Netflix's popularity continues to rise. More and more users are abandoning traditional cable services to embrace streaming, and the final experience is far superior even with the inevitable limitations of its catalog. However, Netflix is only possible thanks to today's broadband connections. In the past, that resource didn't exist, and we were forced to battle slow, unstable phone lines. Can you imagine Netflix working on a connection like that?
Every time a young person complains about a poor connection or a download speed that's too low, the first thing that comes to my mind is that their generation never knew the True Horror. It all began with the painful wait to get into the reduced-rate hours, when we had to compete with mothers and sisters because they "NEEDED" to talk on the phone, and the "silly things" we did with the computer "weren't important". Once peace fell over the house, we would start our personal Mortal Kombat with a phone line full of noise that refused to deliver the sweet nectar of 56k, despite having support on the modem "and" the provider. Finally, at the start of each month, we had to endure the shouts about the bill, because talking on the phone "wasn't worth anything", and our "silly things" with the computer "cost a fortune". If that sounds like pure torture, think for a moment what it would be like to use a service like Netflix under those conditions...
... wait, don't. This video shows you exactly that. The folks at Squirrel Monkey have taken the trouble to create other anachronisms like Reddit in the '80s and Snapchat in the '90s, but "Netfix en 1995" is disturbing to the core. Having to wait a couple of weeks to receive your username and password, searching for movies in a spartan text-only interface, and leaving your connection active for eleven and a half hours (that's with ideal 56k) before you could watch the movie from your hard drive would probably have led us to spray the modem with alcohol, toss a lit match on it, and watch it burn with vacant eyes.
As "general recommendations", the video talks about deleting movies after watching them to free up space (disks were small and expensive in '95), disconnecting from the internet while you choose a movie, and in the case of "Netflix and chill", using protection... Norton Antivirus.
