Amazon Prime Versus Netflix

TV programming has become so bad in my opinion that I hardly watch any shows at all. I keep waiting for viewers to get tired of the reality shows, but it looks like that isn't going to happen anytime soon. The women on The Bachelor are an embarrassment to womankind. I wonder how far they have to look to find such mindless Barbie Dolls. If I still had a daughter at home, I wouldn't let her watch the show. It's not something I would want my child to aspire to.

One night Pierce Morgan had two of the Kardashian sisters on his show. Half way through the interview he took them over to life size cardboard replicas of themselves. He told them, "Show us what you don't like about your bodies." I was tempted to write a letter to Pierce and ask him, "Hey, Pierce! Show us what you don't like about your brain!" Where are the feminists when we need them?

I was into the forensic shows like Cold Case Files and the CSI shows for a while. It took a long time, but I finally got tired of learning how many different ways psychotic killers can murder someone and stuff them into a suitcase.

I couldn't take it anymore so I subscribed to Netflix. I thought maybe Netflix would have something better to offer.

I subscribed to Netflix in the early days when they sent the movies in the mail. After a while, I lost interest in movies and got rid of it. About six months ago, I discovered that I could have Netflix movies streamed right into my TV. That eliminates the hassle of walking out to the mailbox, so I thought I'd give them a try again.

I love documentarys so that's what I started watching first. I watched a lot. I was in heaven. I finally became tired of that and discovered Doc Martin, a British TV series that I wish we could get in the states. I watched all of the first four seasons in one week. I couldn't find many movies that I cared for, so I watched Doc Martin all over again. I eventually stopped watching Netflix all together. Even so, I kept paying for it, just in case.

When Amazon Prime first started, they offered a one or two week free subscription to get you hooked. I signed up, but was too busy to watch anything at the time, so I discontinued before the week was up.

Here's what an Amazon Prime membership offers: Streaming movies, free two day shipping on products and free downloads of thousands of classics for the Kindle. That's a pretty good deal. The only thing I didn't like is that you must pay for a full years' subscription all at once. It works out to the same cost as Netflix, but Netflix lets you pay a monthly fee. When you're strapped for cash, that's a better deal.

Therefore, when I decided to start watching movies again, I hesitated about Amazon Prime and continued with Netlix.

I recently signed up for Amazon Prime quite by accident, but I won't go into that story. I've been using it long enough to form an opinion on which is best: Amazon Prime or Netflix. Here are the pros and cons of both:

• Netflix lets you pay monthly -- Pro
• Netflix offers the movie choices they think you might like within the genres they know you like -- Con

Netflix asks you to choose the genres that you like. For me, it's documentaries, dramas, foreign and independent. Then they offer the choice of about 10 movies in those genres. I've never liked that method at all. Most of the time I don't want to watch any of what they suggest. I want to scroll through a list of all the movies they have to make my selection. You can type in the name of a movie you're looking for, but they often don't have what I want. It would be like going into Blockbuster or Barnes & Noble and only getting to look at 10 books or video titles that are brought out to you at one time. I want to browse through the whole store. Netflix lets you change your preferences, but I don't want to go through all the hassle. I just want to watch a movie!

Amazon offers unlimited streaming videos just like Netflix. However, you can click on categories such as Action and Adventure, Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Foreign Films, Kids and Family, Mystery and Thrillers, Sci Fi and Fantasy and Westerns. When you click on a genre, the whole list of videos available pop up. All you need to do is scroll through until you find the movie you want to watch. That's a definite pro for me.

Add that to free shipping for Amazon products and access to thousands of classics and I'm sold. The classics you get are those in which the copyright has run out.

Therefore, the winner for me is Amazon Prime. I might keep Netflix also. I haven't made a definite decision yet, but if I had to choose between the two, it would be Amazon.

I hope reading this makes your decision a little easier.