Word: netflixing
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...love Netflix, the online rental service that delivers movies and TV shows to your mailbox. Since its start in 1999, the company has sent more than 2 billion discs to its 10.6 million subscribers, who return them in the familiar red envelopes for more titles. (Think of Amazon.com but as a DVD-lending library instead of a bookstore.) Wall Street generally likes Netflix, whose Nasdaq stock price has more than doubled since last fall, and so does the public; the company has the No. 1 customer-satisfaction rating among online retailers. (Richard Corliss on how to improve the DVD giant...
...professional (and obsessive) movie watcher, I find Netflix a helpful reference source for my never-ending entertainment education. (B-movie serials! BBC miniseries! Bollywood musicals!) But I have misgivings about the service's usefulness, especially compared with that of a real, well-stocked video store, and about the possibly harmful effect that Netflix and other online retail outfits may have on American society...
...question, Netflix serves a need. It's a virtual video store with more than 100,000 titles - movies and TV shows. And it's cheap: for the four-at-a-time price of $23.99, you could conceivably see about 50 videos a month - if you devoted your life to the task. In a deep recession, Netflix has also taught film fans that renting a movie or TV series not only is way less expensive than buying but also takes up no shelf space when you move from your foreclosed home into your parents' basement. That could be one reason...
...Netflix ad has one contented couple purring, "We don't miss the video store at all." Well, I do. Specifically, I miss Kim's Video, a lower-Manhattan movie-rental landmark that housed 55,000 DVDs and cassettes of the vastest and most eccentric variety - until it closed early this year and shipped the whole stash to Sicily. Admittedly, Kim's was one of the gems, but cities large and small used to have video stores with all manner of movies that you could see right away. With Netflix, you surrender those basic American rights: impulse choice and instant gratification...
Wait Time: Eternity Put movies in your rental queue and most will be marked "Now" for immediate rental. Some, however, will be designated "Short Wait" or "Very Long Wait." That often applies to old films that have a sudden surge in popularity and of which Netflix has only a few copies. (Did you want to compare the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three with this summer's remake? At Netflix, you could have waited five weeks to see the 1974 film.) Other titles, which may have vanished from the stockroom, are called "Unavailable"; the wait time for those...