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Netflix Hasn't Forgotten About Its 4.3 Million DVD Subscribers (qz.com)
Netflix hasn't forgotten about its DVD service, which millions of people still use. From a report on Quartz: The company is touting a new app that DVD customers can use to manage their Netflix queues, search for DVD and Blu-ray titles, and get movie recommendations. Those features for DVD subscribers vanished from the main Netflix app back in 2011, leaving subscribers to manage their accounts on DVD.com. The new app, called DVD Netflix, is currently only available on Apple's iOS in the US, which is the only country the DVD service is offered in. About 4.2 million people in the US still rent DVDs from Netflix.
A service to buy crap that you can download for free and it's only available to Apple users. And the media suckers wonder why people pirate movies?
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I have also seen DVDs shipped from the other side of the country, taking three or four days to arrive. In those instances Netflix used to ship the next in your queue from a local warehouse, to tide you over the wait. It appears they don't do that anymore --- you wait for the cross-country shipment.
For me, the most important indicator of the deteriorating quality of Netflix's DVD service is that I no longer get emails asking me about the length of the delivery times. To me that shows Netflix no longer seems to care about delivery times.
But they have a shiny new app for Apple phones...
The DVD selection is far better than streaming if you like to watch non-blockbuster movies like me.
Not to mention, aside from not replacing a broken/lost disc, they routinely ignore damaged disc reports in the first place. Or at the least they don't test their discs. Something to that effect. The most recent movie I wanted to watch, I had to report it damaged FOUR TIMES before I received a (fifth) disc that was finally playable. One of the five discs I received, the sleeve it came in someone had actually written on it "broken won't play". No idea if they reported that through the website as well, though.
Scratched and unplayable discs are so common I now spend twice or three times as long getting through my queue because I routinely have to report damaged discs and wait for a replacement, which takes additional time because there's no longer a warehouse near me. 2-day service instead of the former overnight. I've also taken to not sending back the damaged disc until I receive the replacement, because more than once I sent a disc back and GOT THE SAME DISC AGAIN as a replacement. I know this for a fact in one instance because that particular disc had very specific damage on it (some asshole had deliberately scratched a fucking design into the bottom of the disc, ruining it). I returned this disc, waiting for a replacement.. and got the same disc again. Unless that person marked a bunch of discs with an identical design scratched into them all.
Netflix seems surprised people are not dropping the DVD service, but a lot of content is NOT AVAILABLE on streaming. I total number of titles it may seem OK, but recent blockbusters generally appear on streaming long after they are on netflix DVD.
I'd love to drop DVDs, but netflix doesn't provide the right content on streaming.
The reason it still exists is not only legal. It's also technical. You have to have enough bandwidth to stream video. I don't at either work or home, and I don't know anyone here in the Seattle area that has enough bandwidth at home to stream video.
Everyone without eyesight disabilities should be able to see the horrible compression artefacts in "streamed video", no matter how fast one's Internet connection is, simply because streaming services are cost-optimized by utilizing very low bandwidths. I for one can happily wait for a physical disc delivery in return for a decent, non-crippled picture, coming at a bandwidth about 4 times of the highest "streaming video bandwidths" offered (at the same resolution) by any streaming video service.