I, once again, have cancelled my Netflix account. This 2nd time, I only had the streaming plan (no DVDs) so it wasn't that terribly pricey; however, there also wasn't a whole lot I was using with Netflix. When it comes down to it, Amazon Prime Instant works just as well. In fact, they seem to have the same contracts so it was really kind of useless to be paying for both (to be fair, I have Prime for the free 2-day shipping (regardless of order price point) and not for the Prime Instant, that came a year or so after I started with paying for Prime). The only real plus to Netflix over Amazon Prime Instant is the "next episode" auto play (or option) on Netflix. Amazon Prime doesn't have it (makes sense since some things you might have to pay for), but I wish they could figure out a way to make it do that. I strongly dislike having to exit out of my full screen, find the next episode, hit play, and then go back to full screen. I know...what an absolutely harsh life I live (aka #firstworldproblems - yes, for not Tweeting, I do know some of the common hashtags thanks to the FB/Twitter integration...), but...come on!
At any rate, I'm really interested to see how Redbox does their streaming service. Their service has been "coming soon" for a few months now and I'm really interested to see how it's different than Netflix. It's fairly cheap (cheaper than Netflix at $8/month for unlimited streaming and 4 DVDs out per month) and if it carries the NEW DVDs on streaming, it will be well worth the money.
Let's do some math:
1 DVD = $1.30 (tax included)
$8 subscription / $1.30 movie = ~ 6.15 movies/month
6.15 movies * 12 months = 73.8 movies/year
Let's round up to 74 movies. I watched 101 movies last year and 16 of them were in theaters (I rewatched 2 of them in theater too, but that's not in my count). That's 85 movies I did not watch in theater and all of them but one (to my recollection) I rented from Redbox. That's 84 movies! And also $109.20 for the year (really not a large number for watching 84 movies...). So, I basically get to watch 10 movies for free or save $13.20. Not a large sum, admittedly, but let's factor in my potential wait times (I still haven't been able to track Frankenweenie down) and also sometimes out-of-the-way driving to return a Redbox (why isn't there one at the Monterey mall or anywhere near the mall?!). Not to mention I lost out on a $1.30 once because I reserved a movie ahead of time, but when I got there, the machine was broken (last time I've reserved a DVD...). So, based on time and convenience, it's worth the money. The fact I actually do save money (if I watch at least 75 movies), it's like icing on a cake. With that said, it'll mostly be worth it for me if it carries the new movies. If I have to wait weeks after a new movie comes out, I might make do, but since I'm currently caught up, I'm going to have an awkward lull; however, I could go check out a physical DVD too, but it also sort of loses its appeal for me. So, anyway, it'll be interesting. If it carries the new stuff, it'll be ahead of Netflix and Amazon Instant (no clue with iTunes). If it doesn't, what's the point? I will say that Netflix is relying more on its TV show availability than its movies, so, we'll see!
I was going to have a few musings, but my Redbox sort of turned into a musing. My main thing was going to talk about life and death. A morbid musing for sure, but it's been a rough first part of the year for me with a family death, my housemate's grandfather's death, and I found out today a regular customer I like (and hadn't seen in months) was diagnosed with cancer in October and given a year to live (reason I haven't seen him in months). Not to mention pet deaths (two, so far) and they were dearly loved. Partially from all of this, I was talking to my housemate (and co-worker) and we got into a discussion about if there was a way to stop our cells from aging or to continue to reproduce, would we do it? We discussed it in a hypothetical term of taking a pill and we threw in the whole you can stop taking the pill if you wish to "die." That brings up other thoughts about assisted suicide (or suicides in general), but it was an interesting discussion about whether 1) Would people want to take "the pill"; 2) How would the world/class system be affected; and 3) If whether people would stop wanting to take "the pill." I actually associated this all with the movie In Time with Justin Timerblake and Amanda Seyfried. My co-worker has seen it and it almost perfectly illustrates how I feel it would end up. In that world, time is currency and when you run out, you're dead. I don't think time would end up being the currency since our lives can't be tied like that, but it's pretty similar. If you stop taking the pill, you'd die. If you run out of money, no more pill, no more life.
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