Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Evolution of the Netflix Envelope

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the uhoh-used-the-e-word dept.

An anonymous reader wrote to mention an article over on CNN Money. They go into some detail on what seven years of tinkering has done for the simple red Netflix envelope. From the article: "Years of experimentation went into creating the perfect DVD envelope. In 1999, Netflix started out with a heavy cardboard mailer. With only 100,000 subscribers, costs weren't a concern yet. Then the company experimented with plastic envelopes, which proved not to be recyclable, and padding, which added too much to postage costs. Both top-loading and side-loading envelopes made an appearance."

2 of 238 comments (clear)

  1. Perfection is in the pennies by Saeul · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Imagine shipping 1 billion DVDs for one cent cheaper.

  2. This is how it works... by Jerf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    For those of you who think that there hasn't been much technological progress since, say, 1980 (except perhaps computers which are special*), this is how it happens. Take this sort of incremental improvement by one company in one very small facet of our lives, and multiply it across any number of thousands of products, carefully trimmed and optimized and made more efficient. You only notice the things that the process isn't very good at; UI, for instance.

    (*: And computers only seem special for two reasons: One, most fields don't get to experience exponential growth for decades at a time, and two, you know more about them. There's a lot going on under the hood of any number of other products, too. Familiarity breeds contempt; so does ignorance.)