, but I tend to keep my reviews pretty brief and think I can tell when someone is glazing over and leave them to look at stuff...

[saikogrrl.livejournal.com]

Also, I can see it from the customer's pov now, but from my pov, they've asked me to recommend a book, so I suggest titles until they seem interested in one, or until they say some version of Thanks I'll just browse.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

am forced to wait a day, a whole day
Clearly this is written by a person who has not gone on a year-long quest to find an out-of-print video nor ended up buying it on eBay for far too much money. Oh, wait, I've done that several times. But the point is! Netflix has almost everything available for very little money and I only have to wait a day.

I used to frequent video stores. They're selections were mostly shit. And I can think of only one indie store where I would consider asking staff for recomendations. Also, you want a conversation with knowledgeable cinephiles? I think the internet can oblige you.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I used to frequent video stores. They're selections were mostly shit.

And usually out of stock on a Friday night anyway! Seriously! That's what he is making his objection to Netflix all about: the fact that if you want a specific movie for your spur-of-the-moment date on Friday, you won't be able to get it from Netflix in time. Well, PS, Blockbuster put the indie stores out of business, so unless you can find the one Blockbuster that carries your obscure date film--or enough copies of your big event movie that one copy can survive the Friday-night rush--you're still SOL.

With Netflix, at least you have a chance of getting something streaming...

And I can think of only one indie store where I would consider asking staff for recomendations. Also, you want a conversation with knowledgeable cinephiles? I think the internet can oblige you.

The only place that would make recommendations was Kim's and woe betide any who asked after anything commercial (aka anything not made for $5 and mostly silent).

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

That sounded like many articles I've read bemoaning the death of local bookstores. You know, the kind that are badly-organized and never have what you want but are fantastic for browsing in. I have more sympathy for them, at least, in that I like picking up books and glancing through them--but then Amazon invented "look inside", and it seemed much less of a loss.

Mr. Moam Moan I Want My Instant Gratification apparently never went into a a rental place where the movie he wanted was checked out. Continuously. For weeks. A problem that won't exist when streaming video is perfected (and doesn't exist for on-demand pay-per-view now!)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's also the fact that the mom-and-pop video store was put out of business by Blockbuster, not Netflix. I'll grant him that probably Kim's suffered more for Netflix than others, but yeah, Netflix is behind that curve. They're just putting Blockbuster out of business. Businesses evolve!

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

The article in PW on Micawber Books when it closed was priceless. In it, the owner of Micawber talked about how going into a bookstore should be a several hour long experience and how nobody has the proper appreciation anymore for reading over spine-out titles on packed bookshelves. I read that and thought...that? That right there, where you've modeled your store layout over nonexistent ideal customer behavior? That is why you are going out of business. Despite all the English professors' efforts to keep you afloat by assigning books there.

I did spend hours in Micawber when I was there. You know what I remember about that store? It had no children's section. No YA. No sci fi. No fantasy. No horror. Nothing that wasn't lit-er-a-ture. I found an annotated paperback edition of Stephen King's Carrie there on sale for $20. So I went to the B&N and bought the mass market for $8.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Client habits change, period. While the indie bookstore still has its charms, it has to either pare down to a specific retrograde clientele or else offer rare titles. (Or both.) But trying to straddle the divide between mass market titles and being the sort of shop where people browse for hours is just never going to work.

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

In the guy's defense, he was really just complaining about Kim's Video closing. At least in that regard I'm right there with the man. Most of the other comments seem off given what I remember of Kim's selection compared to most other places (they just had things that they aren't in circulation anymore). So in my book the guy get's a pass.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Fuck Kim's video.

There, I said it.

No, seriously, FUCK KIM'S. Overpriced hipster dump. Did they have some movies you couldn't get elsewhere? Sure. Didn't make it easier to find things organized by the whim of a store manager on a given day. Didn't make an effort to have more than one copy of those oh-so-esoteric movies they were so famous for. Fuck Kim's. I get those movies without the attitude from Netflix and we are all better off.

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm....... I'm curious. Does NetFlix have The Longest Nite (HONG KONG, 1998)?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Better question: Do I care? :P


(Real answer: probably. And if not now, soon.)

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

They do in fact. But for foreign, artsy, and independent films, you're better off with greencine.com.

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

Thanks on both counts ^_^

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

I just have to address the overpriced comment with this: Think about their location and rental (real estate) prices for that area for that amount of space. For a private operator, that's not a cheap expense. I've been seeing a lot of nice places of years gone by get priced out of that area over the last decade.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I've been seeing a lot of nice places of years gone by get priced out of that area over the last decade.

That's only applicable if you consider Kim's a nice place. I consider it a hipster with an MBA's approximation of a video store.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

This is a site for people who worship the god of little red envelopes.
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? NETFLIX IS MY GOD.

Netflix is the best thing that's ever happened to my media obsession. I cannot tell you how much money they've saved me, and I have one of the more expensive plans.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I think I see the big difference in the Times writer's viewpoint. When he rents a video, it's because he's thinking "what do I want to watch tonight." When I rent a video, it's because I want to see that particular video, and a two day wait is terribly convenient, actually. (He also totally overstates the incidence of errors. Yes, sometimes I get the wrong disc or a disc that doesn't play, but I'd estimate that happens about 1% of the time.) See, Netflix makes you plan ahead. What a horror.

You want instant gratification? I think that's what pay per view is for. Or, you know, that whole streaming thing that Netflix also does.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Basically, this article is as dated as the fogey writing it. He barely mentions that Netflix has a streaming service--a free service no less. Hell, I have half as many titles on Watch It Now as I do on my DVD Queue. That's a shit-ton of variety right there and it allows me to put most of the movies I'm iffy about having as my sole DVD at home on the streaming so if I don't like it I haven't wasted a rental.

The streaming has even gotten better and better with time. It's faster, works with more platforms and browsers, and more is available on it every day. I'm a fan.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

You will receive no objections from me, madame. I love my Netflix like everyone else. It lets me plan bad movie nights and provides me with entertainment that I'd otherwise either go broke buying (and probably not watching again) or have to download (thus risking heavy fines if caught). There's nothing about Netflix I don't like right now. They kinda bought my soul a year ago when they lowered the price of my plan. I mean, when does that ever happen?