LoveFilm - A Contradiction of Terms? .....

I sit here wondering to share my honest thoughts such as their perceived worth or interest with regards my user experience of a service called LoveFilm. A sense of apathy can overcome you when you hit poor service; you turn around and walk away - maybe some else will do it?...

The British, of which I am one, are wonderful at whingeing but terrible at complaining – I know, a contradiction in terms but a fact nonetheless. Which is why I am not going to whinge but actually complain/outline my experience. I suspect like most, my utterances will be viewed with a eyes wide shut mentality at LoveFilm but I’ll feel better knowing I made some form of contribution to what I feel is yet another subliminal poor service.

In fact, I suspect that if I were one of my cousins across the pond; they would not tolerate this service and vote with their mice/mouse. Anyway, I digress..

Whilst a clever concept based on a not to dissimilar another theme such as Sky etc, it seems to me that it does so on the principle “You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.” In other words, it’s all about percentages - those who subscribe and cannot be asked to complain and those who simply leave without a word.

In my view, a service cannot improve and grow without a good customer base after all, this is the lifeline toward success. If we, as customers of any service don’t play our part in making a service aware of our displeasure in its use how can the business in question grow and improve right?

Now I do not believe, since its inception in 2003, that LoveFilm has not received such complaints, in fact the service became so poor it ceased its download service in 2009.

In their about us page the subscription is stated as being £4.99 per month, strange that since I and no doubt other new customers are/were actually being charged £5.99 (as of August 2013)?

Now here’s the thing, LoveFilm boast that they have thousands of films (plural or a noun) for the discerning film or TV buff however, this is blatantly misleading as in legal terms in my humble opinion is not fit for purpose

Now, you would expect upon entering this service to be met with a whole manner of genres, masses of choice, choice of decades, actors, subject matters, the proverbial visual feast right?...wrong!

In fact, the majority of films regardless of generation/genre are simply not listed/excluded?

One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest, Colour Purple, Gone with the Wind, Black & Whites such as Laurel and Hardy, Director classics by John Ford, Orson Welles, Startrek movies from the original to the most recent, including The Next Generation series…Even the series V leaves you hanging as the final series/episodes are not listed? You get the picture right?

Now, you would be forgiven in the belief that such a service would have at least featured recent and popular movies such as Top Gun, Superman, Devinci Code even Lord of the Rings right? How about some wonderful actors such as (not an exhaustive list) Denzel Washigton, Morgan Freeman, Danny Glover, Samuel L. Jackson, Forest Whitaker, Cuba Gooding Jr, Shahrukh Khan, Tom Hanks,Tom Cruise Leonardo Di Caprio, Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson and of course, some of the most fantastic, beautiful woman as well. I don’t need to list them, your minds eye already has them ;-)

Frankly, whoever is in charge of this so called visual feast of a library and its cross referencing (and not too dissimilar to UK bankers and the BBC) should be fired!

How LoveFilm has the temerity to imply via its marketing machine, that this so-called service as being the epitome of viewing pleasure is beyond me.

Now, don’t take my word for it; but having spent hours viewing the available titles, simply left me frustrated. The only thing in fact in its favour was no ads, just straight viewing pleasure (assuming you can find a visual delight to escape and immerse into)

I, like many, love a good film from Sci-Fi to Comedy, from Drama to Thrillers, in fact a massive genre range of interest, which of course depends on my then current mind-set.

I will close with this, a good idea but poorly managed, poorly marketed and certainly not worth anyone’s hard earned cash.

In fact, you can get the same service for free if you look on the Internet so why pay anyway? But don't take my word for it...suck it and see for yourself, you will be disappointed.

Needless to say subscription cancelled.

Just my pennies worth