Price Gouging By Sirius

Yesterday, I received a email from Sirius Satellite Radio with the subject line of:
"Immediate Action Required Regarding Your SIRIUS Service"

The email was notifying me that my satellite radio was going to cut me off of the internet streaming for my Sirius Stiletto unless I pay an extra 3 dollars a month or an extra 36 dollars a year. I am already paying 12.95 a month and don't feel I am getting the value for an additional increase.

I am very upset about this because I no longer have a competitor to switch to. The foundation of the arguement for the merger was that there would be no price increases and greater content available for the average consumer. Less than one month after the merger, I started to lose channels and now I am loosing the single greatest feature for the average office worker "to listen to sirius when I'm not in the car".

Sadly, I will be selling my radio and dropping my subscription after march 11th. Sirius defrauded me and now I am paying the price. What is on regular radio nowadays?

Netflix's Click To Play

Way back in the day, when Netflix just came out they revolutionized the way you rented DVD's. Instead of paying 'per hit'; you paid your monthly fee and watched what you could when you could. Their success was evident as they dragged the monolith (at the time) Blockbuster with them into the exact same market. I was slow to jump on the Netflix bandwagon; however, due to pure pressure of my coworkers back at SalesLogix I climbed on board and was hooked.

Along the way I have switched back and forth between web-based DVD suppliers for my movie addiction and there is really no perceivable difference between Blockbuster and Netflix to myself. The other day, I was tinkering with my Media PC in my living room and just happened to use a new feature Netflix added that allows me to watch a DVD without the DVD called Watch Instantly. Clicking their Play button opens a modified Windows Media Player instance (so reported), although you must click Play about 3 times to get to the actual movie on different play buttons. While the quality of the movie isn't pure DVD quality or that of HD television, the usability and 'on demand' nature more than compensates for those minor issues.

I would hope Blockbuster is watching netflix again. Netflix wasn't the first to offer video on demand with a large archive; however, they were the first to do it right.