It would seem we're feeling a little entitled this week, aren't we? 

Like the countless rage-blasters across the internet, I too received the dreaded email from Netflix. That combo streaming and disc rental package I'd been paying for since July? It was about to split into two separate movie-watching services. In order to further my habits of simultaneously streaming movies and forgetting to return DVDs, I'd have to pay an extra six bucks a month. 

Upon reading the email, I was a little miffed, I'll admit. There was no real explanation, no excuse for this 60% price hike. It felt a little like a scolding, a fine for some error we'd committed but weren't told about. We've been good customers, right? We haven't abused our cinephile privileges. Why, then, should we be forking over more dollars for the same services as before? 

Then I realized maybe I wasn't the best of customers. Or rather, I never appreciated what I had when I had it. Since signing up for Netflix, which ensnared me with its free monthlong trial and never let me look back, I've taken out exactly one disc from their library. One movie. Waking Life, to be exact. I ordered it a few weeks ago and it's still sitting, unwatched in its red envelope, in my TV stand. Will I end up viewing it before either my fees go up or I cancel my disc privileges? Probably. I'll do my darndest. But I am notoriously bad at committing to watching DVDs when I have them. 

Maybe it's the lack of a time pressure or the flat rate. With Blockbuster and the independent video stores I grew up with that have since died, renting a movie was an event. Whether you did it alone or with friends, you decided to watch something that night. You'd go out, make your selection, then sit down and watch the damn thing. There were late fees if you didn't return it quickly enough. You didn't dally around in your entertainment. You got it done.

Now, I feel more and more like my own entertainment is just another box on my imaginary to-do list. Waking Life pops into my head like any other task as something I've got to take care of. I've got a long list of movies whose viewing I also consider tasks to be completed. You know the ones--they keep coming up in conversations when people make reference to them and each time you have to shake your head and admit you've been "meaning to see it". These are the gaps in your cultural literacy. These are your homework. 

A lot of the outrageous outcry over Netflix's announcement has surrounded the idea that their streaming library is "terrible" and "full of holes". That may be so, but it's a fair cry better than my own DVD collection. But it allows for the same sort of decision-making process as when I'm picking something from my own library to watch. I browse until I see something I'm in the mood for, then I pop it in. I've discovered some of my favorite movies from Netflix's "meager" streaming collection. I haven't had the same luck with their disc service.

That's because my disc queue is filled mostly with "duty" movies--those films we watch because they're pertinent to our own sense of cultural capital. They're the movies people can actually make us feel bad about not having seen. They stay on our queues for a long time, even with the best intentions, because they rarely line up with our impulses. They're the documentaries and the foreign films and the Godfathers that we watch not for pleasure but to feel smarter, more sophisticated than we would feel without having seen them. 

Of course, there's always the scenario where you do get an impulse to watch something specific, look it up on Netflix, discover it's only available on DVD, curse, then add it to your queue. I've got a good number of these lurking on my immobile list as well. Netflix was a brilliant startup, but the problem with the laundry list of movies is that watching them becomes another chore. It works for some, maybe, but not for the likes of me. 

So I say good riddance, red envelopes. We've never gotten along so well anyhow. I know your contents will pop up on the internet eventually, be it on Netflix Streaming, iTunes, Hulu or various unseemlier channels. That's sort of how things work around here. The disc is fading. This move is proof. And I've never been good at getting around to delayed mail-order entertainment. 

Like the rage over every Facebook change in the history of Facebook, this outcry over the new Netflix plans will likely be short-lived. Hardcore cinephiles with longer attention spans than mine will probably shell out the extra six bones a month to enjoy the full library. Most people, like me, will drop the discs. It is not the end of days. No one owes us a combo plan. We'll make it through this, our film snobbery intact.