It’s never easy to end a relationship that lasts almost nine years but sometimes the move is a necessary one. I joined Netflix back in December 1999 when the service was still very young. I spent a lot of time traveling then and my newest laptop had a DVD player built into it.  I was watching lots of movies as I flew all over North America to visit my clients in the energy industry.

I really loved the convenience and flexibility that Netflix afforded, which was a stark contrast to other movie rental options at the time. I paid my flat monthly fee and could return movies when I liked. I didn’t want to deal with going to a video store either. It was a perfect match…for awhile.

Times change and so do people’s habits. The first major change for me came when daughter #1 arrived in June of 2005. Since then I’ve spent less time watching the DVDs I rented from Netflix. I found myself holding movies for weeks at a time. Sometimes I would return a movie without ever watching it. Still, I kept paying the $18 a month for my account.

My second daughter arrived in June of this year just before we were planning to move. I decided to take stock of everything including our family budget. I looked at Netflix and decided that $18 a month isn’t much but when combined with some other non-necessities cancelling Netflix could help push my new budget savings to over $200 a month. So I said goodbye to Netflix and cancelled my account.

Thankfully the process of cancelling my Netflix account was a simple one. No AOL style BS. You can cancel online with the requirement that you return all the movies you have out right away.

My original plan for watching DVD movie releases at home relied on the digital versions via Time Warner Cable. Standard definition new releases rent for $2.99 for a 24 hour period and high definition new releases go for $4.99. I hadn’t purchased any digital rentals when I was told of Redbox.

I mentioned my digital rental plan to a co-worker who immediately suggested Redbox. Redbox places DVD rental machines at strategic locations like McDonalds or at supermarkets. I did a local search on the Redbox website and found nine boxes located within five miles of my house. The closest box is half a mile away.

I’ve made two rentals so far and here’s what I like about the service.

• No membership fees. You only pay for what you rent.
• Movies are reserved online.
• Movies have to be picked up at the box where they are available but can be returned to another box if it’s more convenient.
• Rentals are $1 per night and I have until 9PM the next day to return a movie I rented today.
• Receipts for movie reservations are emailed as well as confirmations that the disc was returned.
• Many of the boxes are outside so pickups and returns can happen almost anytime.

As you can see there are a lot of positives. There are a few negatives. If you forget to return a DVD you get charged $1 per day until you return it with charges capped at $25. At least they let you keep the movie if that happens. Selection is limited to the most popular films. And if a film is in the Redbox catalog you may have to get it at a location that is further away from the one you usually go to.

There are a couple of interesting things about the Redbox business model and how I found the service. Their model relies on a unique hybrid approach that leverages the web but also provides a point of purchase. You give up a little bit of the convenience and selection of Netflix in return for a low-cost pay as you go business model.

The other interesting point is that I didn’t hear anything about Redbox on the web prior to joining. I had seen the boxes before but rarely gave them a second look. This was a true word of mouth find. It’s an instructive point for social media startups who put all their eggs in one basket trying to gain the favor of leading tech bloggers. There’s people out there folks. Try to connect with them directly!

I can’t say that Redbox will ever be as large and successful as Netflix. The current traffic for Redbox.com is modest but growing nicely. What I do know is that people’s lifestyles and priorities change. Perhaps Netflix and other web based services can learn from that fact and start appealing to customer 2.0 instead of web 2.0.