After entering, the customer is told:"You might find up to 10 extra red envelopes in your mailbox after September 29th. You won't know if any are headed your way until they arrive. Keep an eye out and happy viewing!":"We are not charging for any unreturned discs after 9/29. Please enjoy your final shipments for as long as you like!"
Is it a sad end to what was once Netflix's entire business model? For this writer, who long ago moved to Blu-ray and doesn't even buyanymore, it's a bizarre state of affairs that a small group of people have clung to the service.
The shortcoming of Netflix as a streaming service, however, is that there is so rarely anything you actually want to watch on it, algorithms be damned. Tapping in the name of a specific film is usually met with titles that are vaguely in the same ballpark, but resolutely not what you were hoping for.
The irony is that Netflix's DVD hoard has far more and better films in stock than its mainstream incarnation ever will, and very soon it will be gone. ®