Netflix Throttling Heavy Renters

dankinit writes "Netflix has begun using a 'fairness algorithm' that slows shipments of movies to heavy users to protect profits, according to an MSNBC article. Netflix revised its terms of use in January 2005 to read, 'In determining priority for shipping and inventory allocation, we give priority to those members who receive the fewest DVDs through our service'. Since revising this policy last year, more and more users are realizing 'heavy renters are more likely to encounter shipping delays and less likely to immediately be sent their top choices' according to the article."

ironic

That's ironic.. because just today, they sent me this email:

Since you're former member of Netflix, we thought you'd like to know that Netflix now offers a greater selection of plans that start at just $9.99 a month. Come back and enjoy the improvements we've made, including our new Friends and Profiles features. With over 55,000 movies and delivery in about 1 business day, Netflix is better than ever.

I guess "screwing over people who watch a lot of movies" is one of their "improvements" that they've made.

It's my fault

I don't know that I'd call it "Screwing Over" but to be fair, but it is deceptive advertizing. I'm not a huge fan of class action lawsuits, but I do trust them to take care of things like this. Everyone should make sure that they get their piece of the settlement, and feel free to organize and sue again until their practices are actually outlined.

I wonder though if my habits screwed everyone...my general netflix usage is DVDShrinking [mrbass.org] the disc as soon as I get it (my mail gets delivered about 2:00pm) and then walking it down to the Post Office for the 5:00pm outgoing mail collection. I've wondered if this sets off any flags, and I guess it does. I think maybe I'll throw a 24 hour delay into there.

My Bad.

Re:It's my fault

...My Bad... If you're sharing on p2p, there's no need to apologize to me.

Re:It's my fault

"I wanted to have 800 hours of interent access in January, but because of my ISP's "throttling", I was unable to exceed 744 hours of internet access, a far cry from the "unlimited" they advertised."

You're not going to be happy about this then....

This month, I heard they are only going to be allowing you 672 hours.

Re:It's my fault

Copying Netflix movies is like bringing a doggie bag to an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Suing them for throttling is like complaining when the waitress won't clear your plates every two minutes.

In advertising, "unlimited" is still used within the context of reasonable behavior. If copying a Netflix movie were "reasonable", you would not need to ship the discs back, since they could make a new copy themselves for less than the cost of the return postage and let you keep the old one instead of bothering with DVDShrink.

Re:It's my fault

"Suing them for throttling is like complaining when the waitress won't clear your plates every two minutes."

No, its more like complaining that you can't get a new plate until 5 minutes after you've finished with the food on the previous plate.

The advertisement states "Unlimited," which should translate into "Everything we can do to make sure that you have three movies checked out to you at any one time." Having secret or public delays is not right, because that is the antithesis of "Unlimited." In otherwords, NetFlix is lying when they say "Unlimited."

The whole idea behind "three movies" was that it takes roughly three days for the old movie to get to Netflix and the new movie to get to you. You should be able to get 28-31 movies/month if you watch a movie a day. However, if you are watching that many movies, I suggest you do something else.

As for those jackasses that are ripping the movies. Why? 1) what you are doing is illegal, not just on DMCA standpoint, but also because you don't even own the media. You are renting the movie. Renting voids any right for time-shifting, media shifting, backup, or any of the other excuses you think you have. 2) If you want the movie that bad, either buy it or put it back in the Queue for when you want to watch it again. There are very few movies I have an interest in buying anymore. I just add them to my queue. If they are good enough to watch again, I return them and add them back into the end of my Queue. When they come up again, I decide if that is what I want to watch. If not, I move it back again.

Re:It's my fault

Not to defend outright piracy, but I know many people (sometimes myself as well) who rent and return movies within 24 hours. It only takes a couple hours to watch a movie, and it beats the heck out of TV tripe most of the time. Some of them will watch a couple movies a night.

So for them, this "heavy usage pattern" is perfectly normal and not a sign of piracy. Having their shipments "throttled" means they aren't getting the full use of the service they signed up for. It's up to the service provider to adjust capacity and/or pricing tiers to deal with the load, not choke off paid subscriptions that actually use the service as advertised.

Not an improvement but biz as usual.

I guess "screwing over people who watch a lot of movies" is one of their "improvements" that they've made.

I'd like to gently disagree with the article and with the parent poster because this is something, I believe, that Netflix has been doing since day one. I'm guessing, though, that now they either have a auditable trail (e.g. software) or for other reasons they are formalizing throttling frequent renters.

In 2002 I began a Netflix subscription which back in those days came in one all-you-can-watch for about $20.00 (iirc). I watch movies sometimes three at a go because it is a professional interest of mine and, well, I love film. So, for my first couple of months, I was watching maybe 12 films a month.

My third month or so, I stopped getting DVDs. I checked my queue and discovered they'd not received the DVDs I returned. After 2 weeks, I reported the DVDs missing even though, by gum, I knew I had sent them back. My queue resumed and when I returned the 5 DVDs within one week of viewing them the USPS mysteriously failed to deliver those, too. While considering reporting these lost DVDs to the US Postmaster, I came across an article in WIRED explaining how Netflix loses money on frequent renters [wired.com]: "Some subscribers rent twenty or more. (Which is a problem: Netflix loses money on postage for households that rent more than five a month.)" (emphasis added).

That told me all I needed to know and I cancelled my Netflix subscription. Occam's razor is here inadequate since it would suggest that the DVDs were in fact getting lost in the mail. But I had been using the USPS for objects large and small for 20 years by that point and not a single piece of mail had ever been lost either coming to or going from me. And I'm supposed to believe that somehow, of all the mail I send, that only my DVDs to Netflix get lost?

Netflix is a company like any other in that it wants to make a profit. However, in 2002 they engaged (I believe) in unethical business practices to protect their bottom line rather than, for example, simply billing renters for postage overages. Netflix will never get any of my money ever again and when Internet distribution finally kills them, I probably won't care enough to tell this story again.

Re:Not an improvement but biz as usual.

I think its rather stupid on Netflix part. Those passionate users are likely passionate advocates as well. This is what happens when bean-counters run the ship.

Re:Not an improvement but biz as usual.

>> drained of any profits by freeloaders

yeah, those damn freeloader, actually expecting to get what they paid for. Who do they think they are.

Re:Not an improvement but biz as usual.

actually expecting to get what they paid for

Judging from several comments here, it sounds like some people are expecting to get a lot MORE than what they paid for - they're expecting to get permanent copies of as many DVDs as they want, by getting the DVD, copying it, and sending it back the next day. I would call that "freeloading," as well as "illegal" and "ruining it for the rest of us."

I realize that some people are legitimately renting lots and lots of movies, but I have a feeling that if you took away all the "copiers", the problem wouldn't be so big that Netflix would have to stoop to massive throttling. Yes, they handled it in a dishonest manner, but just the fact that they're doing it isn't at all surprising if so many people are abusing the service.

Re:Not an improvement but biz as usual.

Most likely, someone at the post office was stealing the discs. The envelopes are very easy to identify and steal.

Netflix, Blockbuster, then Netflix again.

Isn't there an obvious answer?

1) Start a Netflix subscription. When throttling starts, cancel.

2) Start a Blockbuster subscription. When throttling starts, cancel.

3) Go back to step one, this time using another person's name in your household, with a different credit card. This will be indistinguishable from a new renter/owner of your house or apartment.

The above demonstrates one of the problems with a company being tricky with customers: Customers can be tricky too, and there are a lot more of them.

--
Before, Saddam got Iraq oil profits & paid part to kill Iraqis. Now a few Americans share Iraq oil profits, & U.S. taxpayers pay to kill Iraqis. Improvement?

Re:ironic

All of what you say is true, but none of it has anything to do with the fact that by claiming their service is unlimited, Netflix is lying. Do you not understand that? If a company would go out of business by doing what it claims to do, then it shouldn't be making those claims; it's really that simple.

Your "welfare state" crack makes it pretty easy to guess your politics, so I'll add this: it's bizarre, but not at all surprising, that those who will defend just about any corporate atrocity in the name of "maximizing value for the shareholders" are the first to jump on customers and/or workers of those corporations when they try to maximize value for themselves. It's a two-way street, folks. If corporations are going to act like amoral predators, why shouldn't Average Joes act the same way in dealing with them?

Re:ironic

The guy who's interviewed in the article says he used to recieve 22 movies a month and no longer does. Holy shit, don't these people have no life of any kind?

I watch VERY little TV, and can still EASILY watch up to twenty movies a month (even more in the winter) without lacking "a life"...

During spring through late fall, Saturday and Sundays I'll go out fairly early for a nice hike, usually come home 6-8 hours later. Make dinner, watch a movie or two. Two on Friday after work, two on Saturday, one on Sunday, that adds up to twenty without wasting my life away in front of the TV.



Thirdly, did they really expect 'unlimited' to mean unlimited?

If you buy a 32" TV only to take it home and find it has a 20" screen in an 8.5" bezel, would you feel just a little cheated there? (And although that may sounds extreme, TVs and monitors NEVER actually measure their advertised value for that exact reason, often falling up to a full inch smaller).

So yeah, it bothers me that Netflix translates "unlimited" as "as many as we want you to have". Their cheesy little mantra of "no reasonable person would really think they could get 8,000 movies a month" just doesn't cut it... NO ONE would have complained if they "only" received 45 movies per month, which would equal the 2-day turnaround imposed by the physical realities of sending it by mail. Even a mere 30 per month, at a 3-day turnaround, I doubt would have resulted in so much grumbling. But I haven't even hit 20 in over a year.



Fourth, do you think there's someone else offering a sweeter deal? Good luck trying to find it.

And that, my friend, describes the ONLY reason I still have a netflix subscription. Even throttled down to 12-15 per month, it still costs a quarter what renting from a physical Blockbuster does; and no one can beat Netflix for the size of their catalog.

That doesn't make me a happy customer, however, and eventually, some company WILL come along and offer the same thing without lying about what "unlimited" means. And when that happens, Netflix will learn how the local crack dealer feels when the Mexican mob moves in.

From TFA: just wanted 18 to 22 movies per month

Since you obviously didn't read TFA, here is the relevant excerpt:

Netflix typically sends about 13 movies per month to Villanueva's home in Warren, Mich. -- down from the 18 to 22 DVDs he once received before the company's automated system identified him as a heavy renter and began delaying his shipments to protect its profits.

That comes to about 36 to 44 hours per month, which is just 26% to 32% of the 138 hours per month of television [reason.com] that the average adult in the U.S. watches.

Re:subject

It does look damn suspicious for a guy to turn around 3-5 movies a day and honestly claim he's NOT pirating them and just shipping them back as soon as his DVD ripper is done grabbing the movie. I'm sure there's a small percentage of legitimate people out there that really do nothing else all day but watch movies from sun up to sun down and they don't have cable or satellite, but they're few and far between.

In both the US and Canada, I've met bus drivers (mainly in their 50's) who would work long hours all week, and then rent a stackload of videos so they could spend the entire weekend indoor watching films from dawn to dusk without going outside - driving in traffic for five days was enough of the outside world for them.

Where to begin?

Face it, they're just trying to slow down the DVD pirates

Made up facts sure are convenient, but that doesn't make them true. More likely, what Netflix is doing is trying to reduce their shipping charges by taking steps to limit their advertised "unlimited" movie rentals per month. Both are speculation. Which one is more likely?

It does look damn suspicious for a guy to turn around 3-5 movies a day

I suggest you look at the data at the Netflix Queue Tracker [listology.com]. People are apparently getting throttled for getting as few as 6 movies per month. That's a little less than the 90-150 movies per month you're quoting as being suspicious.

the DVD pirates are turning around 10-15 discs a week (or more).

Where in the world are you getting these numbers? I challenge anyone to turn around 10 to 15 discs a week (or more) with Netflix. Maybe if you're on the 8 at a time plan, this might be possible. With the three at a time plan, you're lucky to turn over 6 discs a week. That's assuming you're not being throttled at all. Is it unreasonable to speculate that someone that doesn't have cable and doesn't watch broadcast TV might watch one movie per night? (and even take off a night every week!) No, they must be a pirate.

horrible but expected

I really hate that this is happening, but it makes total sense. First, netfix has its customers by the balls. NF is guarateed that automatically billed monthly fee. They are counting on people being ignorant to new, abusive policies like this one that penalizes people for using the service they pay for.

Before I get any further, let me address your defense of NF:

It would only be ethically wrong if they could change their contract and you could *not* leave

first of all, shame on you for defending such abusive business practices. second, this is only ethical if NF sent out a notice saything something to the effect of:

we are changing our policy regarding rentals. we have designed a computer program to identify people who rent excessively (more than x number of rentals a month) and those excessive renters will have their movies shipped later, and be put lower in the que for new releases

Anything less than the above admission from NF in PLAIN LANGUAGE is abuse of their understanding with their clients, and no ammount of counterpoint/cabal.bs can change that fact.

another thing, from TFA:

After collecting consumer opinions about the Web's 40 largest retailers last year, Ann Arbor, Mich., research firm ForeSeeResults rated Netflix as "the cream of the crop in customer satisfaction."

so this is what passes as collecting customer feedback??? this 'foreseeresults' company is probably full of shit...just like most of the people in their profession...an evil, self-sustaining virus of a profession that only circulates bullshit and misperception.

Re:horrible but expected

I really hate that this is happening, but it makes total sense. First, netfix has its customers by the balls. NF is guarateed that automatically billed monthly fee. They are counting on people being ignorant to new, abusive policies like this one that penalizes people for using the service they pay for.

Give me a break...am I supposed to believe that the Netflix customer that gets 12 movies per week is some wide-eyed babe struggling to understand this brave new world of technology?

Bullshit.

The only reason the abusers have been copying movies faster than they can watch them is they knew the deal was too good to last. Otherwise, what would be the hurry?

The people getting throttled aren't "ignorant to new, abusive polices"; they have been scrutinizing the Netflix TOS and dreading this day's arrival. They know they got a good ride. Now the ride is over. Deal with it.

Re:horrible but expected

Give me a break...am I supposed to believe that the Netflix customer that gets 12 movies per week is some wide-eyed babe struggling to understand this brave new world of technology?

Bullshit.

The people getting throttled aren't "ignorant to new, abusive polices"; they have been scrutinizing the Netflix TOS and dreading this day's arrival. They know they got a good ride. Now the ride is over. Deal with it.

Actually, my wife wife and I just had a baby (well, she did all the hard work). My wife was just asking me last night how to add a header to a word document. Not two breaths later she was saying she had gained a reputation at work for being the tech savvy person in the office. When I was done laughing, I told her how to do the header thing.

While you may wonder what this has to do with netflix, my wife watches dvds from netflix all the friggin time. She only works 12 hours a week. The baby sleeps a lot. We don't even have a DVD burner.

Recently, my wife has been complaining that the netflix rentals have been taking longer and longer to arrive. It seems that every three day holiday weekend for the last few months we've had to go to Blockbuster to rent a movie - simply because there wasn't a netflix movie in the house. I'm emailing the link to my wife, and I guarantee we'll be considering alternate vendors.

Re:Voluntary and well-understood

As long as a contract is well understood by both parties and voluntarilty entered into, it's fine.

I don't suppose you RTFA and discovered that they denied it for months after they'd been doing it and only changed the terms of service after a lawsuit was actually filed, which they offered $2.5 million to settle?

KFG

Re:Voluntary and well-understood

As long as a contract is well understood by both parties and voluntarilty entered into, it's fine.

For existing customers, it's a simple bait-and-switch tactic. Offer one thing, deliver the other.

For new customers (or those who are actually informed of the choice and consciously agree with it) the new contract is basically, well, not understood. A contract is a promise to do something in return for something else. The something else is clear; you have to pay netflix money. And in return? Well, they won't say you will get anything. Not guaranteed.

Of course, people were already getting delays, so what's changed isn't what you're getting. But it's the fact netflix doesn't say they want to even make the effort anymore. They promise... nothing.

That's not a contract. That's a lottery.

Seeing as they're called "netflix" and not "loan-a-dvd lottery co." I'd say they're trying to pull a fast one.

Re:Bait

A very good comparison.

My experience is with the Canadian internet access industry - and mirrors (and, I believe, will predict) the netflix situation quite well.

Shaw (who provides cable internet) once advertised "unlimited" service.
Once people started signing up, they realized that they weren't willing to actually offer unlimited service.
Then they put a statement about "excessive usage" in the AUP - it wasn't defined, of course, but people still got nasty letters and the mouthbreathers who man their "excessive use" line even threatened to charge people for "excessive usage". These "excessive usage" fines were, of course, pulled completely out of their ass. No documentation could be found regarding when the limit was reached, what the overage charges were, etc, etc, but people were still threatened with, and possibly even were charged those fines. An almost magical fee, but one that would appear on your bill and would have to be paid, or your service would be disconnected and your account sent to collections.
After several nasty letters from lawyers and possibly some lawsuits, Shaw finally decided to write down the bandwidth limit in their advertising, at almost the exact same time their competitors did the same. Sounds like a couple people had a meeting.

What you can clearly see is that not only was Shaw involved in false advertising, but it continued to engage in such criminal activity far after their illegal activities were exposed. Moreover, their actions clearly were to the detriment of the person buying the services. Furthermore, collusion - whether intentional or just the other company matching policies - between Shaw and its competitors has led to an continuously decreasing level of service for the end user and shaw has suffered virtually no consequences.

In the end, netflix will face virtually no consequences (and before anyone says anything about the settlement, please, don't waste your breath. Bumping your users to the next tier for a month - and not bumping them back down at the end - is undeniably a win win situation for netflix).
Furthermore, the shady - if not outright fraudulent - actions of netflix in stating the return date of dvds*, has gone, and will go unpunished. In the end, blockbuster (ok it has) and the completion will eventually adopt a similar tos - putting in writing what it is doing - and the situation will only get worse as time goes on. Furthermore, "advanced throttling" - such as sending the dvds on time, but from a service center across the country - will become commonplace, since once something is in writing, it will be used.

And finally - and perhaps most importantly - "unlimited" will still be used in their advertising until a regulatory agency or a number of lawsuits convince them to change it - both Blockbuster and Netflix currently do on their websites - even though their ToS states that they throttle. And have no doubt, once one company changes it, the other will change their advertising within a month.

*If you're being throttled, if you send back 3 dvds - even 3 dvds in the same envelope - netflix will receive 2 a couple minutes apart and then "receive" the last one several hours later. Try it out ;)

customer service denied anything was going on

Netflix did this to me. When I contacted customer service to ask why movies were suddenly taking so long to arrive, they sent me unrelated generic responses and then blamed it on the postal system. I finally sent them this email:

"Thank you for the response. It does not address my question. The problem is not with the transit time; it is with the processing time at Netflix. When I ship the DVDs back, they get there in one day. Then there is a period of 5 to 6 business days before the next DVD is shipped to me. Once it is actually shipped, it arrives in one day. I recently had to rent a movie from Blockbuster because Netflix took so long to process my DVDs. Netflix has wide selection, but I am becoming frustrated with the generic customer service responses and the lack of service in general. Please send me a real reply."

and they replied with this one:

"Thanks for your inquiry.

What titles are you referring to specifically? Rentals process within one business day from the time we receive a return.

We process nearly 100% of returns the same day we receive them. When we check-in a return, an e-mail is automatically and promptly sent to you to let you know that we have received your DVD.

Our goal is to ship you the DVDs listed highest in your Queue. We try to ship you DVDs from the distribution center closest to you so that you get movies quickly. Often, on the same day that we receive a DVD from you, we will ship the next available DVD from your Queue. In certain instances, your next available DVD will not ship until the next business day following our receipt of your returned movie. This can occur, for example, when your top choices are not available to you from your closest distribution center or the number of shipments to be processed by the distribution center on that day has been exceeded. When this happens, your DVD will ship on the next business day and may come from an alternate distribution center.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us.

Thanks,
Scott,
Netflix Customer Service"

not the only ones...

Blockbuster also does this - basically, if you send 3 dvds back - even in the same envelope, blockbuster will "receive" 2 at x time and then "receive" the other one later.

We aren't stupid, so we can see that this is clearly bulllshit on their part.

As a result, you'll only get 2 dvds shipped out that day, and a third will ship a day later. That said, blockbuster is really forgiving about missing dvds (damn post office lost 15 or so in a couple months)

BTW if you want a free month with blockbuster and have had their service for a while (3 months in my case), go to the cancellation page and they will give you a free month or two.
Not sure what netflix does for customer retention, but I'm sure it is something. The legal settlement with netflix is a joke, btw (google for details)

Also, for those with "long delays" for certain movies under netflix - try killing your queue and re-adding the delayed movie. Theory is that they have to send you something and you should get bumped. Of course, this does kill your queue...

So don't advertise "unlimited"

FTFA:

Hastings said the company has no specified limit on rentals, but "`unlimited' doesn't mean you should expect to get 10,000 a month."

Well, der, no one wants 10k movies a month.

But, if Netflix had a point they didn't really want people going over, why not just advertise X movies per month, instead of unlimited? According to the articles, most people don't rent more than 11 per month. Set the limit higher than that, but at a point where they can make the profit they are aiming for with throttling.

They don't end up looking like buttholes if they are just honest about it up front.

Re:What's the big deal?

I'd love to walk to my local video store (really), but...

-The closest video store is about 7 miles away. The closest real video store (not just one wall of videos) is more like 15 miles away.
- Said video store does not carry old silent movies, current documentaries or eclectic TV shows. Which, interestingly enough, is what I'm interested in.

I'm unhappy that Netflix is doing this, but it does pretty much provide me with a relatively unique service.

Netflix contact info

Give 'em a ring.
1-888-638-3549

1-800-290-4518
M-F 6AM-7PM, Sa-Su 6AM-2:30PM

In fairness to Netflix

Perhaps they just have too many customers.
 

Their Advertising is the problem

Netflix still advertises as an unlimited service. They make no attempt to inform the subscriber that they are throttling them. This is at the very least a deceptive practice.

Now when you couple the throttling practice with the terms of the lawsuit settlement, the subscriber gets a bump in service level for one month theres a real problem. What prevents them from just further adjusting their shipping algorithym so there is no actual bump ??

Say what you want the problem is netflix not informing their customers about what they are actually buying.

The problem with monthly fees

Whenever you have an ongoing monthly subscription to something the provider has no incentive to do anything fast, or at all. Microsoft has demonstrated this, as has Blizzard, now its Netflix's turn. When I trialed a similar system in Australia I worked out that postal delays and scratched discs were like free money to the company. (Meanwhile, the selection was seriously crap.) These days I buy ex-rental DVDs from a friend at work who also owns an old-school video rental place.

Re:I was a subscriber, happened to me...

Holy shit mods!

THIS IS NOT INSIGHTFUL!

I'd get 3 DVD's in the mail, I'd rip them to my HD for encoding and backup (to watch later), and send them out the next day. The day after I sent them Netflix would confirm that they had them and send out the next ones

YOU are exacly why Netflix is inclined to put something like this in place. You are not "backing up" these as you don't own them. Seriously mods, what are you thinking moding this insighful? I would vote with my points, but they won't matter with the sea of idoits who seem to get them.

Re:I was a subscriber, happened to me...

Agreed...can we hear from a subscriber that DOESN'T copy the DVDs and still got throttled? The firsthand accounts I've seen in this thread so far involve copying.

How to piss off your biggest customers

I'm not a Netflix user but I know those that are. The heaviest users tend to be evangelists for the company and have an important role in growing the company via word of mouth, the most effective form of advertising.

If this gets widespread coverage I can see them having some serious problems, that would only be slightly mitigated by people who aren't heavy users joining for the preferential service they would get.

While the company isn't doing anything worse than credit card companies that cut the time required for payment for those that pay in time in an attempt to get them to miss the due date. If you don't like those kind of practices don't use the company.

Weird Netflix Story

I rented a movie from them a few years ago and mistakenly returned a Rolling Stones CD in the envelope. The DVD player went unused for months. When I went to do something with it, I found their DVD and wondered what the deal was. They had processed the return as if nothing happened. One of those mysteries of life ... this is what I figured.

About a year later, I got an envelope from them in the mail. It had the Stones CD in it. My guess is the DVD I rented wasn't that popular, and had just then been sent to someone, who subsequently discovered my Stones CD and sent it back to Netflix. I thought it showed something they actually bothered to return it.

Letter Sent to Netflix; Terms of Service Excerpt

My wife and I have been using Netflix since Nov. 2004, and we have experienced a marked decline in service over that time. Having just learned about the "throttling", we sent them the following letter:

I have just been alerted to your new changes in the "Terms of Service" regarding heavy users. Personally, I am appalled by the intent and also the wording of this recent change.

Perhaps you have serious abusers of your system, but my husband and I are teachers who work 12 hour days. Watching movies is one of our only luxuries. We have seen our level of service go down significantly since we signed on with Netflix. Now we understand why.

After reading some enlightening articles about Netflix and its practices, we will be seriously considering whether or not to keep our relationship with you.

Most importantly, we will no longer be suggesting your service to family and friends, which we have done many times in the past. Instead, we will be sending copies of the articles concerning your business practices to family and friends who already have the service so that they might be aware of what's going on.

For what it's worth: We would have been happy to pay a reasonable surcharge in months when we rented more DVDs. What your company has chosen to do instead is offensive and insulting.

Here are some eye-opening parts of their terms of use:

We make no guaranty as to the shipping and delivery of DVDs and may, in our sole and absolute discretion, change our business practice regarding allocation, delivery and shipping, without notice. We may from time to time revise these Terms of Use but we will not necessarily provide you notice of the revisions. It is up to you to review the Terms of Use frequently to determine if there have been changes.

They send us emails about everything else...but they can't bother letting us know when the terms of use have changed? Something smells bad here...