Netflix vs Blockbuster Online

I've been a happy customer of Blockbuster Online since 2005.  At the time, Blockbuster was a little cheaper than Netflix, and while I knew a lot of people hold grudges against Blockbuster for late fees they've incurred in the past, I'd never really had a bad experience with them.

A couple weeks ago I read an article that referenced the old PBS documentary about the rise of the PC called Triumph of the Nerds, which I had seen when I was in high school.  I went to see if Blockbuster had the documentary available, but it wasn't there.  Next I went to Netflix's site and lo and behold they had it.

Technically I am now a subscriber of both services, though I will soon be canceling Blockbuster. Since I feel like I understand both pretty well, I thought I'd offer some comparisons.

Blockbuster's killer feature is Total Access, where you can return DVDs you received by mail at a store and get a new DVD for free.  Consumers who live near a Blockbuster store and watch a lot of movies will find this to be a key differentiator.  I however, live about 10 minutes away from my nearest store and almost never go there.  If I really needed a movie or TV show immediately I have Apple TV.  The only other thing that is in Blockbuster's favor is their envelopes, which are slightly smaller than Netflix's and show the movie's title without having to actually pull the DVD out.

One thing that really irritates me about Blockbuster is the fact that if you put a DVD in your queue that is part of a series, you have to put the whole series in together. This was an issue when Becky and I started watching Dexter on Apple TV and I wanted to finish the season with DVDs (Apple TV charges $1.99 per episode). I had to get the first disk of the season before getting to the second disk, but we'd already watched all of the episodes on the first disk already. Blockbuster didn't always force you to do this, I'm not sure why they decided on this "feature."

Obviously Netflix appears to have the advantage of a deeper catalog (at least they had one title Blockbuster didn't).  Also Netflix's website is much friendlier and prettier than Blockbuster's. The search dialog auto-completes a la Google Suggest and the Ajax-iness works a lot better, at least with Safari and Firefox.

So bottom line I would recommend Netflix over Blockbuster for anyone who wouldn't take advantage of Total Access.  Netflix also has a video-on-demand service, but between the DVDs and Apple TV I see no use for it for me personally.

Abandoning the Pirate Ship

After installing Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 on my MacBook Pro, I no longer had any need for Photoshop CS, so I dragged it to AppZapper, and it's gone.  Usually this would not be an event worth noting, but it is significant in that the last piece of software that came to my laptop illegally has been purged.

When I first got my Powerbook, a friend of mine hooked me up with Photoshop, Office, and a few other applications.  At the time money was tight since Kyla was less than a year old and we were adjusting to living off of only my income; plus I had just dropped $2500 on a computer.

Since then I've taken higher paying jobs, so I've ignored the whispers of The Pirate Bay and ponied up my credit card to get new software.  I've long wanted to get a legit copy of Photoshop, but I wasn't going to shell out $700 for CS2 or CS3, and Elements has until this most recent version been PowerPC only.

Software piracy is kind of a funny crime.  Software companies will publicly state that it is the same as stealing, but I don't really buy that.  If you're pirating software that you wouldn't otherwise purchase, the software maker isn't really losing anything.  But if the application is actually worth the price to you, then piracy is harmful.

In may ways there are positive side-effects of software piracy on the developers.  I started off pirating several applications that I later purchased, so clearly that was beneficial.  Many people will pirate expensive programs at home, then get their employers to pay for copies for them to use at work.  How many copies of Photoshop has Adobe sold to people whose first experience with it was a copy that they got from a friend or downloaded off of a P2P network?

As long as what your doing eventually puts money into the proper hands, I think your conscience should rest easy.  Otherwise you're a free rider who's making the software cost more for the rest of us.

A Great Example of Why I Support Obama

Politicians are constantly making laws as a reaction to a situation that do little to alleviate that situation or make it worse.  Good examples include Sarbanes Oxley and the Patriot Act.

John McCain has proposed a gas tax holiday this summer and Hillary Clinton quickly voiced her support.  This makes sense because it makes them look like they're trying to do something for consumers while gas climbs to $4 a gallon.

There are several problems with this idea in my opinion.  First of all, higher gas prices have positive side effects like discouraging the burning of fossil fuels and making alternative energy sources more attractive.  Also, those gas taxes are used to fund certain public services, so either those budgets will have to be cut or governments will have to take on more debt.  The kicker is that much, if not most, of that tax revenue will go to oil companies, not consumers.

I'm pleased to see Barack Obama is going against the tide here, even though it will likely cost him political points.  He must know that this position will likely turn off rural and less affluent voters whom he is currently struggling with.

To be fair, John McCain also has a history of taking positions based on principles even when it might cost him votes, like when he referred to Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as "agents of intolerance" in his first presidential campaign (which he has since backpedaled on) and when he told Michigan that the labor jobs it had lost to globalization weren't coming back.

But this gas tax holiday is simply a bad idea, and this is generally the consistent view of economists.  Voters need more politicians who are willing to level with them and cut the pandering BS to move our country forward.