I hooked up with netflix and it’s charming blend of stunning selection and thrilling efficiency a long, long time ago. Like, maybe 8 years ago – after my first assistant told me about it – as he also told me about gmail “what – mail”, when you had to have an invitation to get gmail, remember that?!
Well, netflix was cool and swift and hip and all the things I wanted. Most of all, it was captioned. Then came marriage and kids (or kids and marriage) and kids and Thomas the Tank Engine and Caillou and instant-view (“insta-view”), streamed netflix. I liked this. A lot. For a small sum, I could get insta-view for the kids, Mikey could watch his precious “Man vs Wild” (which is a total joke – small, hairless white British man named “Bear”?!!) and, because insta-views are rarely captioned, I could continue to get dvd’s in the mail which were captioned, so I could “hear”.
Netflix has been promising it’s users for years – years and years and years – that it is working super-duper hard on the captioning issue for insta-view; that it’s just a matter of time.
A bunch of deaf folks got tired of forking out money for the insta-views they couldn’t view and sick of the “in just a minute” responses from netflix and decided to file a class action suit against netflix for not getting on the ball. I myself was invited to join the party, and did.
So, netflix decides to raise the prices for the insta-view/dvd’s – all of you know this because everyone and their sister now subscribes to netflix, right?! I wrote to netflix, said I really didn’t think it’s fair or right for them to be upping prices when they haven’t done as they promised with the captioning. I’d go with insta-view in a heartbeat if I could FRIGGIN’ HEAR THE DANG THING. But I can’t, so I have to get the dvd’s and my kids and husband CAN hear, so they want insta-view; why should we have to pay more?
They didn’t answer my letter at all but they DID request that I click an updated “terms of use” agreement that, interestingly, wants me to agree to never join a class action suit against them. Hows about that.
Boo, netflix. You suck. Big corporate You can’t slap on captions and YouTube can add ’em to homemade movies; heck, I can add ’em to my homemade movies.
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Latest on the Class Action Suit at Deaf Politics
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| two of the last movies for me (‘Word Wars” and the classic Bollywood “Taxi Driver” – with hit songs by Lata Mangeshkar – woohoo!) |
PsS
Still not too late to be Canadian.
Meriah Nichols is a counselor. Solo mom to 3 (one with Down syndrome, one on the spectrum). Deaf, and neurodiverse herself, she’s a gardening nerd who loves cats, Star Trek, and takes her coffee hot and black.
I am not hearing impaired, but I almost always turn on closed captioning when I watch TV at night so that I can keep the volume lower in order not to disturb my kids. We don’t have cable or satellite so most of our programming comes through streaming Netflix and Hulu Plus through our PS3.
I have yet to find a streaming movie or TV show on Netflix that doesn’t have closed-captions, and when watching the same show on Netflix vs. Hulu the captions are much more accurate on the former than the latter.
But maybe you’re watching much more sophisticated programming than I am. 😉
Netflix have no choice but raise price. Why? It’s because of studios who actual being greedy, they demand for cost more during streaming fee that customer are able to watch unlimited film per month than they actual receive film in DVD through mail.
This is unacceptable! I am also trying to deal with captioning issues myself.
Keep at it! I know I will.
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http://www.ehwhathuh.com