Digital Joe #38

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Every time we go out with certain friends of ours, the subject of movies comes up. What we´ve seen since our last group outing, what we want to see…the utter crap we´re going to stay away from. Inevitably, the talk turns to rental outfits. I happen to enjoy Netflix´s service above all others; these particular friends make a case for Blockbuster Online.

As far as I can tell, they are partial to Blockbuster for really only one reason: the allure of in-store rentals. After all, the selection is the same and, I´m assuming, the price is in the same ballpark. Their contention is they can get more rentals per month by utilizing the in-store return/rental feature of their membership. I don´t disagree with that assessment. In a different world, I might be tempted by Blockbuster´s service.

But not in this world. Their list of transgressions in my eyes is both long and egregious. From their seemingly fullscreen-only policy in the late 1990s to the outrageous rental prices and the lack of anything I´d want to see…I have no use for them or other brick and mortar rental outfits.

I haven´t stepped foot inside a Blockbuster in about 2 years now. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw they were charging over $4 for a 2-night rental. $4 for one movie! DVD´s cost, at MSRP, in the $20 range. I´m guessing Blockbuster gets a volume discount of some kind. So let´s call their price $12 for easy math´s sake. That means any one DVD (a recent release like "Casino Royale," for instance) only needs to be rented three times per copy for Blockbuster to come out in the black. Now you tell me how many times every copy of "Casino Royale" was rented. Even a guess.

All pure profit for Blockbuster. Let´s not even consider late fees. (C´mon…you know they exist and we´ve all gotten hit with them.) These aren´t nickel or dime library late fees; Blockbuster has fairly large fines for people who can´t read receipts. And then, at the end of the disc´s in-store usefulness, it gets thrown into the Previously Viewed bin without its original insert or keepcase for even more gravy. It´s a scam.

(To be fair, Netflix also offers previously viewed discs. I also assume they work under roughly the same business model, but at my membership cost, I don´t feel like I´m bending over a barrel and asking for it, ya know?)

I pay $10 a month for my one at a time Netflix plan. Generally I get 5-6 movies per month, which averages to $2 per rental. No late fees, no stores, no fullscreen only, no edited cuts, no out of stock…none of it. They come right to me mailbox and I mail them back with regular outgoing mail. (For the record, each month in 2007 has gotten me 6 Netflix rentals.)

(Again, to be fair, Blockbuster Online also has mail service.)

Next comes selection. I´m not sure what B.O. offers because I haven´t-frankly-checked, but I´m not interested in all the latest blockbusters. My last Netflix movies included "Roman Holiday," "Labyrinth," and "The Dark Crystal." The next on the list? Foreign films…and not the "Amelie"s of "Brotherhood of the Wolf"s of the world. "Summer Storm," "Before the Fall" and "Locked Up" (all German). I´ll bet B.O. doesn´t even offer them-I can´t check without a "free trial," either.

If I want "Casino Royale" or "Superman Returns," I´ll buy them. Netflix is reserved for films I´m not I´ll like or that have been recommended to me. And the ones I find by going Netflix diving ("The Dying Gaul," "The Door in the Floor"): the art of picking a genre and adding movies to the queue that sound interesting. Sometimes, there are duds; other times winners. That´s something you can´t do in a store-there is no way any store can carry every available title.

Lastly is the idea of time. Between my TiVO (TCM, thank you very much), Netflix, theatrical movies and DVD´s, I´ve racked up 46 new viewings so far this year…I´m aiming to make it an even 50 by April 1. I couldn´t deal with any more movies than I currently watch. So getting that additional in-store rental would be useless to me. I´m never hard up to find something to watch.

For all the crap Netflix took in the media last year, I never experienced throttling. I´m sure some people did; I´m fortunate enough to have a distribution center about 90 minutes from my house. Quick check in and even quicker delivery is all I´ve ever gotten from Netflix.

I don´t mean to imply Blockbuster and other rental outlets like it don´t have a place in the world. For the people who want instant gratification, they are the only way to go. Me? I have 90+ movies in my Netflix queue just waiting to get to me. At the rate I add new ones, I´ll be up to my eyeballs in discs until I´m old and gray.

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