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Tidbit diversion: mini-rant on Netflix
5 years ago
General
Netflix. Is. Useless.
Every once in a while I take to Twitter to vent about how obscenely useless Netflix is. And not only is it consistently useless to the point where I cannot fathom how this company 1: dominated the market 2: stayed in business 3: still exists. But it's uselessness is a recurring phenomenon and I just can't get over how terrible this service is.
A friend of mine gave me a profile/access to his Netflix, which was extremely nice of him. He visits, we queue up something he wants to show me, we watch. Nice times. But anytime I'm inspired to watch something, I turn to Netflix only to find out they don't have it. To date, the number of things I've been able to watch on Netflix that wasn't Netflix-Original programming, totals at around 3-5. That's it.
At various points in time over the past few years, I've either had direct or indirect access to Netflix. Sometimes I'm home, sometimes I'm visiting family. But every time, there's nothing to watch on Netflix. And their original programming is top-notch, don't get me wrong. But I've already seen The Witcher and Stranger Things. And while I'm grateful for the opportunity to have finally seen Deep Space 9 all the way through, that seems to be the limit of what Netflix offers. Everything else in their library is B-movies or worse. There's nothing else on there.
I didn't have this problem when a Blockbuster existed a few blocks from my house. Their library of movies was always extensive so you could find something you'd want to watch. But when I visited my mother two years ago, we spent almost two hours just finding something to watch on Netflix. And that's not a good sign. We reluctantly decided to watch Star Wars: Rogue One. And while I enjoyed finally being able to see it, it was an act of desperation from a frustrated family just trying to find *anything* of use for a service they pay monthly for. Rogue One was our like...200th choice; there's a reason it took two hours to find it and settle on it.
And this is a recurring thing. I'll see CinemaSins put out a new video on a movie, or one of their older sins videos pops up in my Youtube feed and I'm like, "Oh yeah, that was a movie I wanted to see!" And...nope. Netflix doesn't have it.
Two weeks ago, Youtube reminded me that Kung Fu panda 3 was a thing I forgot to catch in theaters. So, looked it up on Netflix and...nope. Panda 2 was there, but I'd already seen it. With nothing else to occupy my time during quarantine, I decided to rewatch it anyway. But Netflix found itself being useful for a change and was like, "Haha, nope!", and it's not even available now. Same thing with the one or two other things I've seen on Netflix in the past. Try to rewatch them? Nope, that would mean Netflix is actually being useful. Can't have that.
Look, I know that back in years past, they had better contracts for showcasing movies. And they lost that contract and that sucks. But this has, in effect, destroyed casual home movie watching entirely. I could at least count on Blockbuster to have watchable things and not third-rate dreck. Imagine if there was only one grocery store in your neighborhood and it got put out of business by a restaurant making great food...and as soon as there was no competition left, that restaurant reverted to only offering up three-day-old gruel.
Remember when "Netflix and chill" was a meme? You don't even hear that anymore because Netflix is just a joke. It's a repository of every single b-movie to d-movie ever made, with it's exceedingly good original programming being the only thing keeping it relevant. Every single time I want to watch something, I go to Netflix to be disappointed. That's just the service it provides now. It's on-demand disappointment.
I think I'm going to start a running tally on exactly how useless Netflix has been for me.
Successes:
Original programming like Stranger Things, Lost In Space, The Witcher, Love Death & Robots, Beastars
Deep Space Nine
Star Wars: Rogue One
Thirteen Assassins
(I'll give Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse an honorable mention since it's an amazing movie and it's available; just not needing to see it right now. I saw it in theaters. Ditto for Inception)
Failures:
Star Wars 7 & 9
Kung Fu Panda 3
Ant Man
The Raid 1 & 2
The Martian
Doctor Strange
Detective Pikachu
Shazam
Lego Movie 2
Lego Batman
Gravity
Zootopia
Tron
Tron: Legacy
Logan
Sing
Magnificent Seven
Mad Max: Fury Road
Star Trek: Beyond
Deadpool 1 & 2
Law & Order: SVU
I'll keep adding more to whatever category as time goes on.
Every once in a while I take to Twitter to vent about how obscenely useless Netflix is. And not only is it consistently useless to the point where I cannot fathom how this company 1: dominated the market 2: stayed in business 3: still exists. But it's uselessness is a recurring phenomenon and I just can't get over how terrible this service is.
A friend of mine gave me a profile/access to his Netflix, which was extremely nice of him. He visits, we queue up something he wants to show me, we watch. Nice times. But anytime I'm inspired to watch something, I turn to Netflix only to find out they don't have it. To date, the number of things I've been able to watch on Netflix that wasn't Netflix-Original programming, totals at around 3-5. That's it.
At various points in time over the past few years, I've either had direct or indirect access to Netflix. Sometimes I'm home, sometimes I'm visiting family. But every time, there's nothing to watch on Netflix. And their original programming is top-notch, don't get me wrong. But I've already seen The Witcher and Stranger Things. And while I'm grateful for the opportunity to have finally seen Deep Space 9 all the way through, that seems to be the limit of what Netflix offers. Everything else in their library is B-movies or worse. There's nothing else on there.
I didn't have this problem when a Blockbuster existed a few blocks from my house. Their library of movies was always extensive so you could find something you'd want to watch. But when I visited my mother two years ago, we spent almost two hours just finding something to watch on Netflix. And that's not a good sign. We reluctantly decided to watch Star Wars: Rogue One. And while I enjoyed finally being able to see it, it was an act of desperation from a frustrated family just trying to find *anything* of use for a service they pay monthly for. Rogue One was our like...200th choice; there's a reason it took two hours to find it and settle on it.
And this is a recurring thing. I'll see CinemaSins put out a new video on a movie, or one of their older sins videos pops up in my Youtube feed and I'm like, "Oh yeah, that was a movie I wanted to see!" And...nope. Netflix doesn't have it.
Two weeks ago, Youtube reminded me that Kung Fu panda 3 was a thing I forgot to catch in theaters. So, looked it up on Netflix and...nope. Panda 2 was there, but I'd already seen it. With nothing else to occupy my time during quarantine, I decided to rewatch it anyway. But Netflix found itself being useful for a change and was like, "Haha, nope!", and it's not even available now. Same thing with the one or two other things I've seen on Netflix in the past. Try to rewatch them? Nope, that would mean Netflix is actually being useful. Can't have that.
Look, I know that back in years past, they had better contracts for showcasing movies. And they lost that contract and that sucks. But this has, in effect, destroyed casual home movie watching entirely. I could at least count on Blockbuster to have watchable things and not third-rate dreck. Imagine if there was only one grocery store in your neighborhood and it got put out of business by a restaurant making great food...and as soon as there was no competition left, that restaurant reverted to only offering up three-day-old gruel.
Remember when "Netflix and chill" was a meme? You don't even hear that anymore because Netflix is just a joke. It's a repository of every single b-movie to d-movie ever made, with it's exceedingly good original programming being the only thing keeping it relevant. Every single time I want to watch something, I go to Netflix to be disappointed. That's just the service it provides now. It's on-demand disappointment.
I think I'm going to start a running tally on exactly how useless Netflix has been for me.
Successes:
Original programming like Stranger Things, Lost In Space, The Witcher, Love Death & Robots, Beastars
Deep Space Nine
Star Wars: Rogue One
Thirteen Assassins
(I'll give Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse an honorable mention since it's an amazing movie and it's available; just not needing to see it right now. I saw it in theaters. Ditto for Inception)
Failures:
Star Wars 7 & 9
Kung Fu Panda 3
Ant Man
The Raid 1 & 2
The Martian
Doctor Strange
Detective Pikachu
Shazam
Lego Movie 2
Lego Batman
Gravity
Zootopia
Tron
Tron: Legacy
Logan
Sing
Magnificent Seven
Mad Max: Fury Road
Star Trek: Beyond
Deadpool 1 & 2
Law & Order: SVU
I'll keep adding more to whatever category as time goes on.
HBO and Showtime went through the same thing many years ago with their "original series". It got to the point you couldn't just watch a new release movie anymore. Not sure where they are now as the only time I see the channel is in hotel rooms at a con, and I'm not at a con to watch TV.
So if I want to see a movie these days, it's committing to buying the DVD.