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Netflix To Eliminate Profiles Feature
Donald Burr of Borg writes "One of my favorite features of Netflix, the video-rental-by-mail service, is 'profiles.' Profiles lets you create 'sub-accounts' for your friends/family, so that they can share in the video rental love. Each profile gets his/her own Netflix queue that he/she can manage with their own login/password. You can divide up how many movies get sent to you vs. the other profiles under your account. E.g. if you have a 6-out-at-once plan, you can choose to get 3 movies at a time, and have 3 other profiles each receive 1 movie. Unfortunately, the fun stops September 1, at which point Netflix is, for unknown reasons, going to terminate this feature. Why? To '...help us to continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers.' Improvement indeed."
there's an up-side to this.
lately, I've been THROTTLED (big-time). I just upgraded from a 3 at once plan to almost double that. and for the first few weeks, things came in the mail on schedule and on time.
lately, though, things are being sent from far away centers; when I return discs directly to the PO, only some are showing up the next day at NF (I live in the silicon valley area and its ALWAYS a 1day hop from local to local!).
there are many tricks NF is playing, but the short of it is: if you are a heavy renter, you get penalized.
solution: go away and come back. at least that's what I have read. cancel for a month then re-join. you get a new slate and they stop throttling you (for a while, at least).
lather rinse repeat.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
We are using this feature to manage two queues: one for our kids and one for the adults. It has been a great feature. Before it was introduced we have to continually micromanage the queue, hold on to disks to 'work' the systems (postal and Netflix), and suffered the occasional disappointments.
The profiles allowed us more flexibility and better service. I think that Netflix is trying to increase revenue without increasing their monthly fees. Downgrading our plan and subscribing to another minimal would cost us at least $2.00/month. It is definitely a hidden cost increase.
Has anyone here had experience with the Blockbuster service? Does it support queues and how is their selection?
-- Cave quid dicis, quando, et cui
I'd give it a week and some skilled firefox hacker will create some addon to put it back in from the user side.
Sean D.
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
According to their customer support, this was a feature only used by 1% of subscribers, but was a significant drain on resources, increased maintenance difficulties, and slowed down adding new features. I don't particularly buy most of that, but if the 1% thing is true, then I can see how they'd make that choice. If more of that 1% convert to full subscriptions rather than cancel, it'll be a win for them.
Well, this feature is what makes Netflix make sense for us. I divide up our plan into two queues - one for me, one for the wife & kids. They get what they want, I get what I want (I have less time to watch, so sometimes I have a movie at home for a week or more) and we don't get in each other's way.
Fundamentally, without this feature, Netflix becomes a pain in the butt to manage for us. Right now, I can be sure that when I send a movie back, I get one of my movies. The same goes for the others.
I'm going to cancel on Aug 31 (and have told them so) if they don't keep this feature.
I've been a Netflix subscriber for over four years. This is the first time they've ever taken a step backwards. And their complete lack justification is very strange.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
That's strange because Lovefilm, the dominant DVD-by-mail company in the UK, has only recently introduced this feature.
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That's not to say I would put the slimeball tactic outside of the realm of possibilities, but that just seems less likely.
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
Pretty sure Netflix CEO Reed Hastings knew this would go over badly.
He exercised 2,500 options and then sold off 10,000 shares just last week.
See: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/06/13/ap5115170.html
Exactly. I have over 1000 movies rated under my own profile which is secondary to the main profile of my wife. Now if they do this, not only will we lose ability to maintain separate queues (which is very important, because our tastes are not completely overlapping), I will lose all the ratings which was essential to get new suggestions. New suggestions were one of the main resources for me to find new movies according to my taste.
I am a big fan of Netflix for all the good reasons, but this decision is almost a deal-breaker to me. Give me a fucking chance to get my history and data back.
I realize that there was a legal settlement a few yrs ago with NF.
but they have NOT changed their ways, not in any significant way. read their TOS - they have the slipperiest weasel words possible.
they STILL do ALL the things they were accused of. they have not changed one bit, other than their WORDING on their site.
its deeply built into their business model, I guess. but its still WRONG to say 'unlimited' when its clearly not at all unlimited.
I live 20 minutes drive from their los gatos main center. I drop my dvd's in the mail AT THE POST OFFICE early in the AM. I am 99.9% certain that each one does get from sunnyvale to san jose in a day. there is just no way in hell it can take more than that; so why do discs not show up as 'received' until about 2 days later?
and even then, some of them 'downgrade' to shipping tomorrow over the course of the day. I check NF at 7am and I see that 2 have been received and are said to be shipping today. but later in the day, mysteriously they change to shipping tomorrow. yet my queue has over 300 entries!
they are still throttling. and they are lying thru their teeth about it every time they deny it.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."