I canceled my membership a week ago for the same reasons. I was paying for it month after month and found that I just wasn’t watching enough of the small selection they offer. It’s a shame because it is definitely the best streaming service we have technology wise. I would pay 11.99 in a heartbeat if they had new releases.

I thought I’d wait to become a paying customer, before I expressed any opinions. I like everything thing about Netflix, EXCEPT it’s selection of available movies. It’s sad, really it is. I thought that perhaps they were holding back the “good movies” till after my 1 month free was up and I was paying. Unfortunatly, this was just wishful thinking. I got to thinking.. how do they determine what movies are available vs those that are not. I would understand if newer moves, say 1 to 2 years old were not available, how ever that is not the case at all, there are some great moves through out the years and none of them are available. I beleive the selection has a close relation to a movie’s boxoffice success. So if that is true, what does this tell you about the company?… is it just another money grab’er?…I hope not!! All we ask is to have the same selection as the paying customers in the US. I would definitely pay more to have access to the full selection.
Thanks G

Even with its “poor” selection, Netflix is still far superior to the crappy selection of re-runs, reality tv and basic crap that cable offers. My wife and I only watch tv after 9pm when our kids are in bed, and after 3 months of Netflix we still continue to find awesome, entertaining movies and television shows. They may not be the newest Hollywood blockbusters, but to be honest, most newer movies are shit anyways. Netflix offers movies that I would never even think of renting in the store, and yet I have never been disappointed by a movie that Netflix recommends for me, and most of them I have never heard of, or have heard of but never got around to renting. Netflix also has an amazing selection of foreign films, documentaries and “B” movies, as well as a huge library of Japanese anime and British television (“Pulling” may be one of the funniest shows I have ever seen). I have to admit that it would be nice to have the American library of Netflix, but for $8.99 if you can’t find something good to watch, the problem isn’t with Netflix . . .

I am fairly sure that any Canadian currently paying for any subscription television service (from local basic analog cable TV to whatever horrible Canadian satellite package is the largest) would gladly shell out 8, 16, or 24 dollars per month to get the same content available to the US on Netflix.

It’s a no-brain-er. I’d actually buy two subscriptions so I could have content in two rooms simultaneously, or watch on my laptop while abroad without restricting a TV set at home.

All our other options are just so terrible that I really can’t see any of them surviving without a massive reform if Netflix.ca ever gets content people want to watch. Of course Canadian content providers are double-protected. If Netflix.ca ever got content the Canadian service providers would just use their DPI wands to make the viewing experience sluggish and terrible.

Unfortunately the CRTC allows big TV and Telephone monopoly giants unobstructed control over content, delivery, and licensing of everything they point a stick at.

I only have one thing to say. Keep track of your Internet usage. The cable/Internet companies are worried that more people will cancel their cable/satellite packages and just move to online content for their movie and tv shows. So this new cap was put in place to discourage customers from only using their Internet or at least so they can make more of a profit when you go over your cap. And you will.

Canada is the laughing stock of the free world when it comes to our wireless and online providers. They have us bent over a barrel and they know it. We need a new player or some other major change.

I too have been a member since the beginning and am starting to condenser canceling Netflix… I would actually have no trouble paying as much as 19.99 for it if it had more content. I find that the tv shows to be the biggest disappointment. It has many seasons of say law and order but everyone is not available. If they could even give us the content that it shows up when you search it would be worth 20 bucks

I’m actually really impressed with Netflix, for $7.99 I can’t complain and I’m able to watch my favorite shows, ‘Damages’, ‘Mad Men’ & ‘The Big C’ on there, which is far less than what they would have cost had I purchased the DVDs. I have noticed that there are additions to the library quite often and even though it is disappointing not to have the same content as Netflix in the US, I have been really impressed with the amount of choice in Foreign, Documentary and British TV genres. I suppose it’s more of a hit with B-movie lovers than those wanting the latest blockbuster.

I agree that the selection of recent movies is poor but there are a lot of top notch TV series available which make the $8/mth a bargain. (Mad Men, Damages, Justified and Rescue Me are some examples of shows which are infinitely better than the usual formula CSI crap on network TV). There are also a lot of real gems to be discovered – I recently watched the Seven Samauri, a film many critics consider to be one of the best movies ever made (yes, the original in Japanese with English subtitles) – and if you stumble upon a real stinker you just stop it and move on. No wasted rental money. I was able to cancel a good portion of my cable services and save myself some money. If you think Netflix has nothing to offer I’d suggest you try being a little more open minded and try some of the movies/TV series you may not be familiar with.You might be surprised at how good some of it is.

With netflix since beginning Always find something worth watching & not Hoolywood recent crap
I stream from wireless router to laptop to TV via VGA One 20 second delay in middle of movie once . As We live rural pick up options & return are a major pain . Much better than Pay on demand -wait for starting time -Shaw pay for view. Also dropped movie channels so $8 per month instead of~$20

Newer content not nessesarily better content unless you have watched all the older good stuff

maybe you shouldn’t try finding shitty movies like police academy, dirty dancing (!) and forest gump, but try out the smaller, more independant movies and documentaries that netflix has in abundance. i’ve kept my subscription since the beginning and have never had a shortage of great things to watch.

The selection is bad. For an updated selection, I’d pay more. This content is mostly straight to DVD films, and even those are YEARS old. Epic fail.

In the States, my buddy has much much more selection, he thins maybe 4 or 5 times more.
Why would anyone even think of paying more when the selection isn’t even close to that of the States. Unless you love the way the CRTC has been gouging us on internet, cable and cell phones rates.
Anyone ever think that the selection is being held so they could get more money out of us like the cable, internet and cell phone companies did.
Like I said I have friends in the States who visit me and are always surprised at how much we pay for these services, compared to what they pay.

Netflix isn’t for everyone. I love it, because I am a very specific type of person.
Indie films, B-cults,quirky/dark humor, foreign and cheesy horror top my list of things to watch. Conveniently, these things tend to also have cheap rights to them so Netflix grabbed them up. Same reason why they don’t have all the new blockbusters. Cost way to much. (I usually hate that shit anyway).
The selection of stuff I like is actually much more extensive on netflix than any video store so the so-called limited collection has never been an issue to me.

You guys should look at netflix like an additional channel to your sattalite. You pay extra money for ussually crappy movie channels. Now you pay $8 for large selection of crappy movies that always has something entertaining on it.

First of all let’s get rid of the CRTC and then most of our problems would be over in Canada. The large phone companies and internet providers have far too much of a monopoly. If you notice, most of the comments state that they would be more than willing to pay more for better selection, especially for the HD movies.

I have been reading the comments about Netflix, and I have to say I’m on the fence. Im some ways I like Netflix, being able to watch it on my Playstation (in the rec room), Wii (in the bedroom) or computer (the living room) I have to say that is a definite bonus, but I have to agree, the content is getting to be a little annoying. At first I too thought maybe they were waiting until after the free trial to bring out the good stuff, and was disappointed when that didn’t happen. Then, each week I would log on, hoping for something new and exciting, but no such luck. I’ve been with Netflix pretty much from the beginning, and I have to say, it has started to cross my mind that I should cancel.
As I was reading the comments, I noticed something, and I’m hoping that I will get an answer to this, because I am very interested to know if I’m not getting everything that other people are getting. If I find out this is true, I will definitely be canceling. I noticed “Chris” Commented on Feb 21st, and I quote, “It has many seasons of say law and order but everyone is not available.” Does this mean that you can get episodes of Law and Order on your NEtflix, because I definitely can’t. Did I read that wrong, or is that what you’re saying? I hope you will see this and answer, because I would really like to find out what that is all about.

I have used Netflix Canada for almost two months now and in that short time I have found it to be a very good value despite it’s well-stated lack of content compared to Netflix USA. I intentionally waited until the selection base improved and the deal last March with Paramount sealed the deal for me. Yes those stateside will have many more titles to choose from, but it is rumoured that CBS is currently in “serious” talks with Netflix to expand their titles to include Canada as well as to include a possible expansion of Netflix to Latin America. I have long since cancelled cable TV in Toronto as it is not worth the value even with VOD. Canada’s restrictive telcom industry, coupled with a regulator (CRTC) that generally sides with the large incumbents, (remember how they favored Bell’s UBB proposal and sided with Robellus in preventing Wind Mobile from lauching!) makes new alternative OTT viewing options very restrictive and expensive. If you do give Netflix a try in Canada, make sure you switch your ISP to a 3rd party provider. We pay 38$/mo for a 5mB/s unlimited DSL account, which is streams Netflix, including HD, just fine. Tip set the stream manager setting of the Silverlight software on your PC to the max to get the best viewing experience. Having switched to digital OTA for broadcast TV, I find Netflix HD to be very comparable in PQ after maxing out the bitrate of Silverlight. In conclusion, give at least three months before considering cancelling Netflix Canada, for our family the value though is unmatched!

I can’t tell if the list of movies that aren’t available on Netflix is supposed to be a Pro or a Con. I mean seriously, you want to watch Dirty Dancing and Police Academy instead of all the awesome Kurosawa Criterion transfers they have on there? Your loss.

Thank GOD for VPN’s you can use a vpn like ghost vpn to make it look like you are logging in to netflix from the states then you will have all the same selection as our neighbors the americans. =) ENJOY!

I’ve had Netflix for for 3 months and love it. I watch 3-4 movies a week but not straight through. I pause them usually and watch in installments. I’ve never been a Hollywood fan so the selection issue is meaningless to me. I am discovering lots of great independent films and foreign films and always rate the film, which lets Netflix make recommendations to me. That feature is awesome. It’s a great service and the quality is amazing. I have never searched for a specific film so the dearth of titles people are croaking about here is something I’ve never actually noticed. It’s lamentable though that Canada has to face the restrictions that we do – I am a Canadian nationalist but, but, but, I do not want cultural decisions made for me. That’s unfortunate. So if you are a Canadian and if you want streaming movies, Netflix is as good as it will get, because it’s as good as it is allowed to get. If you cancel Netflix, do not expect something better to come online – that sadly is just not going to happen.

As fun as it is to point the finger at the CRTC, in the case of Netflix and Hulu, the people commenting have it all wrong. The content is being blocked because THE [CONTENT PROVIDERS] DON’T WANT YOU TO HAVE ACCESS TO THE CONTENT. It has nothing to do with Canadian content laws.

The monopolies up here, for example Global TV, purchase exclusive (i.e. expensive) licenses to monopolize US content over Canadian airwaves. This is why you can be watching the latest episode of The Simpsons on a US FOX network or the Super Bowl via satellite and still see Canadian commercials with Global TV logos in place of the US commercials. It’s usually done to promote the Canadian sponsors’ products and services (i.e. revenue for the Canadian providers who purchased the exclusive licenses.)

One example that really yanked my chain recently was when I found that Lionsgate studios (founded in Vancouver BC and now owned by a California company) is blocking Canadian IP addresses from viewing their content on YouTube!

In essence these companies are boycotting us, so we should be boycotting them! If you don’t like oligopolies like Telus, Bell, Rogers, and Shaw (and Telus’s fake “competitor” Koodoo), then stop buying their crap or (if you have no choice) then at least send them an email and tell them you’re tired of paying more and getting less than people in the third-world!!!

As much as I’m sure you’d like to believe, the CRTC is far less powerful than the companies that OWN our politicians.

We have been Netflix subscriber since the beggining and probably staying for a while for the same reason it is very cheap and most movies are HD but we kind a getting tired of the content because no newer movies I will probably let go of it soon. Hopefully Blockbuster streamming will come to Canada too.