Last month, in my article “A Geekier Way to Go Green“, I mentioned Peerflix. This service lets you buy and sell DVDs with other members of its community, or rather it does for another two weeks. That’s right, come April 23rd Peerflix is shutting down its Marketplace platform and you will no longer be able to buy, sell, send, or recieve DVDs through their service anymore. This is according to an email I and every other member of Peerflix got on March 24th, it said the following:

Effective April 23, 2008 Peerflix is discontinuing the Marketplace and DVD buy/sell/trade portions of Peerflix.com. While the Peerflix.com web site will be available beyond April 23, 2008, you will no longer be able to buy, sell, send or receive DVDs on Peerflix as of that date. While we have made considerable investments in our marketplace platform over the past four years, unfortunately the escalating costs of operating the marketplace do not make that business viable at this juncture. As we move out of the DVD marketplace business, we are focusing our energy and resources on building the Peerflix Media Network which is now the web’s fastest growing vertical movie network.

The Peersafe Protection Program will also be terminating effective April 23, 2008 meaning that you will no longer be able to make any Peersafe claims starting April 23, 2008. So, if you have DVDs that you have been holding on to but were planning to send at some point, now’s the time! If your Trade Cash account balance is greater than $10 and you would like to cash out your remaining Trade Cash balance, you must do so before April 30, 2008. To request a cash out of your Trade Cash, please log in to Peerflix.com and click “My Account” in the upper right corner, then click the “My Cash” tab and then click on the “Request Cashout” button and follow the indicated steps. As of April 30, 2008 you will no longer be able to request any Trade Cash payments from Peerflix and your Trade Cash will immediately expire and be forfeited. All cash out requests remain subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Peerflix Service Policies and will be charged a $10 processing fee.

Peerflix isn’t going under, however. In fact they’ll by moving to the Peerflix Media Network. Which, from what I’ve been able to determine, is an advertising network focused on movie watchers. Because, as we all know, we always need more advertising in our lives.

All is not lost though, dear readers. I’ve been made aware of a site that may possible be able to fill the shoes of the soon-to-be-late Peerflix, Barterbee.com. BarterBee.com seems to be another community-driven online “trading post” of sorts and a lot of the Peerflix community looks to be jumping ship. Should be worth a look into at least.

So there you have it, Peerflix is dumping its community to become yet another group shoving ads down our throats siting cost as a major factor. My question is how can cost be the problem when postage for the disc itself is only $0.53 and you tack an extra $0.99 onto each transaction in what’s called a “trade fee”? Is the rising cost of stamps really that much of a killer, fellas?

If you liked that, try...

1. A Geekier Way to Go Green
2. Netflix Goes Exclusively Blu-ray
3. Reply To Comment Enabled
4. Apple TV? Don’t Make Me Laugh!
5. Week In Geek: Interview with Patrick O’Keefe

1 Comment »

1. 
   Chris
   April 9, 2008 at 7:38 pm

   I think you might like what he have going on at SwitchPlanet.com and I have a special invite for former Peerflix members:

   http://blog.switchplanet.com/switchplanetcom-we-want-peerflix-refugees/

   [Reply]

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