Don’t get me wrong, I love Netflix so much that I’ve given a subscription as a gift and seriously considered selling my modest collection of DVDs. For a monthly fee, I get a massive, growing library of DVDs and replacement of any degraded ones. I applaud similar services like Gamefly for video games and even Bag Borrow or Steal for handbags!

Rapid delivery to your mailbox is what makes Netflix more economical than going to the rental store. That’s what lets you watch a large number of movies in a month for a lower price than renting each one.

In their mid-price subscription, I get to have two movies out at any time. They fulfill movies out of a location just two hours from where I live. So when I mail one movie back, two days later the next one from my queue is in my mailbox. During the TV season, I decided to switch to their least-cost subscription, which was advertised as letting me have one movie out at any time. The sneaky part is, for this subscription, they fulfill movies out of a location far away from where I live. Hence, it takes five days for movies to go back and forth, and I can only watch a couple each month.