How Netflix streaming has changed my watching habits
I’ve been a Netflix subscriber for years. When I got my first job out of high school, I didn’t really have many expenses. So, like most kids with money and no responsibility, I spent most of it on building my DVD and video game collection. Eventually I discovered the joy of bills and I had to stop buying DVDs. That’s when I first joined up with Netflix. Now I love Neflix, but it’s not a perfect system. Because of the delay between wanting to see a film and it arriving, many discs just sit on my desk for months because I’m not in the mood to watch them when they arrive. That’s where the beauty of streaming comes in.
Netflix’s Watch Instantly feature is a godsend. Normally if I were bored and wanted to watch a film, I’d walk over to my old DVD collection and scan through the titles. They would all be films I’ve seen several times and I’d likely decided that nothing looked interesting at the time. So I wouldn’t watch a film. If I had some time on my hands, I might look up new releases in the Fry’s/Bestbuy ad or troll some torrent sites. However, buy the time I drove to the store or downloaded a film, I’d likely not have time or interest to watch it right then. So again I wouldn’t watch anything. Netflix’s Watch Instantly has freed me from this.
I can be listening to a film podcast, hear about an exciting film, and literally be watching it the moment the podcast is over. In fact this happens a lot. I listen to podcasts during my work day and often (sometimes twice or more an episode) I’ll browse over to Netflix to add a film to my Watch Instantly queue to watch later that evening.
It’s really changed how I watch films. In fact, it’s done so in very bizarre ways too. Lately I’ve found myself scrolling through lists of DVD torrents to see what I want to add to my queue. If I find a film I’d like to watch, I’ll do a quick search on Netflix. If it’s not available for Watch Instantly, I move on and look for a film that is. How insane is that? The instantaneous gratification of a for-pay-service overpowers my desire for the same content from a for-free-service that I have to wait for. This still boggles my mind when I think about it. I’m literally choosing not to watch movies I could easily pirate because I’d rather instantly watch a stream via Netflix on my Xbox 360 (a combined service I’m paying Netflix and Microsoft $230 a year for) then wait an hour for the film to download (which I’d be paying nothing for). Maybe the MPAA (and the RIAA for that matter) should be paying attention to this trend.
posted by Christopher Schnese
