Corporate Complainancy

My shit list:

Netflix
AT&T

Two awesome companies, right?

Wrong!

Sorta.

They both provide services very high in demand right now, and they are both doing a pretty good job at meeting that demand. What's not to like?

I don't like their mommies. I'm kidding. They don't have mommies.

I am a customer of both of these companies. Technically, the Netflix account is under my girlfriend's name, but I pay half. Any way, let's start with Netflix.

I enjoy watching movies. They give me great thrills and I know you like movies too, because everyone I know likes movies. A lot of people don't like to go to the movies. It depends on my mood. I see what's good and bad about theaters, so occasionally I indulge. While I'm on the subject, District 9 was pretty good. It didn't completely bend my mind, but it was solid.

So, Netflix has this cool feature where you can watch movies online instantly. They like to stress the instantly part. Well, I think that is just great, but then I find out that you have to have Windows or Mac OS 10. I'm on Ubuntu, so as it turns out, I don't count. So, I called them. I spoke to a very nice woman named Sarah who asked me how she could assist me (or something like that). I politely asked her if there was a way I could watch movies instantly even though I was running Ubuntu Linux. Sarah wasn't familiar with Ubuntu, which is certainly not surprising, but then she pointed out that the service I was paying for was to rent the disks, not to watch movies online. Watching instantly, she explains, is free.

Companies love to do this, but it's very dishonest. Think about it. The only way Netflix could give away "watch instantly" for free, would be if it didn't cost them anything to offer it. Netflix must have huge computer systems to host their web site and the online movies. Their overhead is accounted for every time we make payments to them (energy, labor, insurance, etc.), so why call something free that clearly is not? If it were free, I wouldn't have to pay for an account to access it.

I told Sarah this and she seemed to see what I was getting at. Sarah was out of ideas of how to help me, so she put me on hold and went in search for some explanations from someone more knowledgeable. When she came back, she explained that the reason Ubuntu (I should say Linux) wasn't supported, was Microsoft. I'm so shocked. She said that Netflix uses a program called Silverlight, written by Microsoft, as its platform for "watch instantly." I'm really surprised that Mac has some support. I will point out that Mac OS 10 is Unix based, but it would be very inaccurate to compare it or Darwin to Ubuntu or virtually any other Linux flavor; especially where Netflix is concerned. But what bothers me most is that Netflix is flat out in bed with Microsoft and they are totally doing it.

I thanked Sarah for helping me and then I explained that support for Linux is possible, but I told her that I imagined Nextflix probably has contractual obligations with Microsoft about this. She agreed that that was probably the case. Realizing I'd been beat by a much bigger and sexier opponent, I said to add my name to the list of people who had called about it and asked that they do something to change "watch instantly." Sarah was thoughtful, helpful, and genuinely concerned with my disappointments for the entire duration of the call. Kudos to Netflix on the telephone talking.

I'm glad I did this. I educated Sarah a little about a cause important to me and I didn't even have to use facebook, and that's a reward in itself.

I might write about AT&T some other time, but if you bothered to read this, don't hold your breath.