Netflix Throttling Heavy Renters 550
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's my fault (Score:2, Insightful)
And how about downloading? My dial-up was throttled down to 28,8 which meant I couldn't download an unlimited amount of content, my so called unlimited account was throttled to force me to have a
Re:It's my fault (Score:5, Funny)
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 (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It's my fault (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's my fault (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's my fault (Score:5, Insightful)
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. (Score:5, Informative)
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. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not an improvement but biz as usual. (Score:5, Insightful)
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. (Score:4, Insightful)
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. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Not an improvement but biz as usual. (Score:3, Informative)
really? (Score:3, Informative)
This is just the latest instance.
Re:Not an improvement but biz as usual. (Score:3, Informative)
Pretty tempting though, I might say. Little red envelopes, you know what's in them... or, you can speculate as you did. Either way though, it's still far cheaper than going to blockbuster (or any other video store), you don't have to leave the house, and you do get them quickly so your argument is completely illogical. Yeah, you go ahead and protest them by going and renting 12 movies a month from Blo
Re:ironic (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess "screwing over people who watch a lot of movies" is one of their "improvements" that they've made.
Actually, this is nothing new [slashdot.org], despite the summary for this story leading with Netflix has begun using a 'fairness algorithm'. The article I link to dates back to April 2003 and such 'punishments' were apparent back then.
I am signed up with ScreenSelect [screenselect.co.uk], a British version of Netflix, and it can be quite obvious that they throttle heavy users. For instance, I'm on the most expensive three-disk plan for
Re:ironic (Score:2)
Re:ironic (Score:3, Interesting)
There's two effects going on 1) light users have much better chances of getting movies that are in high demand quickly -- heavy users generally have to wait until the movie is no longer in heavy demand before getting a new movie (unless they manage to get it o
Re:ironic (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes. It makes perfect sense.
Suppose you have a Netflix user who returns every movie he gets from Netflix the very next day -- he's a heavy user. Suppose this user lives in a city where Netflix also has a distribution center, so mail only takes one day back and forth. And suppose that Netflix wants to slow him down and reduce the number of movies he gets, because he's costing them money (being a heavy user.) One possible way to do this, one that's somewhat sub
Re:ironic (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not either extend the limit to x per month on all the plans (annoying to heavy renters though) or just raise the price of the plan to where even if the person watched each movie they got the day they got it and turned it around, Netflix still makes a profit?
Or, even better, do both, but have the ones with monthly limits be cheaper (like now, bu
Netflix, Blockbuster, then Netflix again. (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Fairness to who? (Score:2)
Who cares? (Score:2)
Who cares? It's their business. You surely don't think that they casually make decisions like this. Some guy that goes through a dozen movies a week (really, just stop for a second and actually think about that, ok?) is not their typical customer, and is probably just ripping movies as fast as he can blow the dust out of his DVD burner rack.
But it doesn't matter, because if there's really a large market for people who must have more than one DVD a day for $10 a month,
Re:Fairness to who? (Score:2)
The more movies you rotate each month, the smaller the profit gets. At some point there is a break even point where they start losing money on you.
So, their advertising is false, they screw up their customers. Sounds good to me! USA - where companies are free to screw you and get away with it!
Re:Fairness to who? (Score:2)
Voluntary and well-understood (Score:2, Insightful)
NF have discovered they can't operate an entirely flat-rate service and have modified their behaviour accordingly.
One could argue that customers originally signed up to a contract which has been unilaterially modified; but I would expect the T&C to allow them in that circumstance to terminate their contract without prejudice.
NF can offer a certain service for a certain cost. Either you like it or you don't
horrible but expected (Score:4, Insightful)
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:
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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:horrible but expected (Score:2)
Additionally, netflix is a cut rate bussiness. The model is based on providing cheap products, whic
Re:Voluntary and well-understood (Score:2)
I know this post is a bit acerbic, but your argument is complete and utter apologist horseshit.
Are people making too big a deal out of this? Probably, but if a company advertises something - they should actually
Re:Voluntary and well-understood (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Bait (Score:2, Interesting)
It's like the British ADSL industry... you sell something you know to be unsustainable, then add fair usage policies.
Re:Bait (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
"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"
Re:customer service denied anything was going on (Score:2)
Did you get any actual, undeniable interation with their customer service?
I think what Netflix needs is some real competition. I've considered switching to Blockbuster, but I've been informed by a movie critic friend of mine that they suck too.
Any other viable alternatives yet?
not the only ones... (Score:5, Informative)
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...
Re:not the only ones... (Score:2)
Re:not the only ones... (Score:2)
damn post office lost 15 or so in a couple months)
I have a post above talking about my experience with DVDs lost in the USPS system. Not to rehash, the short version is: the USPS almost never loses mail and if it is "losing" mail on a regular basis you can GUARANTEE that the USPS Postal inspector would be very curious to hear your story.
Your postal inspector might be a very unsexy bureaucrat but let me tell you, he or she DOES NOT fuck around. Write a letter to your Postal Inspector explaining that yo
Re:not the only ones... (Score:2)
So don't advertise "unlimited" (Score:3, Insightful)
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:So don't advertise "unlimited" (Score:2, Interesting)
you're 100% right. What is wrong, however, is that our way of doing business rewards businesses who are as hidden and dishonest about their business practices as possible. Really, it comes down to pleasing shareholders vs. customers...
good businesspeople understand that pleasing shareholders and customers is, at it's core, the same thing...anyone who makes a distinction is selling out
Netflix contact info (Score:5, Informative)
1-888-638-3549
1-800-290-4518
M-F 6AM-7PM, Sa-Su 6AM-2:30PM
Re:Netflix contact info (Score:2)
few days (Score:2, Funny)
Re:few days (Score:2)
Many (techi) people choose to subscribe to both instead of getting a premium rate cable / satellite service.
Now if only there was a totally legitimate wa
Old News (On Slashdot in 2003!) (Score:2, Informative)
In fairness to Netflix (Score:3, Funny)
Perhaps they just have too many customers.
Their Advertising is the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Broken DVDs per customer (dirty but point across) (Score:2, Interesting)
That oughta fuckup that fairness algorithm.
If it's the cost, just increase the subscription fee. If it's the piracy, just limit the DVD rental amount per month. But don't fucking lie to your customers like everyone is a cheap ass thief who's out to get everyone in Hollywood.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem with monthly fees (Score:3, Insightful)
New Customer (Score:2)
How to piss off your biggest customers (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
queue wait time listing (Score:2)
I think this is very old news. I saw something (here even; I'm pretty sure anyway) where a guy queued the same movies on two different accounts with different rental activity and saw different waiting times listed. The light renter account had shorter or no wait times for availability on new releases. The article mentions this. At the time the person was only checking for new release wait times and I don't think the phenomenon applied to older movies that were less in demand. I could be wrong it was a l
Heh. (Score:2)
That is, supposing the telecom (originally typo'd this as "telecon"... freudian slip?) industry hadn't defrauded us competely, by charging us for first-class broadband while continuing to deliver third-world, 1970s technology...
Maybe it's just me... (Score:2)
Way overblown (Score:2)
Weird Netflix Story (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
He who has the gold... (Score:2)
Reed needs to understand that a survey that says "they're a bargain" can coexist with the one that says "they're evil bad".
They can justify this all they want, but it's the equivalent of the folks at a Blockbuster store seeing you come in for the 3rd time that week, scooping armfuls of new DVDs off the shelf and yelling "Hide! Everybody hide!" and ducking under the counter. How professional. "Cheese Shop" sketch anyone?
Plus the agreement you enter into contains such nice phrases as "W
Re:He who has the gold... (Score:2)
The other part about cancelling your service...well...you are dealing with a private business, not the government. The government doesn't say they have to do business with you for any
It seems Netflix is doing the right thing (Score:2)
Letter Sent to Netflix; Terms of Service Excerpt (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Allah Ackbar! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:subject (Score:3, Insightful)
On the scale of evil companies, from 1 to 10, Netflix is a 2 and Blockbuster is an 11. Face it, they're just trying to slow down the DVD pirates and I don't see anything incredibly wrong with that. 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 sur
Re:subject (Score:2, Insightful)
Lots of people do not have cable/satellite and prefer to watch DVDs only. Some of them for religious reasons, other economic, and others still to escape the low quality programming.
I have noticed that when I turn around Netflix DVDs the fastest, the new DVDs tend to take longer.
I'm going to look over NF's competitors now, to see if they have any deals going. F'ing NF.
Other Options? (Score:2)
Re:subject (Score:2)
Ha...ha...ha. Religious reasons? What is the religion, again, that outlaws the direct broadcasting of television to consumers via wires or via satellite waves, however allows postal shipment of discs containing similar content? Wait, nevermind, I think I found the Torah verse.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:subject (Score:2)
Re:it could happen (Score:2)
A
From TFA: just wanted 18 to 22 movies per month (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:From TFA: just wanted 18 to 22 movies per month (Score:2)
Re:subject (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:subject (Score:2)
Re:subject (Score:2)
Where to begin? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:4, Informative)
-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.
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:3, Interesting)
Its big-chain competitors aren't really much better, selection-wise, and the non-chain local stores I've lived near have always had pretty bad return windows compared to the bigger guys.
Little non-chains == more eclectic sele
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:2)
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:2)
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:2)
You tell me.
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:2)
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:2)
Plus the local place has shitty anime (only thing I want anymore) and the ones they do are constantly being rented, thus when I went back to blockbuster in the day, I
Re:Check the DATE (Score:2)
I guess that spyware companies aren't the only ones who hide things in their ToS or EUIA.
Re:so lets get this straight.... (Score:2)
People who actually pay for instead of download their movies get screwed over?
You've been modded funny, but your humor is actually very insightful. In 2006, those who pay for a service are exactly the people who will get screwed over when there is a free alternative. The degree of screwing varies according the nature of the company, but everything from DRM'd music files to encumbered computer hardware to dongled production software to you-name-it--paying customers are treated poorly by the very companie
Re:so lets get this straight.... (Score:2)
Customers are willing to play fair but if the media company's want to stop piracy they'll have to play fair too.
Re:so lets get this straight.... (Score:2)
This is Netflix thats causing the problem (Lovefilm in the UK have the same clause in their terms and conditions, throttling of high usage users, and Lovefilm supply the backend service for a LOT of the online rentals clubs in the UK).
Re:Hey, I've got a great business idea! (Score:2)
Step 2 is obvious and easy. It takes time for peopel to change their habits. In the meantime, their quarterly profit goes up, making them look more profitable than they really are. Step 2 is SELL OUT TO NEW INVESTORS" and let someone else be the bagholder for the accumulated BS.
This is actually quite common in the direct-mail an
Re:what an amazing business decision.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Tell your biggest customers that they're no longer your priority.
Biggest does not mean profitable. In this case, just the opposite. Every business, if they hope to stay in business, does this in some form or another. The service levels match the profitability of the customer. It's why you have to go through several levels of phone prompts and wait listening to muzak to get tech support, while a corporation with a big $ support contract gets someone on the phone immediately.
This is the problem wit
Re:I was a subscriber, happened to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:5, Insightful)
Awesome (Score:2)