Comcast vs. Netflix, Trip Report

[Mike Jett]

All,

I have read on several occasions that many of you feel outraged on the price of your Cable + Internet bill. Many of you have bills upward of $150. Mine last month was about $180, mostly because i was paying my last installment of my NHL Center Ice package.

I could not help but feel horrible about throwing this much into service that i usually ignore to browse OOT instead....for the endless entertainment value. I decided to do something about it.

I'd like to consider myself a n00bie film enthusiast. To elaborate, i havent seen a whole bunch of obscure films and i am not a name dropper, but i am heading to the colorado film school soon and have obviously, like almost anyone else in OOT it seems, seen hundreds or thousands of movies.

To combine these facts, i decided to make an exchange. I dropped the stupid package including things i never watch like Discovery Home, etc, and replaced it with a Netflix subscription.

This started with a call to Comcast to see exactly what package i had(likely many of you, like me, have no [censored] clue) and what i could do to downgrade. After dealing with an ESL service specialist for about 20 minutes, I moved to Standard Cable with a $1/month subscription to keep my cable box and keep things digital.

Including the internet(which, after much persuasion, i still cannot downgrade my price on [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]) my bill =

Before: $122.94
After: $92.64

A $30 difference.

After a stroll over to Netflix.com, i'll be getting 5 movies at a time for $29.99/month(notice the $0 change in my monthly expenses) starting March 17th, after my 2 week free trial of 3 videos at a time.

If any of you have not made this jump, and are wasting money on [censored] you dont use, i'd recommend following in my footsteps. I can only kick myself for not doing this earlier.

For all of the few minutes i've had Netflix, i added these to my queue:

The Godfather I & II.
Naked.
Citizen Kane.
Taxi Driver.
Sopranos, Season 1.

Between IMDB and OOT, I doubt i'll have any trouble adding hours of entertainment to my list anytime soon.

[img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[MrTrik]

I'm a big fan of HBO series. Right now it's Sopranos, Deadwood, and hopefully Rome this summer. None of these are playing right now, but when they do I'll be watching. Plus I do watch some of the extended cable stuff sometimes. So I doubt dropping to standard package would work well for me. But I constantly look at that cable bill and get pissed off at what I'm paying.

I use DSL for internet so it has nothing to do with Comcast. But I did research a dish solution to replace Comcast entirely, but concluded I wouldn't save much or any money going that route. It sucks.

I have been doing the Blockbuster in store plan and decided I'm dropping that this month and moving to netflix. I'll miss being able to see movies right when they come out on DVD, but what the heck, I'm not happy with Blockbuster for movies.

I wish I could watch movies only on HBO and Showtime, but it doesn't seem like there is ever any movies on them I want to watch unless there is a made for HBO movie out ... and I'm a big fan of those as well. Usually they are well done.

[Mike Jett]

shameless bump.

[eggzz]

Geez I didn't even know they had a plan that offered more than 3 videos out at one time. I joined 6 weeks ago and just took the one out at a time, unlimited per month for ten bucks. I think its fantastic. I sent one in on a Monday, and got a replacement Thursday. The way I figure though, I'll probably average 4-5 per month, and that is wayyy better than trudging out to Blockbuster.

With Netflix, I get to research my picks at my leisure, and thats a pretty cool deal.

With your subscription of having 5 out at a time, don't you think you'll have videos just lying around too often? I would think the 3 plan would be just plenty, I mean you are planning on doing something else in your ever waking moments besides watching Netflix flix right?!

At any rate, Neflix = goot. I agree

[Mike Jett]

[ QUOTE ]

With your subscription of having 5 out at a time, don't you think you'll have videos just lying around too often? I would think the 3 plan would be just plenty, I mean you are planning on doing something else in your ever waking moments besides watching Netflix flix right?!


[/ QUOTE ]

You send one on Monday, get a replacement on Thursday.

I send one or a couple back everyday, and get new ones more often(except sundays, because they wont ship Saturday).

You might have videos laying around, if you're only watching 5 a month.

I could watch 5 movies in a week, writing reviews for each on top of that, very easily.

[eggzz]

What I'd really like to know more about is their business plan. I mean how much does it cost them for postage, each way? I'm paying 10 bucks a month. If I only get 1 video each week, they are paying to ship eight packages to me for my ten bucks. They must be getting some great bulk delivery deals from the US Postal Service. I'd just love to know what their margins are on these shipments.

[FlawedChip]

Apparently it's small enough to "throttle" their frequently-renting customers.

Netflix "Throttling" Frequent Renters

I subscribe to Netflix and love the service...I guess I just don't rent enough to have them slow down my rentals.

[Max Weinberg]

[ QUOTE ]
Apparently it's small enough to "throttle" their frequently-renting customers.

Netflix "Throttling" Frequent Renters

I subscribe to Netflix and love the service...I guess I just don't rent enough to have them slow down my rentals.

[/ QUOTE ]
They throttle me sometimes, and it's annoying as hell.

But what are you going to do? It's $10 for like 8 DVDs a month.