Cancelling Netflix
Back in January, I posted about how excited I was to sign up for our Netflix account. I was convinced that we were going to replace our monthly Sky subscription with a Netflix subscription instead, and save a fortune in the process. Over on Michele Neylon’s site today, a post about Netflix reminded me that I hadn’t yet given an update here about our experiences.
So how did we get on? Well for the first month or so, we raved about the service. We watched a few movies, but we mostly took advantage of the cartoons and kids’ programming. Little Man took a shine to Wonder Pets, and I have no idea how many times we saw the available episodes. Enough that I can no longer hear the question “What’s going to work?” without singing “Teeeeeamwork” in response!
During the “honeymoon” phase, we phoned Sky to cancel our subscription with them, but there was a problem with their system and they asked us to phone back the following day. I don’t know if there really was a problem or if they were bluffing and realised that we were too lazy to phone back… If they were bluffing – well played! It was another month before we gave it another thought. But by that time, the novelty of Netflix had begun to wear off. So we decided to wait a month and then decide between the two.
It came down to finances, so we decided to take the plunge and cancel Sky for once and for all. We were annoyed with them anyway, because we wanted a HD box and they said that the HD box offer was for new customers only. Charlie phoned them to cancel and 15 minutes later, we had a new Sky subscription, but a free HD box and a couple of other enticements thrown in.
And that was the end of the Netflix subscription. We can’t justify keeping both of them. So this round goes to Sky I guess, and we’ll reassess in 12 months when this contract runs out. I may reopen my Netflix account in about six months time to see if the selection has improved. But for now, I don’t think we’ll miss it I’m afraid.
It’s the opposite in our house, the cable is gone next month because we never watch it but Netflix is staying, we get great value for money from it.
From what I’ve read online Julie, I think you have a much better selection than we do. Hopefully it will improve in time and we can go back to it because it’s certainly a lot less expensive than Sky!
We do now but it took time for the content to build up. Even in the first year though when the library was much smaller we always found a few things we wanted to watch every month that made it worth while.
I think as far as selection goes it’s something like
US > Canada > everyone else.
Even here in Canada we only get a third (according to link below) of the amount of content that the US gets. So can’t imagine what it’s like in Ireland.
Still though for the price of 1 pint it’s worth having. As far as I know you can put your subscription on hold instead of cancelling it. Not sure exactly how that works though.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/12/04/netflix-canada-quality-service-us_n_1127840.html
If we were watching one thing a week on it, I could justify the price of it Anthony, but when we had visitors last weekend we spent ages looking for a movie to watch on Netflix, and then eventually we rented something on Apple TV instead.
Lisa, we were so excited too when we heard Netflix was finally launching here. My relatives in the US have had it for years, both the DVD service and the streaming service. We were members of the LidlMovies service for a while and it was okay, but I cancelled it when it was obvious we weren’t getting our money’s worth from the subscription. When Netflix launched, I was very surprised at the poor offerings – I was hoping for a far better movie and television selection. What they have available is not great at all. So we’re sticking with UPC for the time being, supplemented by Octonauts episodes on the iPhone!
We’ll definitely check back again in a few months to see if it improves Sara. For now, we just don’t get enough use from the selection that’s there.
I hate how duplicitous these companies can be when you try to cancel things. My partner fielded a call from Virgin Media yesterday which really angered him. They were very sneaky about offering something ostensibly for free but with other costs deftly hidden. We have VM and Netflix and really like them both. We’ve had NF for about six weeks and watch it daily. It’s great value in my opinion. I definitely recommend it.
We watched Netflix a lot in the first couple of months Jenmum, but in the past month, I don’t think we’ve watched it at all. I think it all depends on what you watch.
Oh and you can get the US version in the UK too, just a few simple steps to take which my partner found online. This has widened our selection and probably adds to our contentedness!
Ha! Sky definitely meant to do that!! We cancelled Skya few months ago…it went something like this…email to cancel, email back saying we had to ring as we’re in Ireland! Um why does Ireland’s email not work??? How were you able to reply then?! So then same as you guys, took us another while to think of ringing, finally did & instead of canceling outright, we were sent a whole load of ‘are you sure’ type of letters in the post! Which we had to reply to to actually cancel it!! Even though we’d already done what they asked!! Then came the offers, discount after discount after discount!! Eventually it was nearly going to be free, I think they may have even offered us free for a year with some extras!! But we still didn’t want it so…finally, finally, finally, they cancelled it. What an ordeal!! Clever bunch they are! And ‘bunch’ is not the first term that came to mind there!!
Áine
It’s amazing what they offer when you insist that you’re cancelling Aine!
Did you have to sign up to a HD package to get the free HD box? My mum did that a few weeks ago, but I think is now paying an extra €15 or so a month for a HD package which she has to commit to for 12 months. I feel they may have duped a 67 year old who doesn’t know what HD is (her skybox did need replacing)
I skyplussed several WonderPets at 3am last night – I use the a-z search a lot when getting kids shows for D as a lot of the older ones are on at mad times (esp Yo Gabba Gabba)
No we didn’t Jill. We made sure that we weren’t signing up for anything extra, so we don’t have any HD channels. We just wanted the bigger hard drive, and the improved interface, but we have no real interest in paying extra for HD channels.
Interesting. We have had Netflix for a month and a half (first month was free) and agree the selection is definitely not brilliant, but it is great for the kids. Only trouble is, we don’t have any means for getting it on the TV, only on the computers.
I think, if we did have a way to get it on the TV, we’d probably cancel Sky, because we really don’t use it very much. We tend to watch boxsets, rather than actual TV, and there are enough episodes of shows I’d kind of like to watch on Netflix to make it worth while, I think. The movie selection isn’t fantastic, but there are things I want to watch. So, yes, once we get an XBox, I guess, Sky will go.
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Or you could get Apple TV and watch it through that? Or just get a connection from the computer to the TV? (Of course depending on the computer setup that might not be possible. )
Great post – I was wondering whether or not I should take the plunge and get netflix, but I think I’ll look into getting sky movies instead xx
I don’t know Scarlett! We had Sky movies for a while too and ended up canceling it because we could never find anything to watch.
i am having problums with my netflix a lot of nights after 10 pm.when i want to see a film it dosent show them, the system is just not loding,
i will give netflix another month, if this contuines then i will leave netflex.
Are the loading problems caused by Netflix or your Internet connection though? Our net can be very bad from 8-10pm. Contention issues I guess.