The end of an era - and the end of effective usage of Netflix.

I have to admit, when I signed up for it all those years ago, Netflix was an appealing service and concept.

I liked the idea of renting DVDs to watch and return through an online service, but there was something else that was essentially more appealing.

I realized that I had access to a whole variety of movies, shows, and so forth, that one could otherwise not find a regular video store (do those even exist outside of porn shops now?).

So my 'queue' ran the gamut of many genres - various Hollywood film types (gangster, horror, comedy, noir, drama, action) from numerous periods going all the way to over a hundred years ago.

Additionally, there was music performance shows, theaters, independent films, documentary films, and many more. And, many of those across a variety of other countries' cinema flavors.

And I had always had it in my mind that for Netflix to expand and grow, it had to branch out and create its own sets of entertainment along the lines described above.

But a few things happened along the way that have since ensured I'll likely not be a customer of theirs for too long.

• For one thing, like many online companies, they have since treated all things that are presented on their platform as 'content'. So, no longer films, or music, or theater and so forth, but just product on their medium. In this regard, pretty much everything is reduced to just bits streaming back and forth across many services on many systems, and into 'devices', as opposed to just televisions and our heads.

To be fair, that's something even many of the traditional film companies do now. And indeed, since they themselves are now owned by large media conglomerates, they figure the best way to 'monetize' their products and services and content, would be to stream them.

Of course, all of this still is riddled with ads at every turn, no only within the sponsors and regular commercials, but within the shows themselves (hint: product placement never went away).

• And then there's the mode of filming itself. It's gone from actual film, to digital. Which if you're into all this 'high-definition' imagery may be fine. But having more definition doesn't necessarily make for better quality filming. Indeed something I actually find distasteful about most digitally films today is that they all have a similar look and feel - some degree of motion and graininess that doesn't really appeal to me.

• Then there's the reality that , I as the primary demographic has been pushed aside. Indeed as a cross over from computer animated films from the 1990's every one of them contains no end of 'celebrities' lending their 'voice talents' to obnoxious, idiotic and outright stupid characters in a variety of genres. And the idea that this would somehow relate to children is all bullshit. Really what it is making whole (and subsequent) generations dumber and dumber. None of this ever appealed to me. Now to make things worse, there's an entire generation of movies, shows, and so on that do nothing but shit on all things male. In these, males are usually portrayed as one or more of the following - dumb, scummy, racist, violent, cowardly, evil, and, well you get the idea. It's what sells these days.

None of this is any surprise - I'd been seeing this for a long time. It's simply how these media corporations operate in a crapitalist system. And I guess that's the part of me that's really disappointed in what Netflix has become. The company that a recently as a few years ago helped complete Orson Welles' last film, is not what it is today. It certainly is not what it once was, or could've been.

Today I'm less than a customer and really just another subscriber/bill-payer. I pay for content my family watches and that's really what Netflix counts on. They count one me tolerating the shit they put today because I tolerate it.

Thanks for the memories Netflix. I'll remember the good times when something better comes along, and when I find a way to drop it altogether and move on.