Wednesday, February 1, 2006

Blockbuster

Continuing on the theme of incomplete reviews, I just wanted to share the fact that I dumped Netflix. Netflix is one of those brands, like TiVo that just ooozes good karma. I espouse the wonders of Netflix to friends and family; but they pissed me off recently. I turn movies around very quickly, and Netflix with their new "short wait" "very long wait" thing was just getting to me. Rather suddenly I was getting less movies each month for the same twenty clams. I've tested the waters with Netflix before and I've always been lured back by a lower price. This time Netflix gave me no such offer and I continued with my cancellation.

Anyway, so Blockbuster seems to be kicking ass. I got the 40 Year-Old Virgin, March of the Penguins, and Cinderella Man right away - those all had a very long wait from Netflix. The web page isn't quite as slick, but when you get right down to it the differences are subtle (no RSS feed from Blockbuster). I think the two in-store movie rentals a month and the couple-a-dollar savings is making me feel less like a Netflix traitor.

1 comment:

  1. It will be interesting to see if Blockbuster's ass kicking continues after they spent several millions of dollars advertising durring the superbowl... I would have to assume that if the advertisements worked - the overall turn-around time of blockbuster will be drastically reduced. At the same time, if the ads were ineffective in getting people to sign up, blockbuster may scale back greatly on staff as well as numbers of copies of movies that are made available to online users... and perhaps sooner rate increases.

    Anyway - it will be interesting to see in the coming months how or if the service changes.

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