Goodbye, Netflix

When it came time for me to renew Netflix this month, I finally cancelled instead. Other than a few short stints, I have had Netflix since they were the mail-order DVD rental company which was trying to kill off Blockbuster. Ironically, I cancel right as something seems to be going on with Blocbuster, as their website and socials popped back to life a little while ago. Why did I finally cancel my account after all this time? Because Netflix has changed. They used to be pretty prograssive, with a "Sharing is Caring" type of attitude towards password sharing. When they started changing this and piloting bleeding their customers of every cent we'd pay, I started looking at other options. My wife and I were separated when Netflix started their trials, and we have Netflix mostly for the kids. Had we need wound up back all under one roof, and the kids were still splitting time between the two locations, we probably would have been nailed by an extra charge if I were too lazy to implement the most trivial solution. I already have a server running at home. I could have used a spare Raspberry Pi to build a VPN gateway from her network to mine, thus, as far as Netflix is concerned, all the activity from my account would have been coming from one location, thus avoiding the extra fee. But whether I could have used technology to avoid the fee or not, and despite me not having to resort to it, the fact of the matter is that Netflix has let corporate greed of short-term profits blind them to the long-term profits of customer loyalty. I cancelled my account as soon as they announced the extra fee was almost to the US. I want them to see that their attempt at sucking the last cent they can from me has backfired. As long as they continue this lunacy, I will remain an ex-customer. I really hope that Blockbuster is developing a direct competitor to Netflix. I'm in, if so ;) (Also, Netflix was doomed the moment compatition caused the streaming market to fragment. No one is going to pay more for all the streaming services than they were for cable, for less convenience, in the long term. Netflix will not be the first nor last casualty of the streaming wars.)