Still Paying For NetFlix and I Don’t Know Why

I’ve been a NetFlix subscriber on and off since the service began… or at least soon after the demise of Kozmo.com. I’m probably on my sixth or seventh e-mail address (since I historically have closed every account within a year and then been tempted to open a new one based on some freebie offer for new accounts). But I just don’t watch many movies and if I am going to take the time to sit still and be entertained by anything other than a baseball game or a computer I’m most likely to go to the theater. Yes, even though I have viewing rights to my roommate’s killer diller digital projector.

I’ve had the same two movies for 3 and 4 months respectively and have yet to watch either of them despite taking them with me on vacations, excursions, and other potentially boring rendezvouses. I even downgraded to the $8.99/month plan but still can’t find the impetus to watch these films OR return them OR quit the membership. Perhaps it’s because of Netflix’s “watch now” on your computer capabilities — although I’ve been expecting they’d open it up for Mac OSX users (like myself) and as far as I can tell — they still haven’t, in spite of promises made months ago.

What percentage of your video viewing is Netflix / Blockbuster / TiVo / on demand / torrent / hulu / Joost nowadays?

My deadbeat NetFlix status came to a head today as I jumped into a free trial for Blockbuster’s rental service. I hate Blockbuster, always have — my first job at 14 was as a video store rental clerk at an independent store called Ravinia Video — but, perhaps out of procrastination, perhaps because I’ve been told I should see Across the Universe, I went for it. Then, I went to cancel my Netflix and found that, coincidentally, I was just billed for another month — today.

Where do you all stand with Netflix? For a couple years it felt like everyone was a Netflix subscriber but lately, with the proliferation of DVRs, on-demand cable, torrents, and online video streaming, it feels like times have changed. (Disclaimer: I don’t have cable or satellite TV). Oddly, the only way Netflix has been able to generate press lately was to spark controversy across user forums by threatening to forego user profiles, an announcement that was quickly reversed.