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Netflix Users Experience Paradox of Abundance
prostoalex writes "The deal seems to be rather simple — you pay a monthly fee, receive a certain number of DVDs, and as soon as you watch them, and send them back, there's more coming. This simple model made Netflix into a $1.4 bln company, but now, Wall Street Journal reports, some Netflix users are experiencing the abundance paradox — the movies arrive, collect dust on the customer's desks, and then are sent back for the new set of movies to face the same fortune. From the article: "'It's a paradox of abundance,' said Siva Vaidhyanathan, a professor of culture and communication at New York University. If people aren't pressured to see a movie in a specific time frame, he said, viewers tend to put it lower on their priority list. 'When you have every choice in front of you, you have less urgency about any particular choice.'"
We hav Zip.ca up here in Canada. It's kind of interesting to hear about this because I have a different approach to how I do things, and Zip's somewhat *ahem* silly queing system does have an option to make it useful: Park.
What I do is arrange on my active "Can send" list (Normal priority in Zip speak) the stuff I know I would watch, and then use ASAP priority to move up things I definitely will watch if I receive it. Anything else I feel I wouldn't watch, I send to the Parking lot (Park priotiy).
Arbitrarily ranking the queue (which I understand Netflix allows) is handy if you know you're going to watch things, but maybe they need to ask the user: I REALLY want to watch this, I wouldn't mind watching this, and "Eh, a friend told me i should watch it".
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
I think everyone on slashdot knows this, there have been, what, like 15 dups of that story in various forms?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Are you sure about that? that they're actually throttling people? i was under the impression that they put low-volume users higher in priority for disks compared to high-volume users for the same film, so you should only notice a slow-down if your queue is short and you've picked popular films.
Of course, I haven't had netflix in a while, so i guess they could've changed it or i've been mistaken, but I was a pretty heavy user when I did have it and never noticed any throttling. I did notice that the post office box I dropped the disks into seemed to affect the delivery time quite a bit though. I shaved off a day or two by dropping off at the main branch instead of my own.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
As a netflix users, yes, I can attest to the throttling. My wife and I had a feeling that was happening before I read the stories on /. We rent TV series on DVD and we easily go through 10 disks in a two weeks, thereby hitting the limit quickly. They slow down service by not acknowleging returned disks (it takes 2 business days in the beginning of the month and over 4 busniess days in the latter part--all being returned to the same local address.
Oh, and for the official gobbeldy-gook, go here http://www.netflix.com/TermsOfUse?hnjr=8#how and scroll down to Allocation. They don't make throttling a secret. The result of giving priority to low renters is slowing down top renters. Nevermind that top renters tend to go through DVD fast thereby keeping a scarce resource in circulation.
Oh, what I would give for an on-demand digital medium. I would gladly use it, DRM be damned.
"I disagree. I love Netflix. Although some things do start collecting dust, most of what I order is watched within days. I just make a point of watching my latest DVD instead of watching reruns on TV. People just need to learn to watch their DVDs when they have time. Another technique that works is setting a deadline for viewing. When a DVD comes in the mail, I set a deadline for viewing and I stick to it."
one could also make a backup copy for later..store it on their harddrive..and burn when necessary. This would allow you to get a movie and send it back without having to watch it.
While I'm guessing you don't have a credit card for an admirable reason, not to get into CC debt hell, you may want to reconsider.
If you ever want to buy something very expensive, a house for example, you're gonna have trouble without an established credit rating. If you can show self control, and use it basically like cash...it may in your best interests to do so. A regular charge on one like Netflix that you promptly pay off wouldn't be a bad start.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
http://replaylink.com/ is a service where you can purchase and then sell used DVDs (as well as CDs and video games). They send you postage paid mailers just like Netflix, so the convenience is about the same. The shipping and seller fee cost about the same as renting. Since you own the DVDs you keep them as long as you want and only pay for what you use. If you only watch a few movies a month or go on vaccation or something, it's cheaper than the Netflix subscription fee.
DVDShrink
Just copy them one after the other after the other and slide 'em into a disk wallet and when you get the urge just watch one.
I of course would never violate copyright law in such a flagrant fashion. Just saying...
> I think more importantly than that, I don't think checking accounts are protected against fraud most of the time.
In the big sense, they are. Look up "Regulation E" sometime. But they don't have fraud prevention that calls you when there's an anomalous purchase, so it's up to you to keep track, and that's generally going to be with your statements, well after you're out of cash in the meantime.
Just don't put all your money into one checking account, and get yourself a new ATM card every year or two. They'll be happy to send you a new card, just tell 'em you used it online on a site you no longer trust -- which is the truth anyway.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
Yup - a number of years ago I had my ISP screw up my billing and instead of withdrawing $29.95, they took out $350. I was a poor student then and their mistake caused me to bounce a bunch of checks and nearly miss my rent payment.
The bank said they could do nothing because I had granted the ISP EFT access to my account, and there was no way they could distinguish a valid transaction from an invalid one, so I'd have to talk to the ISP.
ISP said "Yup, sorry, our bad - we can fix it in 2-4 weeks". After a lot of complaining and going to supervisors I finally got someone to cut me a check for the refund and I picked it up in person.
Lesson learned. NOBODY gets direct access to my bank accounts. EVER.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
I use peerflix in combination with my local video store. Like netflix, with peerflix You can keep the movies you have as long as you want to. Peerflix is like netflix except you pay per trade not a fixed monthly fee. So hanging on to movies incurs no penalty of cost. (it's about $1.50 per trade ).
I use peerflix for three purposes
1) for movies my local store does not have on hand.
2) for movies I want on hand but am not sure when I will watch: e.g. classic movies for a rainy day with my wife or a Jackie chan flick for me late at night
3) for new releases, which are more expensive to rent (say all of 24).
4) to dispose of movies I own already. (e.g. DVDs my kids have outgrown)
I still go to the local video store for the same reasons you do, but I also have on hand a nice cache of movies at all times without payint the netflix monthly rental fee while they gather dust.
The downside of peerflix is the following:
1) you can't get new movies without trading back the ones you have. But it's not as simple as just sending them in. You have to wait for someone to ask for them. For some movies, like say 3 stooges, or a too popular but now forgotten film, that might be a long long time.
2) You can't just get a movie you want. Someone has to list it to send, and you might be way down on the waiting list.
3) If you accumulate too many movies no one wants. Then you will have to buy more movies just to have something you can trade to get the ones you want.
4) there's a weird dynamic that happens that forces you to get more old releases than new releases. old releases cost 1 point, and new releases cost 3 points. If you have 3 points in your account and you are sent three old releases, then when you go to trade chances are not all three movies will get requested at the same time. This means when you trade the first one, you get one point, and then peerflix arranges a trade for you and since you only have one point to trade, you get sent an old release. Thus you never accumulate enough points to get a new release sent to you...
the last thing is the most annoying to me.
5) their website is badly organized and browsing is painful. their customer service is non responsive.
6) you have to print out and tape up the envelopes to send your dvds. there's no "red envelope"
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Of course there's an easy way to mitigate the risk. Just maintain both a checking and a savings account at the same bank and keep most of your money in the savings account (e.g. if you have direct deposit, have it go to the savings account.) Only keep enough money in your checking account to cover your current obligations. PC Banking makes it easy to monitor your balance and xfer funds as needed.
I read Usenet for the articles.