Netflix Ireland Revisited

Image representing Netflix as depicted in Crun... — Image via CrunchBase

I posted about my initial impressions of Netflix back in January.

It’s now nearly May and I’m still happily paying a monthly subscription.

Why?

Well it comes down to economics and a couple of other things.

Even if you don’t circumvent the content limits on an Irish Netflix account there is quite a bit of content available to watch. As I already noted, the “new releases” are a bit of a misnomer, but there’s still quite a lot to watch. I’ve found some real gems by exploring the TV series and films, as Netflix carries quite a few of the titles that iTunes doesn’t – and even when there is crossover it’s cheaper to use Netflix.

The idea of “all you can eat” TV and films is pretty appealing and the “social” element is pretty interesting.

I was paying Sky quite a bit per month for a number of movie channels which I haven’t really been using. There’s nothing wrong with them, but I simply wasn’t watching enough to justify paying for them. Cancelling my Sky Movies subscription won’t save me much money per month, as I’ll end up using whatever I “save” on my iTunes accounts.

But what about the content restrictions on Netflix Ireland?

It’s all down to licensing obviously, but there are ways to circumvent the restrictions. It doesn’t take much effort to find any number of services that let you “appear” as if you’re logged in from the US and then you get access to a much wider range of films and other content.

Even with access to the US content, however, you still won’t find everything you might want. You can find Iron Man 2, but not the original, for some odd reason. None of the James Bond movies appear to be available and you won’t get access to mainstream Hollywood hits much faster than you would on any iTunes account (either side of the Atlantic)

Overall, however, I’m happier to stick with Netflix and watch a few TV shows and movies and not have to worry about how much I’m paying. At €6.99 a month it’s so cheap it’s barely worth talking about (it works out at less than 24 cents a day!)

So what do you think of Netflix? I know what Conn and Conor think 🙂