Distracted-and-diffused - My Thoughts Are Many Miles Away...

Yes, Steve Yockey (one of the people) who wrote Supernatural also wrote Dead Boy Detectives. Yes, it's supernatural. Yes, it's gay. Please go check it out and help us punch netflix in the face.

Hit my subscription renewal date - Thoughts Part 2

At this point, my subscription to Netflix is functionally a subscription to Dead Boy Detectives.

That's partly because I really, really love the show -- and I do! Partly because I've been rewatching the show as much as I reasonably can in hopes of supporting the fandom as we hope to change Netflix's mind about the cancellation. And partly because -- for a lack of time, to get a point across, out of stubbornness / spite -- I haven't been watching anything else on Netflix since the cancellation.

My Basic subscription was recently dropped, and before the cancellation news, I was actually telling myself that the forced move to new plan would have an upside, because this show is one of the very few things that have made me wish I had that higher resolution subscription.

I want to see all the details, and it feels rewarding to notice little things in the show, like the plaque on the moose bobblehead in Episode 2, or the wording on the label on the black salt, or the different ways that Esther accessorizes with the evil eye necklace that she wears constantly. I've paused the show so many times to get a better look at things, and it's almost always been rewarded.

And also, before the cancellation news, I thought that I would give "with Ads" a try for at least a couple of weeks, to see if I could live with it, since I couldn't keep my Basic plan.

But I can't imagine, now that rewatching the show is part of my routine, having ads pop on in between scenes. (It would very much be a "flames on the sides of my face" situation if they messed with the timing and transitions of the show at this point. I don't feel like this is a show that is written to have ad breaks.)

And that's not even counting the whole targeted ad situation I talked about in my previous post.

Because of this show and this fandom, I'm watching more Netflix right now than ever. (I'd previously have bursts of watching, at most, a few 22-minute episodes a day while I cooked, followed by weeks of nothing as I watched shows on another service. Now I'm averaging at least 14 hours a week, while I do other things.)

Now, I'm renewing so I can keep up the rewatches (round 12 right now!), and in hopes that Netflix, too, might choose to renew (hint, hint).

But frankly, I'm considering my options, in the event that they don't.

If there's ever an official DVD/BluRay release, I'm going for it. (Very much hoping that Warner Brothers will put one out; what can I say, we're a passionate fanbase, and at the very least I hope they'd see that it would be worth it for them to do so.)

And if there's no hope of further seasons, I can't see myself keeping up a subscription full time. I'm sure I'd want to come back and visit the shows that I already like that have ended, but I don't think I'd have any motivation to try to keep up with anything new that's exclusive to Netflix as it comes out. What would be the point?

(Since the cancellation, I've learned about multiple Netflix shows I've never heard of before that sound interesting to me. I've heard about them specifically because they have also been cancelled -- and because Netflix's recommender thinks I'd be interested in them since I like Dead Boy Detectives. The fact that they have multiple recently cancelled but well-received shows in that segment seems somewhat damning.)

If I do drop back to part-time, I don't think I'd be coming back for enough time to make up the revenue they'd lose compared to the last price point, so that, too, seems like a loss for Netflix. (For the cost of a year's subscription at the last price point for Basic, I can manage almost 8 months of Standard. But I'm not sure I'd be coming back for 8 months at a time, if I knew I wasn't planning to stick around.)

Maybe I'm not the customer that Netflix is thinking of. Maybe I'm not the demographic that they want, or I'm not motivated by the same things that they think I should be.

But for a service that wants steady revenue and is concerned about cancellation/subscription churn, Netflix has been making some odd choices lately, as far as I'm concerned.

Hit my subscription renewal date - Thoughts Part 1

I hit my Netflix subscription renewal date today.

I had been wondering how they had said that moving people from "Basic" to the lower-priced "Standard with Ads" plan would bring them more revenue. How would ad revenue -- particularly at the relatively low amount that I typically watch -- make them more than $5/month?

Then they asked for more demographic information when I logged in today, and I went, "oh. that."

And I don't want to give them more demographic info to share with their advertisers, even if it's just a gender and birthdate. And I don't particularly want them connecting that info to the shows I watch, but even less do I want them connecting that info to my internet browsing, device logins, or other apps I watch on those devices.

I don't really want to see ads in general, but targeted advertising particularly rubs me the wrong way:

it's usually badly targeted

it's usually invasive in the amount of data collected, for very little reason

the idea of making sure that one audience segment only sees a particular message, while another audience segment sees a different message is… unsettling to me, at best

If advertisers are paying more to make sure that ad gets out to people specifically (exclusively?) of any nominal gender, I probably don't need or want to see it. And I'm skeptical of the idea that it is bad for people of other genders to see that ad.

If advertisers need to make sure that I'm 18 or 21 before they show me an ad, I probably don't want to see it. I don't mind seeing adult content that I have chosen to see, but I don't need to run across it at random, and I'm not the target audience for alcohol ads -- which there is not a separate way of opting out of, and what if I was watching alongside a family member who is in recovery? What if I'm watching with family in general?

I logged out, then logged in on my computer (in a limited container) and changed my plan to Standard without giving them any of that info. But it really sucks that this is where we're at -- especially because it's been 9 months since the last price increase, and now I'm paying another 30% of that price.

They will haunt you if you do not renew them. My other art