Visualizing Netflix

Shortly after graduating college, I subscribed to Netflix and, ever since, those little red envelopes have found their way into my mailbox. I believe that this represents the longest once-a-month relationship my credit card has had with anyone.

Netflix started out simply. In the beginning, Neflix offered only two choices: you could either pay $20.95 for 3 movies out at a time, or, you could rent movies from someone else. Since returning movies on time required a disproportionate amount of willpower, I signed up. And out of habit, satisfaction with the service, and a total lack of giving a shit, we've been happily tearing open red envelopes without thinking twice about it for nine years and counting. The service has improved substantially and it's now nearly three bucks cheaper. You can't complain about that.

In late April, we added a "Netflix-enabled" blu-ray player and our movie consumption habits stood ready to be reasonably altered forever: more movies, fewer discs. In this new future, movies would travel in tubes! But this new player and all of the streamy goodness it stood ready to deliver combined with Netflix's own proliferation of pricing plans presented me with a confused (albeit trivial) crossroads. I started to see old visions of unwatched discs sitting on the coffee table for months on end. Memories of traveling with discs from across the continent washed over my mind (I'll watch it on the next leg, I'd tell myself). Surely this three-at-a-time "deal" had been a ripoff! Or was it?

As I'm prone to do, I graphed. 

 

Since Netflix makes your entire rental and billing histories accessible, a dash of geekery can reveal quite a lot. First, I noticed that Netflix rentals can be pretty fucking pricey! But salvation came quickly. Volume creates value. Turn those discs around relatively quickly and you can beat the local video shop's price, all without ever getting off of your duff. All told, we've received 367 Netflix titles at an average price per rental of $5.65. Combining the inventory of titles, the overall availability of discs, and the unparalleled convenience of renting by mail and, for me: yeah, it's been worth it.

Long days means less time watching movies. I wonder if Netflix manages inventory differently in different seasons?

My life in movies. Click for big.

But you have to string it out over all the months to get into the good stuff. Some of it is obvious. It's easy to see that getting hooked by a TV show is a good way to merge your couch and your ass. But during the exercise I'm reminded that life has its own ebb and flow. The peaks and valleys in our rental history are quite full of stories. There's our apartment. And the wedding. Our first house. Trips. Our second house. Surgery. Grad school. Christmases. Strange that when life is plotted, I'm reminded that the most entertaining movie is my own.

So, I've reduced our plan down to two-at-a-time, and I've hardly watched anything since.