Peerflix Review: No Trade Cash

How it Works

Peerflix is a site which acts as a facilitator for DVD trading between registered members. It is an evolution of a concept I first came across with a site called Switchhouse, back in 2000.

The key elements of the Peerflix model are:

• trade cash
• market valuing of DVDs
• self-printed mailing envelopes
• real-time inventory display

On the site, registered members can fill out a list of DVDs they want and a list of DVDs they want to give away.

If I list the Ben Stiller Show as a DVD that I own, and want to give away, and someone else is found who has it on their list, then I get a notification that I can sell my DVD. I am given the option of printing out a do-it-myself mailing envelope, which allows me to place the DVD in the mail with pre-paid postage.

If I decide that I actually do not want to give the DVD away, I can mark it as “keep”. In this case, the person who wants the DVD, will see that I own the DVD, but I am not currently willing to sell it.

After giving the DVD away, I am awarded trade cash, whose amount is based on the value given to the DVD I “sold”. This money in my account can then be used to “purchase” a DVD from another person’s list.

To simplify the process, Peerflix, provides an interface for each DVD that tells me how many people want a particular DVD who have enough trade cash to get it, and how many people own the DVD and are willing to part with it.

Highlights

Without a doubt the highlight of the service is the ability to view the real-time supply and demand for any given DVD.

The service would be unbearably frustrating without being able to find out that a movie like The Hunger is only owned by two members, and that 25 members want to buy it. Given this situation, I know I won’t get the movie and am able to move on.

LaLa, another current generation trading site, does not provide this type of information, nor do rental sites like Gamefly and Netflix. I believe that all those sites might benefit from providing this type of detailed information to their customers.

I also like the idea of pre-printed mailing envelopes. At first, it does not seem like the printed self-folded envelopes will be adequate, but so far, I have only had one DVD arrive damaged.

Problems

The most pressing problem is not a technical one, but I believe a psychological one. I do not believe that all registered members agree on what the site’s purpose is.

Is the site meant as a way to build a DVD collection? Or is it meant as a grassroots alternative to Netflix providing temporary access to DVDs?

I believe this trading system was developed to work best for a world in which people would have a Buddhist Monk’s concept of ownership. Members are not meant to want to keep their DVDs, but are instead meant to quickly watch their DVDs and then immediately release them for trade. In the minds of this service’s inventors, I think they imagined a world in which Peerflix envelopes would be smoothly flowing all over the country with each DVD spending just a brief time with any individual member.

Unfortunately, when browsing through DVDs on the site, it is all too common to see desired DVDs that are owned by a member, but that are not released for trade by that member. Obviously, people have more of a collector’s mindset with their DVDs and are coveting them. This has led to the market being extremely stagnant for any but the most popular widely owned DVDs. But why would I use a strange service like this just to watch DVDs that any neighborhood video store generally has all over its walls?

Conclusion

Netflix is a great service, because it provides almost immediate access to a wide range of obscure and hard to find movies. Peerflix runs into trouble, because those same hard to find movies that make Netflix so good, are almost impossible to get from Peerflix, due to the low supply of available DVDs.

Sure, Peerflix is a pretty decent way to get big mainstream movies like The Abyss or Talladega Nights. However, my local neighborhood video store can easily provide those same popular DVDs without having to wait. Peerflix has been a fun experiment, but honestly, I mostly just treat it as a novelty. At this point, there is no way it is going to replace Netflix, or my local video store.

Wednesday June 6, 2007