SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT

After about 2 months using Zip.ca, Canada's Netflix, I've rented about 35 discs (movies and TV). Cost $50 plus tax.

The big savings,though, is time. I usually go to a video store and stare at the possibilities for a half an hour. With Zip, the disc just arrives in the mail. I've selected a list of 20-30 titles that I want to see, and Zip decides which one it can send me now. So the only choice is whether to screen it or not. If the answer is "not," then I didn't really want to see it after all.

The other improvement from the video store is that there are very few titles that Zip doesn't have.

Very successful experiment.

UPDATE: But in the end, Zip.ca turned out to have hostile, ugly customer service and an unpleasant returns policy. Alas...