07:58 – UPS showed up yesterday with seven or eight large boxes, so we now have about two thirds of the components needed to build the first batch of biology kits. I have a few more small purchase orders to get out this week for the biology kits, but otherwise I’ll be working heads-down on the forensics book re-write.
I signed up for Amazon Prime yesterday, and last night Barbara and I watched our first Amazon streaming video. It was the first episode of Inspector Lewis Series 4, which Netflix doesn’t have on DVD, let alone streaming.
Pretty clearly, Amazon is doing everything they can to make it difficult for people to watch free streaming videos on their service. Instead, they really, really want you to pay for the video. Incredibly, there is no queue for free streaming titles (although there is a queue for purchased or rented videos). To watch a free video, you have to search for the title each time. For example, after we watched episode one of Lewis with our Roku, we switched back over to Netflix to watch an episode of Scrubs. To watch the second episode of Lewis, I’ll have to search for it again, using the arrow keys and virtual keyboard on the Roku.
Amazon’s attempt to force people to pay for videos that they can watch for free leads to a ridiculous situation. When I clicked on the first episode of Lewis, Amazon gave me a choice. As a Prime member, I could (a) watch the video for free, or (b) pay $2.99 to watch it. Guess which one I chose. At least the default option was to watch it for free. I wonder how many people choose the second option.
I read about people who are dropping Netflix streaming and substituting Amazon Prime streaming, which strikes me as ridiculous. Not only is Amazon’s catalog a tiny fraction of Netflix’s, but Amazon intentionally makes it as hard as possible to find and watch free videos. We’ll be treating Amazon Prime streaming as a supplement to Netflix, but nothing more. If we want to watch something specific and Netflix doesn’t have it, we’ll try Amazon. But that’s about it. And I’m sure that that’s exactly what Amazon hopes we’ll do.