Since I’m on this whole trading kick, I decided to sign up for a Peerflix account, which is a DVD-trading service similar to Lala. They operate a little differently from Lala; trades are $1 each, like Lala, but you have to pay in advance for them, 5 at a time. And they don’t use prepaid mailers like Lala. Instead, they generate and send a two-page custom mailer to your printer. You’re supposed to put the DVD between the two pieces of paper and fold them into an envelope of sorts, which you then tape shut. I’m really not sure a DVD would survive the rigors of the Somerville post office without any padding, but I guess we’ll see how it works out.
Meanwhile, I’m ready to send out a couple of CDs via Lala, as soon as I get their mailers. And there’s one CD on the way to me already.
The one thing that bothers me a bit about both services is that they encourage you to throw out the packaging and booklets that come with CDs and DVDs. I realize it’s cheaper to mail that way, but my collector mentality just thinks it’s wrong to toss that stuff out. There’s stuff I’d never put up on Lala or Peerflix, just because I couldn’t bear to toss out the packaging and/or booklets. I guess I’ll have to stick with eBay for that kind of stuff.