I wanted Netflix the same way I wanted to start taking Pilates classes. It wasn’t just a product to me, but a lifestyle change. I would no longer flip through bad Saturday TV programs or wait in line at Blockbuster on a Friday night. For about $20 a month, Netflix was going to send me as many movies as I wanted, saving me money and time.
Unfortunately, I did not anticipate its full effects.
Netflix, it turns out, took over my life the way only a tyrannical stalker could.
Movies pour into our mailbox constantly, eating up my evenings when I normally would have had drinks with friends or browsed the Sunday paper. Not only do I have very little free time anymore, but for the amount I’ve paid since last fall, I could get an iPod Shuffle.
Somehow, my younger sister (and roommate) decided it would be a good idea to introduce me to “The O.C.,” which is apparently her version of “Beverly Hills 90210.” If I watched just the first one with her, then I would understand the entire premise and be as addicted as she was. She insisted that would be a good thing.
She was right about the addiction part. In the last month, we have rented every episode of “The O.C.’s” first season–an accomplishment I know I should probably keep to myself. As we finished the last episode (including all the outtakes), we calculated that we had spent 27 hours on the couch just watching “The O.C.”
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After consulting my blurred memories of college economics, I realized the problem is in the incentives: Paying a monthly charge with no limits on the number of DVDs we can rent means that to get our money’s worth, we have to watch as many DVDs as possible and as quickly as possible. Combined with the never-ending nature of serialized television shows, the end result can only be the complete absence of any meaningful social life.
I went to Netflix hoping for sympathy, advice or perhaps even a support group. Judging from the “fun facts” listed on their Web site, I am not alone in my dependency on its product: Customers say they double their movie rentals each month after joining Netflix.
Spokeswoman Shernaz Daver sees nothing wrong with that. She said the facts speak for themselves. “People are imitating us,” she said, referring to similar programs that have cropped up at Blockbuster and Wal-Mart. Netflix plans to end 2005 with 4 million subscribers, about 70 percent of the market, she added.
It turns out that the whole business model is based on going to the gym. According to Daver, founder and chief executive Reed Hastings got slapped with a $40 fine from Blockbuster in 1997 and thought to himself, “Why isn’t renting movies like going to the gym?” The concept of a flat monthly fee was born.
Yet somehow, while a monthly gym membership inspires avoidance, a monthly movie rental fee inspires maximum usage.
To hear the company’s side of things, Netflix is actually responsible for broadening Americans’ cultural sensitivities. While Blockbuster stores have shelf space only for, well, blockbuster hits, the Netflix library holds 30,000 titles, many of them obscure. In fact, “Voices of Iraq,” a documentary featuring everyday Iraqis, is available only through Netflix, and “Born into Brothels,” a film about the children of prostitutes in Calcutta, is also hard to find at the corner rental store.
Daver made me realize that by paying my monthly fee, I am actually enabling a cross-cultural flow of ideas and information, while simultaneously attaining a level of relaxation that usually only a spa massage can provide. Why was I resisting this concept again? Turning in my membership would be akin to refusing a hot bath on a cold day.
I don’t need to stop watching; I just need to stop feeling guilty about it.
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