Why Buy DVDs When They’re Free?

Received an email this morning from Barnes & Noble on their 50% off sale. They had images below this red banner of about a dozen movies in the sale.

As I glanced at the titles, I was struck by how many of them were titles sitting in my “instant watch” queue on Netflix, and I pay them $8.99 per month for the privilege of watching any of them at any time. I happen to have a Mac mini hooked to my HDTV and run Boxee on it. One of the “applications” I’ve chosen inside Boxee is Netflix and thus I can browse all of the movies and add any that are instantly watchable to my queue for later viewing.

The good news? If you have a broadband internet connection (a must-have, of course) you don’t need a little computer to run Netflix online, a $99 Roku box or XBox 360 will work just fine, as will any of these devices. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, in this interview with the Motley Fool in October, said DVDs have “two years left” and then their delivery will be online. A bold statement but one I absolutely believe is true. You can hear the 8:28 interview here.