Confessions of a NetFlix Convert

Ok, it is time for the truth to be told. We did try Netflix for a few months some time ago. I thought it was very convenient. My DH worried about the cost. What about the weeks on end we may go without viewing a movie?

Along came PeerFlix and we thought, "Here's the answer!" We signed up and started making money right away. We sold our old movies (that we'd never watch again) and watched our balance climb. We used the money we made selling videos to purchase used ones from other members. It was paradise, at least for a while. In our first three months of membership, we spent under $14 in out-of-pocket costs. What are out-of-pocket costs? For simplicity in calculation, I consider them to be transaction and shipping fees (about $1.55/movie) and the money we spend on new movies from a big box store ~~ after the money we make from selling them (thus the difference between what we spent and what we earned). The out-of-pocket does not include the cost of the movies, which came out of our positive balance earned by selling.

The blissful harmony began to break down when problems came along... Some discs didn't arrive for weeks -- literally, weeks -- on end. One disc was an obvious pirate. I had a seller never send a disc, had to wait 5 weeks for a refund, then when the order was automatically bid out, the same guy got it again... I had to resort to a stern message to finally get the movie. No help from the site in stepping in on the issue. Other problems occurred when I received broken discs... I'd wait weeks to get discs, they would arrive broken, then I had to send them off to the site for verification and refund. The breaking point came when we were getting nearly no discs from our Wish List. We had to go to the store to buy movies to see. During our last month, we spent a whopping $26 on movies.

The cost argument had lost out along with my patience. On Thursday I did a side-by-side cost comparison and decided that NetFlix would be a better deal. By 11 am on Friday I had entered my PeerFlix Wish List into my NetFlix Queue, transferred over 70 movie ratings, and had my first two movies on their way. Easy Peasy. Oh, did I mention the movies actually played (another PeerFlix issue)?!

The experiment using PeerFlix was interesting, though a disappointment in some ways. For selling, it is a great tool. We will continue to use it for that purpose. However, for viewing movies, NetFlix will be our service of choice.

If you have a NetFlix account and want to be our friend (awww, how sweet!) The account is in my email -- which all that read this probably have. Also, I've posted our queue on the left sidebar (NetFlix icon and Movie Wish List). I did it using a cool thing from Inky Software. You can, too. Here's how: 1) Go into your NetFlix account, at the bottom of any page is a link to RSS. 2) Click the RSS link and see the list of feeds tied to your account. Pay particular note to Queue, Recent Rental Activity, and Movies At Home. I like Movies at Home for Mike so he can pick between the two we have in house for movie descriptions. 3) Add a link to an email message, blog, or website by copying and pasting
http://www.inkysoftware.com/rss2html.php?XMLFILE=
then pasting the link from your account (right click and copy for the RSS feed) afterwards. So, for my recent rental activity I have: http://www.inkysoftware.com/rss2html.php?XMLFILE=http://rss.netflix.com/TrackingRSS?id=P2020156977401916652848461628686461 . And for my movies at home I have http://www.inkysoftware.com/rss2html.php?XMLFILE=http://rss.netflix.com/AtHomeRSS?id=P2020156977401916652848461628686461. It is a fun and easy way to share what you are watching.

Have fun!