The reason I finally cancelled Netflix.

A few days ago, I made the decision to cancel Netflix, before my account renewed on the 12th … meaning I now have to mail my two remaining movies back within the next 7 days and then, receive no more.

Why would I do this?

The main reason is: movie fatigue. I’m generally pretty busy, and do a lot of different things at once. Whenever Netflix gets setup for me, I’m always excited to start watching the movies. Yet, when the same amount of movies appear on a regular basis, I find myself less excited about finishing them and generally postpone watching.

This also coincides with movies that I’m less excited about watching appearing lower in my queue. After I watch the movies that I really want to see, I wait longer to watch the others. Sometimes for weeks at a time.

Overall, the service is still great, but it’s just not a good value unless you’re constantly refreshing and cleaning your queue of discs you don’t actually want to watch. There are shipping delays, and yet … the streaming service doesn’t have most of the material I’d want to watch in the first place. It’s a lose-lose for me, especially at a fixed monthly-fee.

Why now? When Netflix started, there were no streaming services available. In the future, I’m looking forward to renting movies on iTunes or Amazon for less, and when I actually want them.

eBay vs. Amazon Trade-in: Duel!

So, recently I traded a few things into GameStop (mostly old cables and accessories) and used the rewards to buy L.A. Noire for PlayStation 3, which was just under $40 USD and a phenomenal value to the casual gamer. I applaud both Rockstar and Bondi for this title.

I’d planned on trading it into Amazon Trade-In for $15 (they buy used books and video games), but figured I’d try my luck at eBay, one last time. I’d posted about eBay’s new, outrageous fee-struture (~9%) before, and vowed to not use the service anymore unless absolutely necessary. — But, after all, the game was selling for at least $20 on eBay! My copy ended up selling for $21, plus $4 shipping and handling. Great, right?

Well, it didn’t actually end up being much better. Between all of the extra time I had to spend creating my listing, photographing the item, walking to the post office and mailing/addressing the package, chance of a buyer not paying or filing a claim, (etc.) … I only netted an extra $2 from a $21 sale versus a $15 sale. 

How is this possible? Amazon pays shipping and insures the package for $100, because all UPS shipments are automatically insured for that much. You print a label, and all you need otherwise is an old Amazon box, and some tape.

By comparison, the eBay auction ended up like this: $21 sale price + $4 shipping = $25.00 net income, - $1.03 in PayPal fees, - $2.25 in eBay Fees, - $2.22 in Shipping (USPS, Slowest speed), - $0.80 Delivery confirmation (required), - $1.80 Insurance (optional, but recommended) … = $16.90 total.

So, after all the extra hassle, I made an extra $2 using eBay. eBay/PayPal made $3, or so. And, instead of the package getting to Amazon next day, it’ll get to the buyer in just under a week. — The choice is yours. Good luck, all! I hope you’ll consider the new fees before selling.

Things that have made my life easier lately.

Mandatory post. Keeping you “posted”.

• Zipcar (Use this link for $50 in free driving-credit)
  Having owned two or more cars at a time for the past few years (since I can’t drive my Volkswagen R32 in the winter due to all of the modified components on the motor) … Zipcar has been true blessing. Rent cars for as little as $7/per-hour via a toll-free number, text message, their website, or their iPhone application. It’s awesome. That price even includes free gas, insurance, and 180-miles of driving! So, as long as you don’t have a bad driving record, you can join instantly and save a fortune if you don’t need a car for a daily commute.
• Mozy
  Backup your entire computer for as little as $4.95/month. Enough said.
• Hulu
  Okay, so most people know about Hulu and how you can watch TV shows for free the day after they’ve aired with “limited commercial interruption” … well — most people don’t think about the fact that you can also get rid of your Satellite or Cable TV and just use this instead. Do it.
• BoltBus
  One downside to Zipcar is that their daily rates (with the exception of a single-day snowboarding trip, which I’ve done several times divided by four passengers… excellent plan) are often comparable to just flying to the nearby city you were considering spending the weekend. However, BoltBus to the rescue! Book at least 30-days in advance and your trip there only costs $1. Seriously. “Bolt for a Buck” is their slogan. They even have FREE Wi-Fi internet access on the bus.
• Amazon Prime
  Imagine getting FREE two-day shipping on anything shipped from Amazon’s warehouse. It’s not “quite” free… it’s like $79/year for the service or something. However, living in the city and relying on Zipcar reservations to pick stuff up, sometimes it’s just easier to have it arrive in two-days than go to a specific store. Also, almost everything is cheaper on Amazon… sometimes significantly cheaper. Pharmaceutical items (such as soap, shampoo, etc.) are often sold in 3-packs for the price you’d pay at the store. Never again will I shop in a store for anything except food! (…Unless it’s a really good deal, or I need it that day… or Amazon doesn’t sell it.)

Also, here are some geeky things that have helped me out lately:

• Revision3
  Sometimes there’s nothing on Hulu I feel like watching… so if you feel like educating yourself in something nerdy… here you go. Free online television reminiscent of the TechTV days.
• Feedly
  Feedly is downloadable script that runs in your browser (such as Safari or Firefox) presenting a daily “magazine-like start page” based on your Twitter streams and Google Reader feeds. If you don’t know what either of those things are… then maybe this isn’t for you… but it’s pretty cool if you do use those things already!
• Tumblr
  Since moving my blog from Wordpress to Tumblr this morning, I’ve been able to remove yet another website I need to manage… my own. Now Tumblr does everything for me and I can post stuff really easily. I can even redesign it myself through a single template… reminiscent of the old Blogger days. (which is removing FTP support shortly)
• The Rackspace Cloud
  Cloud Services have become mainstream, and I’ve been able to eliminate a ton of servers from my company and daily operations as well at great savings to myself. Rackspace provides both virtual servers at just a few dollars per-month, and load-balanced website hosting for everyone from the casual blogger to the small startup. I host ilikebsides there, as well as everything else I run except Mobile17… which is hosted at regular Rackspace because it requires networked dedicated servers and a considerable amount of storage. The Rackspace Cloud is perfect for everything else!
• Timesvr
  If you find yourself doing boring repeat tasks all of the time… Timesvr might be a great way to outsource some of those. I particularly like it for repeat tasks that can be done once per-day by just about anyone. Try it for a month and see if you really save time! (Just FYI… if the task involves any thinking, don’t bother. It’s mostly for manual labor.)
• Coda for Mac OS X
  Dreamweaver for Mac is extremely unstable… or at least it was the last time I used it. I highly recommend Coda for streamlined web-development as long as you’re comfortable writing code for everything. There is no visual design feature in Coda, but it keeps the program lightweight, stable, and quick. Love it!
• CrossOver Gaming for Mac
  Almost all of the games I used to play when I had Bootcamp installed on my Mac (to also boot into Windows XP for the sake of updating my BlackBerry or playing a quick episode of Half-Life 2) were run through Steam. Luckily, Steam is able to run in CrossOver Gaming… so now I don’t even need Bootcamp on my Mac. Sorry Microsoft. :)

Enjoy!