Why I Love Netflix as a Service

Netflix as a service

Do you use Netflix? It’s great isn't it. It has a wide variety of movies and TV shows on offer and has recently been upping its game by releasing a lot of its own content. This is why I love Netflix as a service.

What is Netflix?

For those of you who don't know, Netflix is an online movie and TV show streaming web service. Netflix was started in 1997 as an online DVD rental program. It has since expanded into its current state of video-on-demand and producing its own original content like Bright and House of Cards. The company correctly assessed the end of DVDs and perhaps even all physical media in the entertainment industry. Blue-rays still have their place, but as people's internet speeds continue to increase, this could soon also be replaced by video-on-demand services as well.

Why I Love Netflix as a Service

As a person of the internet, I hated having to watch TV to view my movies and TV shows. I have to this day never paid for a cable package. I don't know if I count as a cable cutter, since I never had cable, but that's another thing all together. When I lived in Scotland, I did have access to BBC iPlayer and similar sorts of on demand services from cable companies. The problem was that its content was lacking in my opinion. While I love British comedy shows and shows like Doctor Who and the like, a lot of BBC content is very heavily based on genres of drama that I didn't always find interesting. It was also difficult to watch anything that wasn't BBC produced.

Netflix

When Netflix was first released in the UK, I was using Amazon's LoveFilm (which became the Amazon Video that is on offer today). It had a similar model to LoveFilm with DVDs I believe but had more video-on-demand and that's what I signed up for. I was immediately flooded with more content to watch. The great thing about shows released on Netflix is that episodes were not time gated like they are for traditional cable media and are released in bulk of whole seasons allowing me to watch the shows at my own pace. If I felt like watching an entire season in one night, I could if I wanted to. In the past, the shows were not up to date at all, releasing content that was sometimes years old, but it still offered a large variety of shows and films.

Today, I've been a member of Netflix for a few years now and while there are times that I stop my subscription for HBO Now to watch shows like Game of Thrones and Westworld, I've consistently come back to Netflix. It has always had the widest variety of content and now that Netflix as expanded its capacity to create its own content, you'll be able to watch films and shows that you can't find anywhere else.

Netflix Original Content

Here's a list of Netflix Originals that I've enjoyed. They're in no order.

Black Mirror - While not actually originally made by Netflix, the latest season has been produced by Netflix and with that came higher production value. Black mirror is an anthology that examines possible political and technological advancements and their consequences. Every episode has different characters that focus on a specific theme.
Jessica Jones - With Jessica Jones, it has allowed Marvel to expand the Marvel Cinematic Universe into the TV show space. Other shows produced by Netflix include Iron Fists, Luke Cage, Dare Devil and The Defenders. The show follows Jessica Jones, who is one of the darker characters in the MCU, and the detective agency that she works at after an accident that ended her career as a super hero.
Altered Carbon - This show is one of my favorite shows from the past year. It's about a dystopian future where people can put their consciousness into other bodies effectively allowing them to live forever. Since this technology is extremely complicated and expensive, it essentially allows the rich to rule the world increasing the gap between the rich and poor and since there are more limited consequences to death, it explores how the world would be if a group of people were able to live forever. If you're a fan of dystopian futures and Sci-Fi, give this show a watch.

Altered Carbon

A Series of Unfortunate Events - I grew up reading the first few of these books and continued to read them once I became an adult. When the original movie came out, I was disappointed that they only made the one. I thought it was a fun movie and was deserving of seeing the story continued, but apparently, I was in the minority in this thinking. This show is a reboot that takes its time telling the story of the books and its morose subject, following the Baudelaire orphans being relentlessly being pursued by Count Olaf.

These are just four shows that I enjoyed, but there are many many more from comedy stand ups to movies. Other shows that I enjoyed are Stranger Things and Dark. I did also enjoy a movie released over the Christmas holidays called Bright, a fantasy movie set in our modern world where Orcs, Elves and Fairies are among us. While I liked the idea of the film, it had a few problems that I may write my thoughts about in the future. They've already said they're going to continue the story and I'm glad that they're giving the idea a second chance.

Conclusion

It will be a long time before movie streaming and video-on-demand will be available on the blockchain and in a decentralized manner for big budget programs. While there are services here on Steem such as DTube and DLive, these are more for user created videos and not movie and TV shows. There may come a time when these sorts of services will become available, but until then we have Netflix.

I love Netflix and the shows on offer that I can watch whenever I want at my own pace. There are many similar services such as HBO Now and Amazon Video, but these serve different niches as opposed to offering as wide variety of content like Netflix has.

Thanks for Reading

Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts about Netflix and if you use the service in the comments below. If you want to see any more of my future content be sure to hit that Follow Button. I try to write something every day and I usually write about video games, movies and my journey through Steemit.

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