Last week Netflix started offering service (and I use that word in its most lose sense in this case) in The Netherlands. Since the first month is a free trial, I was excited to try it. It’s been less than a week and as soon as I finish watching Hemlock Grove, which will be some time this week, I’m canceling this nonsense.
The thing is, I really want to pay some money to stream quality content. Downloading stuff in The Netherlands is not illegal (it’s illegal to host it for others to download from you but not for a user to get the content and watch it at home; we even pay a tax that goes to media production because of this gray area copyright set up). However, for years, I couldn’t afford to pay for anything anywhere (movie tickets, concerts, dvd purchases, etc). Nowadays, I can afford eight bucks a month (which is how much Netflix costs) and I’d be very happy to do so. However, I won’t be taken for a fool by a dumbass corporation that couldn’t close their deals to stream properly and I am left with a half assed selection that is less than a quarter of what’s available in North America. Even worse, I won’t put up with bullshit like Dutch only subtitles in foreign language productions (try watching a Danish series; you only have one selection of subtitles in Dutch). Every single thing I’ve searched for has been unavailable, even though I’ve seen those same titles widely referenced on the internet as available in the US. To make matters even more aggravating, this is what they suggest when something you want is not there:
Now, of course, I don’t consider this a huge “problem” in my life. This is not a woe is me situation where I think I deserve better titles and better service. It’s just that I hate the assumption that we are dumb consumers that will pay for anything without critical evaluation. I hate that a business works under the assumption that we will part with our money for an inferior product than what they offer elsewhere for the same amount of money. In this day and age when all we have to do is check on the internet to see what users in other countries paying the same $$ get, it’s unforgivable that they would offer a mangled service like this and hope that we, uninformed plebes would take it. Netflix Netherlands is a big fail and their failure rests on two rather offensive mistakes. The first one is not having done their homework properly before going live to secure rights to stream a selection that, at least, can compete with their American counterpart. The second mistake is the assumption that consumers will be happy paying 96 euros per year to watch the equivalent of 1 Euro ex rental DVDs (which I can get 96 of from the lone standing rental place near where I live).
Netflix should have done better than treat us as if we were still living in pre internet days. After all, they should realize that their service would not even be possible if it wasn’t for the internet to begin with.
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