Netflix Guilt

I asked Trexel, who now works for Apple Computer, whether failing to watch "Maria" after all this time gnawed at her. "I wouldn't say I feel guilty. But I am sort of stuck," she said. "I have all these people who tell me it's fabulous and that I'll really enjoy it. But I know its going to be a hard movie to watch. It's not the light sort of thing you put in when you have an hour and a half. It requires a special mood."

A mood that, apparently, hasn't struck in a year and a half. In that time, Trexel has watched "Harold and Maude," "Napoleon Dynamite," "Murderball," "Mrs. Henderson Presents" and all the seasons of TV's "Gilmore Girls" and "Sex and the City." Though her Netflix subscription was free while she worked for the company, if you assume she watches eight movies a month, the value of "Maria" after sitting there for 20 months comes to around $120.

Trexel told me that "Netflix guilt" was actually a subject of conversation at the company's Los Gatos, Calif., headquarters. "We had a running joke with one colleague. He had a movie about the first Persian Gulf War, "Three Kings," out for so long that we teased him that the U.S. had actually gone back to war with Iraq during the time that he had it."

There's no way to tell how many Netflix customers hold onto movies for absurdly long periods of time. The company says only that 1.4 million discs go out and come in on any given day and that 20 million movies overall are in active circulation.

I asked CEO Reed Hastings if customers like me and Trexel are good for Netflix—just as a gym benefits from members who sign up but never come. Hastings said that the company actually works hard to solve the consequences of media overabundance. Social-networking features on the site, which allow you to link to friends on Netflix and see their movie recommendations, help users find films that have better chances of appealing to them—and less chance of sitting on the shelf unwatched. "We want users to go from 'blah' to 'wow'," Hastings said. "Hopefully, with each person you sign up as a friend, the movies you order get better and better."

Netflix guilt actually poses a danger to the company. If customers decide they're not getting their money's worth, they might cancel their subscriptions altogether or at least downgrade them. That's what I did after finally returning "City of God." Now I'm on the two-film plan for $13 a month.

But downgrading hasn't helped much. In preparation for our upcoming trip to Japan, we've had the animated classic "Princess Mononoke" out for four months and counting. I hear it's great.

© 2006