It all started when I bought a complete DVD set of The Office — the U.S. version, of course. The purchase was in anticipation of a tragedy: at the end of 2020, Netflix would remove the show from its site.
I’ve been a hardcore fan of the show since 2009, when I first encountered it on Netflix. Since then I’ve made a habit of watching every season several times through. With the show’s coming removal from Netflix, something had to be done.
I’m sure Netflix would have paid to retain the rights to stream the popular NBC sitcom, but NBC had other ideas, namely: Peacock, its own streaming service to rival Netflix. Determined not to subscribe to yet another one of the streaming services — rapidly multiplying beyond count — I purchased the DVD set, ready to take on the world with my favorite show at my side.
I can remember about 15 years ago when my family first signed up for Netflix; its DVDs came in the mail (one for my brother and me, one for my mom). At the time, the site was only just starting to ease into the world of online streaming, and if you happened to discover that something you wanted to watch was available on instant play, it was like finding water in the desert.
These days, it feels like heading to Blockbuster would be easier and more cost-effective than trying to locate the one of the seemingly thousand subscription services that hosts the movie or television show you’re searching for.
More often than not, in the early days of Netflix, you had to carefully rearrange your DVD queue and then wait patiently for mom to return her documentary so that your latest selection would show up in the mailbox.
Then one by one, more titles came to Netflix streaming — and more companies arrived on the scene to rival Netflix.
The Blockbuster on the corner at the local plaza shut its doors, much to our chagrin. As enjoyable as streaming might be for those used to instant gratification, I’ll never forget the thrill of heading into Blockbuster to pick a title, haggling with my brother over which movie we would agree to watch, crossing our fingers and praying that the one we wanted hadn’t been checked out.
These days, it feels like heading to Blockbuster would be easier and more cost-effective than trying to locate the one of the seemingly thousand subscription services that hosts the movie or television show you’re searching for.
We’ve all learned to love and rely on having all of the world’s viewing options at our fingertips. The modern viewer has quickly adapted to the world of streaming, and gives little thought to going back. But will there come a point at which we miss the reliability of cable, the fact that we could flip to one channel for the football game and another for Parks and Rec, rather than pay two separate fees to two separate channels, on top of the subscriptions we maintain for access to every other show we like?
As with all progress, especially in the realm of technology, it seems unlikely that there’s any way to turn back the clock — and perhaps it’s for the best. I complain, but I have no right to do it. My DVD set of “The Office” serves me more as a nice backup that rests comfortably on the shelf than as a real way of watching TV.
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