5. Quality Of Merchandise
Once the Blockbuster that I used to work at closed, my parents opted for Netflix. They paid their monthly fee and got their movies and life was great. Until they realized that one out of every four movies they received were either scratched beyond repair, the wrong movie entirely, or physically broken in half. I'm not sure how Netflix distribution operates, but letting a snapped disc be sent on to a customer is unacceptable, at best. Considering it takes a few days for the movie to arrive, a few days for Netflix to get it back, and then another few days to get a new copy, that's a week (give or take a day or two) that you've paid for to watch movies, but got little more than a headache. Blockbuster? Employees checked every DVD returned to the store before checking it in, making sure it wasn't scratched or broken, making sure it was the right movie, etc. They cleaned discs before putting them up for sale. If you rented or purchased a previously viewed movie from them and it didn't work, you could bring it in and exchange it at any store and walk out with a new copy. Within minutes. Not Netflix. While there are customers who have never had a problem with Netflix in-home movie rentals, there are tons more who have suffered through the experiences of getting excited to watch the movie they waited four days for and realizing that they couldn't because it was in pieces in the envelope it arrived in. So frustrating. Made entirely more frustrating by the fact that you deal with the Netflix computers, who don't understand frustration.