Idle Ramblings

Netflix Frustration

I saw this article about fruntration among Netflix subscribers about the company's "throttling" service which was recenlty revealed. "Throttling" gives customers a lower priority on shipping out movies and on getting new movies, thus reducing the costs to the company. Many are crying foul, even though they still say they are getting a good deal from the service.

Up until last month, I was a Netflix subscriber, and for much of that time, I was fairly satisfied, especially in the beginning. I signed up about a year ago for the basic three-at-a-time service. They delivered as promised, and, I saw a lot of movies I wouldn't have normally seen because there was such a great variety. Rebecca and I are "fast watchers." When we get a movie, wether bought, rented or Netflixed, we usually sit down and watch it almost immediately. With the Netflix fare, we usually watched all three movies in the same day, especially on the weekends. So generally, we'd get them in the mail that morning, watch them that afternoon and evening, and send them back the next morning. And since Memphis is one of the distribution centers, we got them fairly quickly. Then, back in the fall, that began to change.

The first problem was we began receiving DVDs that were broken or scratched up so bad they didn't work. So basically what that meant is it took twice as long to get a watchable movie. In at least one case, it took three times to get the DVD because once the broken one was sent back, they sent a disc that was in the wrong envelope and that had to be straightened out.

Then, the shipments started slowing down. DVDs that were mailed on Monday weren't showing up as returned until Thursday or Friday and the next DVDs weren't shipped out until the following Monday - basically three a week. Still, a decent deal at less than $2 per DVD rented and the convenience of not having to go to the video store. Frustrating, but more or less acceptable.

Then came the month were we only receive, maybe four or five DVDs. We still watched them as soon as we got them and mailed them right back, but the next movies took a long time in coming. In one case, it was a week after the DVD was mailed that they acknowledged receiving it. It was another couple of days before they alerted me they had sent the next DVD and it was EIGHT DAYS before I received the DVD. So basically, it took more than two weeks to get my next movie. This kind of thing went on for a couple of months.

Then I heard about the lawsuit. I thought, great, maybe things will get better, and they did, slightly. Or at least they had gotten to the 9 to 12 movies a month level, not the 15 to 18 movies a month level it had been before. At this point I was frustrated - again, still not a bad deal, but not the one I signed up for - so I decided to keep going. Then, I heard about the "throttling" thing a few weeks ago and that was the last straw and I cancelled my membership.

Now, I'm not saying Netflix is a bad deal. And I'm not saying that at some point, I won't resubscribe, but for many people, it's not the deal they signed up for. Even with the changes they have made in their disclosure policies, I still think it's misleading at best. I think they promote the "perfect world" scenario and don't adequately let you know that heavy users will be shuffled to the bottom of the deck.

Netflix is a successful company, and will continue to be successful, at least in the near future because it offers a great convenience and a good selection of stuff that will never be in my local video store (the complete Space: 1999 series for one). But, I think they need to be more up front about their delivery policies, they need to play down or remove the "unlimited rentals" claim, and I think they need to offer the heavy users an option of upgrading their accounts, at a higher fee, which keeps them from being shuffled to the bottom of the deck.

There. That's my rant for the day.

posted by Joseph @ 2/10/2006 03:29:00 PM