In praise of Netflix

Tyler Cowan at Marginal Revolutions has an entry with some good things to say about Netflix.

I started a membership with Netflix this January and I have been quite impressed myself with this service.

Movies are shipped quickly and you receive emails when the movies are shipped to you and when Netflix has received them back. The only slowdowns I've seen are during postal holidays, which are not Netflix's fault.

I'm impressed with the selection, which includes many movies, and especially TV series sets of DVDs (such and the X-Files, 24, Poirot, etc) that many video stores simply don't carry,

For $19.95 per month plus tax, you can have three DVDs out at any one time. Given the transit time for travel of the DVDs to and from Netflix is about a week, if you watch the movie on the night you receive it, you can get on average three movies per week, or 12 movies a month for a cost of about $1.60 per movie, which beats most video stores for cost, especailly for the movies that are increasingly inappropriately labelled "new releases" (how does a video store get away with calling a movie that has been out on video for over six months a new release?).

I have been accused of maximizing by my wife as she is amused when i immediately watch a movie and then return it the following day. What can I say, except that I like to maximize my movie watching potential.