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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday June 18 2019, @09:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the delicious-irony dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4463

Netflix puts a 'Patriot Act' episode about bad internet access on DVD

The latest episode of Netflix variety talk show Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj focuses on the digital divide. In it, Minhaj breaks down some of the many reasons why internet access is so terrible across much of the US, including the roles of carriers and the Federal Communications Commission.

[...] He points out the irony that people who have a strong enough connection to stream the episode probably aren't affected by the problem. So, the Patriot Act team is putting the episode on DVD, which you can rent through Netflix's DVD mail rental service. Around 2.7 million people in the US still get Netflix's red DVD envelopes, so you can order the episode on a disc even if, say, you're struggling with a dial-up connection. Alternatively, the whole episode is on YouTube, so you can watch it even without a Netflix subscription.


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  • (Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Tuesday June 18 2019, @12:47PM (4 children)

    by Rupert Pupnick (7277) on Tuesday June 18 2019, @12:47PM (#856949) Journal

    The selection of disks available from Netflix collapsed years ago, and as a result I dropped out of the service. I expect a lot of people have, and for that reason I don’t expect its a very effective distribution channel.

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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday June 18 2019, @04:31PM (3 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday June 18 2019, @04:31PM (#857051)

    If you live in one of the too many places in the US where there is no solution for broadband, you are less picky about the quality of the Netflix or local rental store's catalog.
    That's millions of customers right there.

    • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday June 18 2019, @06:14PM (1 child)

      by urza9814 (3954) on Tuesday June 18 2019, @06:14PM (#857103) Journal

      I've got some friends who still do DVD-only Netflix plans even with 50+ megabit internet connections. The DVD plans are still cheaper, although it does look like they raised the price pretty recently so it's not much of a difference anymore.

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 18 2019, @10:41PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 18 2019, @10:41PM (#857219)

        I still do the DVD plan and I have 300mb. I got rid of the streaming when I realized I had not watched anything on streaming for about 6 months. For some reason I do watch the DVDs.

        The selection is fairly hit or miss on streaming. Got through a few seasons of some stuff and ended up on the wrong end of a cut off. With DVD I do not have that issue. I also do not binge watch stuff.

        Eventually they will kill off DVD with netflix. At that point I will just go back to buying them. I can get a *large* pile of DVDs from ebay and the library.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Rupert Pupnick on Tuesday June 18 2019, @08:10PM

      by Rupert Pupnick (7277) on Tuesday June 18 2019, @08:10PM (#857157) Journal

      Point taken. Here in The Megalopolis where one would hope that more alternatives would make people more picky, the only DVD rentals are via Redbox. It’s crap except on those rare occasions when there’s a movie out recently I actually want to see. In such cases, I’ll generally go to a second run theater to see it anyway. I’d love to have access to DVD rentals with an actual selection.