Let’s talk about Netflix DVDs. Remember them? Yeah, the thing everyone used before the invention of streaming services. You could save movies that were not on DVD yet or had already left the theaters to a special “saved” section. I mean, I personally never used this section as I can barely remember what I ate for breakfast, let alone the name of a movie that I wanted to watch 5 months ago.
Anyways, the options were wider back then, but I was limited to only four movies on my subscription plan at any given time. It’s like a buffet where you can only get four dishes, and let’s be honest, that’s not enough food to satisfy anyone. Have you ever been to a buffet where you couldn’t decide what to eat? It’s like Robin Williams in “Moscow on the Hudson”, which is actually on DVD.com, by the way.
Studies have shown that having too many options can actually be a bad thing, and I can attest to that. Whenever I visited friends who had every streaming service possible, I would feel like I was in a cheeseburger coma, unable to decide what to watch.
I started using Netflix DVDs 20 years ago when I was dating my now-husband, who was an early adopter of Netflix. He let me use his account like a spare dresser drawer, and I tentatively added movies to his queue. Soon enough, I was pushing my choices ahead of his like a bulldozer working through a construction site. He would ask me, “Did you delete my Buster Keaton?” while I pretended to clean out the fridge. Eventually, I took over the account and he moved on to more advanced technologies.
Like a “mom-and-pop” video store closing down or a waitress announcing that they ran out of the daily special, DVD.com started to decline as employees were laid off. The “coming soon” feature disappeared like magic, leaving us out in the cold. The customer service team responded to my emails with a “Yeah, sorry,” which is not a great comforting statement. It’s like trying to find vanilla in aisle 4 and there’s only half a shelf available. Gone were the dropdown menus of foreign movies and the assiduously updated “new releases” became a vague “new and popular.”
Last winter, my portable DVD player, which I used on my elliptical machine in the basement, conked out. I was excited to order a new one, thinking it would be better than the old one. But boy, was I wrong. Companies don’t have incentives to upgrade technology that is dying. My new DVD player has fewer amenities than the old one, and it barely mutters out movie dialogue, which is barely audible over the sound of the elliptical treads.
Serious News: nytimes
