All my friends know, I don’t shop on Amazon for every day things, the only things I buy on there are books, it’s the only place independent authors have a chance to sell their work (I was in publishing my whole career) and the occasional film, I do have Amazon Prime connected to my smart TV, a somewhat recent acquisition in the last couple of years when my old TV broke and I was forced to swap over to a new more modern and much more expensive digital system.
My old DVD player never got hooked up to the new TV, I am not a technical expert, someone else set up the TV and told me at the time, I no longer needed my DVD player and my extensive movie collection. I had everything I needed at my fingertips available for streaming, every movie ever made, I was assured. It sounded fantastic. As an extensive collector already I was excited to explore all the films I’d never seen, planned to watch and never got around to or revisit some I’d never actually purchased on DVD.
And for a while I enjoyed my new digital library, most films were free, just paying here and there for a new release which I thought was fair enough.
Fast forward two years and 90% of the films available to download are pay per view, even old black and whites, a back catalogue I’ve got sitting in my DVD library I am expected to pay £5 a watch. Not only that, from paying for the film, I am expected to watch it within 48 hours, so if I change my mind or something unexpected comes up I’ve lost my chance to see it.
I spend more time now trying to find a film to watch, scrolling through the catalogue to find something I like the look of than ever. The system is geared to taking my money not showing me a free to watch film I am actually interested in, something well within the capabilities of the business if service was at the heart of what they do. I pay a subscription but what exactly do I get for that?
Before I just used to scan my shelves, everything neatly catalogued to see what I fancied, it took less than a couple of minutes to decide what I was in the mood for from box sets to Hollywood classics.
During the holidays when the world stops for a week or two and I lock the door, only stepping outside to walk the dog and enjoy the countryside, books and movies I devour.
Thinking about it this year, I have decided it’s time to figure out how I go back to my old ways and reconnect my old working DVD player to enjoy over a thousand films collected over 30 years for free.
Technology and progress are great but I see what convenience is doing. Making the likes of Amazon bosses richer all while slowly draining our purses £5.00 at a time, the price we pay to watch a film we’ve already purchased the right to watch over and over again on DVD. I wouldn’t mind so much if the company rewarded their legions of loyal staff with great careers and fantastic salary packages, which logically would stop any need to advertise, their staff would be the testament to a great company we’d all want to support.
You may think it’s only £5.00 but when you watch as many films as I do, all those £5.00 add up, so this year I am going back in time, and figuring out how I plug my old DVD player back into to my new digital television.
Paying through the nose over and over again doesn’t make sense to me. If I pay an annual subscription why must I pay for the catalogue as well. I wouldn’t mind so much if they separated out the paid films from the free ones, and you could just browse the small free offering but you can’t even do that.