The Truth About Netflix

First, before I began bashing, let me say this about Netflix: it's great, it's wonderful, I couldn't possibly survive without it. I don't have to worry about going somewhere to return anything, the selection is positively amazing (I wouldn't be able to get almost any of the obscure movies I see without it), and I can keep easily dump things in my queue at will and use that to keep track of what I want to watch (I put practically everything I find remotely interesting in my queue, and then remove it right before it is released if I decide not to see it).

However, it has some serious problems.

1) The New Release Issue

If I do not time mailing in movies exactly right, and for me this means putting in in the mailbox on Sunday, so it gets mailed on Monday, and arrives to Netflix Tuesday, I have no chance of getting a new release for probably 5 to 6 weeks after it comes out. Additionally, many times I don't get a new release anyway. This is the second week in a row where I didn't get The Constant Gardener, which I wanted to see again (and do a review!), but alas, if I am going to see it any time soon I'm going to have to go to the local video store down the street (I do not live near an easily accessible Blockbuster, and I don't want to support Blockbuster anyway).

2) The Older Movies Issue

Any movie that's between, and I'm guessing vaguely here, 2 and 15 years old, is most likely going to be damaged and skip a lot on your DVD player. Or at least my DVD player. If I get pretty old movies its usually okay, and new releases are always okay. They apparently aren't in the habit of ordering new copies of slightly older movies so that they don't end up sending people garbage that doesn't play.

3) The Recommendations Are Awful

The recommendations for me aren't the least bit accurate. First of all, Netflix considers anything that you give 3 out of 5 stars a "good" rating, which I consider an "average" rating. I certainly don't want to get recommendations based on things that I rate three stars. I at one point even went as far as scaling my rating system lower in order to see if Netflix got more accurate. But it didn't, it still is awful. So they could definitely use some improvement in this system.

4) Netflix Doesn't Know that Movies Exist Soon Enough

As I already mentioned above, I put things in my queue literally as soon as I hear about them. However it takes movies a lot longer to show up on Netflix than it does for say, IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes. This just annoys me because as I go through the movies coming out in 2006, for example, I add them to my queue, to be judged later, but 75% of the movies don't show up yet so I consistently need to go back and check if they are in their registry.

Anyway, that's all. I am just annoyed because I just looked at my queue and saw about The Constant Gardener thing and felt like going off on a rant.