It was almost a year ago that I signed up for Netflix when it launched in Canada. Overall I’ve been very happy with the service. I’ve certainly found it worth the eight bucks or so it costs every month to use. Has it completely replaced TV and movie watching in my house? Well yes and no.
I cancelled my cable TV subscription a month or two in advance of the launch of Netflix. At the time the decision was a combination of needing to trim all fat from my budget, and an urge to finally “cut the cord” and redirect my TV time to other things. I wouldn’t have even considered myself a big TV watcher, but no one ever does. We all say that we only follow a few shows, but honestly I think we’ve all found ourselves leaving the TV on at the end of one of those ‘few shows’, aimlessly flicking between channels before we settle on that re-run of CSI that we’ve already seen twice. You know you’ve been there.
So really, I didn’t want Netflix to replace my TV and movie watching. I was trying to evolve away from my screen dependancies (as little as I perceived them). Again, overall I think it’s been a success. Every once in a while I’ll find a show I really like and I’ll watch an episode every night until I’ve exhausted all the available seasons, but half an hour every night of commercial-free tube time compared to two hours or more of mindless surfing is definitely an improvement.
My parents have also recently made the decision to cut the cord and have signed up for Netflix as an alternative with much the same hopes that I did a year ago. That said, the transition is harder for them. You see, the Netflix system isn’t pefect, especially for generations other than my own. The first barrier to entry is accessibility.
Just to get Netflix to work you need one of the following:
- A computer or laptop, running Windows and the required (free) software, connected to the internet at acceptable speeds, and with enough horsepower to play the video stream.
- A modern game console (Wii, XBox360, or PS3), connected to the internet, with the required addons/apps/plugins. Note that if you want to watch Netflix through the XBox360 you also have to have an XBox live account – at an extra monthly cost which in my opinion is a totally unneccessary money grab.
- A boxee box or similar “media server” product, connected to the internet.
The first thing all of these options have is that they COST MONEY – like hundreds of dollars. The other key factor is the complexity of setting up the device and service. This is money and effort that most people my age have already expended – they already own a computer or a game console and have a decent high-speed internet connection. People like me find the adoption of Netflix very easy. Many people outside of my limited demographic, however, do not have the equipment or the know-how to set up a system that works for them.
Let’s look back at my parents as an example. I feel they reflect the average baby-boomer couple pretty accurately. Mom and dad have a pretty decent laptop, purchased in the last few years. They also have high-speed internet. Thus they have the equipment needed to watch TV and movies on Netflix. But they’re still not entirely satisfied. Why? Well duh, what couple wants to snuggle up to a laptop monitor to watch a show?!?! So the situation is this: for my parents, Netflix is now more uncomfortable to use than conventional TV or DVDs, exactly opposite the experience Netflix is trying to achieve.
I’m currently looking for ways to help my parents set up a system or method for watching Netflix on the TV that is as affordable and easy-to-use as possible. Not every Netflix user faced with a similar dissatifaction will have the resources to improve their experience.
Hell even I have my gripes with Netflix. At some point this summer our family PC (running Windows) and our TV and game consoles were all packed up to allow for renovations. For a month or two my daughter and I were left with just our netbooks and internet access for entertainment (spare me the comments about first-world problems). The problem is that our netbooks run Linux instead of Windows, and Netflix doesn’t work with a non-Windows operating sytem. I’m sure it’s a problem only .0001% of Netflix users will ever face, but that doesn’t make it any less of a hindrance to wider adoption.
And Netflix wants wider adoption. If you take a look at this article from the Globe and Mail you can see that despite having almost a million subscribers in Canada, Netflix has still lost about $10-million in the year it’s been offering service in Canada.
I think overall if Netflix wants to continue to grow their subscriber base in Canada it’s going to have to offer a service that isn’t just cheaper than a cable TV subscription, but also just as easy to use. And that’s just looking at the situation from a wide perspective. There are a lot of little improvements and tweaks that the geek in me can imagine for the Netflix service that would start making it a service that offered much more than cable TV could ever dream of.
In part two of this topic I’m going to talk about a few things I’m doing to make my personal Netflix experience better, and talk about some of the ideas that could really make Netflix the ultra-rich media provider it needs to be to get in the black here in Canada.