Filed under: tips
I’m not sure what took us so long to switch to Netflix to rent movies, but it may have been some work ethic that said if we wanted the “pleasure” from a rented movie, then we had to face the “punishment” first (drive to the store (10 miles round trip) and pick it out ourselves amid the screaming children.) Now that we’ve been Netflix customers for a few months, I’m not sure how we lived without it.
Alex Steffen in Use Community: Smaller Footprints, Cooler Stuff, and More Cash on World Changing describes Netflix as a model of a sustainable business idea:
Most of us don’t think of it this way, but this DVD-by-mail service is actually a great model of sustainability innovation. Consider: when many North Americans want to watch a movie at home, they get in their cars, drive to a big box store, park in a huge parking lot, shop for an available title under the hot lights with the HVAC whooshing air around above them, pay for their film, drive home, watch their film and then repeat the process.
When I watch a Netflix movie, though, I drive nowhere. The postal carrier is already coming to my house to drop of my other mail, so the added effort to get me my movie is negligible. I still get to see Lethal Smoking Gun With a Vengeance 4 or whatever, but my drives to and from the store, and even the store itself, have been dematerialized. The DVD itself is unchanged, yet my movie sits more lightly on the planet.
The other great benefit for us is that we can see foreign films and independent films, which our local video store didn’t stock at all and seemed hesitant to order. So, in a sense, we’re paying to see movies that are more keeping with our own value system.
Read more green ideas about ways to use community in your work and home life at Use Community: Smaller Footprints, Cooler Stuff, and More Cash.