Technology in our Everyday Lives

Sometimes, I just want to know what the underlying technology is … when things touch me in my everyday life. Today, I’m thinking about NetFlix. Do they REALLY have huge warehouses all over the country with copies of obscure titles to send to people the same day? Really? Or do they have some agreement with the movie/DVD industry to burn CDs on the fly? Sheesh, only the latter seems reasonable to me.

I mean, come on. I put “The Thin Man” on my queue and it was shipped to me when my previous movie was returned. Now, I don’t really REMEMBER if I only had it there for a day … or a few hours … or whether it had been sitting in my queue for several days. If it had been sitting in my queue for a while, then I can understand … they could look ahead at queues and ship movies to “closer” locations to get them to us faster. But … but … but … it would make SO much more sense to have an agreement to burn the DVDs as needed and toss the movie when it’s returned (if no one else is demanding it).

Hmm, so I went on an internet search to see if there was anything describing how NetFlix is doing what they’re doing. I couldn’t find anything. I would GREATLY appreciate a heads-up if someone sees something somewhere … or if a NetFlix insider wants to blab. Newsweek had an article on NetFlix a week or so ago, and the article really did seem to imply that they warehoused the DVDs.

Why do I care so much? No idea. I’m just curious, and I hate it when I can’t get the answer to a question!