With the arrival of Geek Baby and some need for potential additional entertainment, David and I decided to try Netflix for a while (online only). We were able to do the one month free, and are paying for it now. One of the really great things about Netflix is being able to watch the original content (Daredevil, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, etc.); as well as access to a lot of shows that we have not been able to watch yet.
We both had Netflix early on and dropped it because we just were not using it that much. In getting it again there are some things that we are excited about as listed above, but it does not seem as good as we remember. One thing in particular that has been difficult is how much data it uses, but the other piece is that it just is not as user friendly as I remember. We are still trying to evaluate whether we want to keep Netflix or not, but can say that we are not thrilled with it.
Original Programming and Additional Access
The best part about Netflix is the access to original programming. Now we have only watched Daredevil so far, and it is amazing. There are other shows that we have heard good things about that we really want to watch, but haven’t yet. This is probably the best thing about the new Netflix because these shows are great and you do not have to wait week-to-week to watch. You get to choose how much to watch at a given time. This is great when you have a long day where you are not doing much else but watching a baby… It also can be great if you have to be on couch rest or something similar…
The other piece that is nice is that we do have access to additional movies and television shows. Although the movie access online has definitely felt limited compared to before, which is only one of the problems that we have experienced.
Not as User Friendly
One of the first things that I noticed quickly is that finding things to watch is not as user friendly as I remember. The most disappointing thing from my perspective is how hard it is to find new releases. Part of the reason that we wanted Netflix in the first place was to be able to watch new release movies and if it is difficult to find them that makes the usefulness of Netflix a lot less for us. In many ways if we know what we want we can search for it, but often times it does not seem to be available online. There have been some movies that we have found, but the selection has not been great.
Bandwidth Drain
The other problem that we are experiencing is the data usage for the online content. The difference between watching shows on Hulu and Netflix seems to be huge. Early on in the month I was watching West Wing and ended up watching multiple episodes a day. We ended up using about 100 gigabytes in a little over a week.
You can see where we realized what was up…
Unfortunately we, as many people do, have a data cap on our Internet. Now we do not have to pay any overage, but we either have to pay for more data or the speed drops to almost nothing – which is new as of this year. We have been trying to figure out if there is a way to drop how much Netflix uses, but if we can’t then it limits how much we can actually use Netflix in a month. This makes it difficult to justify the cost.
That’s a big spread in terms of usage!
We hope that with the “Low” setting we will be able to use Netflix. However, we also found that you have to set the playback setting for each user – so when David set it for his user, it did not change the settings for me watching West Wing.
To Keep or Not to Keep
We are still questioning whether to keep Netflix and we are trying to figure out if it is worth it. There are a ton of shows that we want to watch, although not as many movies that could be fun. At the same time if the bandwidth issue persists it makes it difficult to keep using the service when we can get twice the usage out of something such as Hulu, which we also have.
I think the big thing for me is mostly that I am disappointed in the online only version of Netflix and really do not want to pay the money for the disc delivery version. How about you – are you using Netflix? Any advice?
Comparative Geeks 
I have to be completely honest, I’ve never particularly found Netflix useful and usually dip in and out of it when I need to. I signed up recently purely to watch Daredevil, but haven’t watched anything since 🙂
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That is what we are finding. The original content looks good and we are loving Daredevil but really overall it is not that great.
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I agree. I was hoping that, considering the new shows they’re introducing, it might get better. We shall see! 😀
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I like the original shows, like you say, but mostly I use it to watch old favorites. They have a lot of shows I enjoy reruns of, like Gilmore Girls and Frasier, and it’s nice not having to purchase them on DVD. Otherwise, I totally see your points. Netflix is not for everyone, but I really like it overall.
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The original content is interesting, and I would love a service like Netflix, but not until they can get the blockbuster companies to agree to stream their movies, since I’m more of a movie watcher. Their catalog (digital only) is only ever updated with movies that are B-list or under, and it’s really disappointing.
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That is the biggest downside is the lack of blockbuster movies. Part of what we would like is the movies because we are not going to be able to go to the theatre as often with the new geek baby in our midst.
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