Netflix: Run Fast and Stay Focused

A year ago, my household decided to eliminate cable television.

There were several reasons for this: One, if we kept it, we would feel obligated to watch it or else we would feel like we were wasting money. Two, eliminating it would remove clutter and unnecessary noise, allowing us to read more. Three, although we would miss access to certain channels, we wouldn’t miss 95%+ of them. Four, we decided to explore experiencing life more. TV is an opiate. It’s influence needed to be reduced. Five, much of what is on -- news, dark-themed shows, political talking heads, etcetera -- has negative psychological effects and little positive return. And six, it would save us some money.

It wasn’t easy. Although we can obviously still get the local channels, we miss the plethora of college football on Saturdays and the total baseball coverage during the summer. Luckily, we have some great sports bars within walking distance of our house and not having cable creates a great excuse to visit them. (Of course, that eliminates cost savings as one of our goals.)

The elimination of cable doesn’t mean we gave up on TV as an entertainment medium. With Internet, we still have access to things like Hulu and programing direct from networks’ sites. We also have Netflix.

Oh, the beauty of Netflix. Although they claim to be a secondary source for entertainment, we are finding they have become our primary source. While we constantly have the dvd-by-mail thing going on, we have found there is more than enough instant access to streaming content, all for the same nine dollar a month fee.

They are big and are only getting bigger. Check out this incredible breakdown of how Netflix sees their business model evolving. They have totally wiped out Blockbuster -- and, contrary to their claim of not wanting to become the primary source provider -- may end up being just that for people like us who don’t feel the need to be plugged into the ‘great opiate’.

At some point, we found it redundant to have cell phones AND a home phone. The home phone went away. In the same way, we have now accidentally stumbled upon the unnecessary duplication of our entertainment suppliers. By avoiding the pay-per-view model and ad supported content, we have discovered Netflix’s simple low-cost strategy fits our needs just fine.

Bye-bye cable, hello Netflix.