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Netflix Changes Its Mind, Will Keep Profiles Feature

Posted by timothy on from the you-can-finally-sleep-at-night dept.

xChange writes "I too was disappointed at Netflix's decision to remove the Profiles feature, and let them know via email and telephone. I was surprised to find the following email in my inbox today: 'You spoke, and we listened. We are keeping Profiles. Thank you for all the calls and emails telling us how important Profiles are. We are sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused. We hope the next time you hear from us we will delight, and not disappoint, you.' I thought that it sounded too good to be true, and went to their blog to confirm, finding this entry. Netflix decided to listen to its customers, and keep a feature that many of us find essential for our use of their service. I am surprised, and very pleased."

22 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. Kudos to Netflix by dreamchaser · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Making a bad decision is one thing. Recognizing that bad decision and listening to your customer base is another, and admirable in this day and age when fewer and fewer companies seem to care at all about the people they service.

    1. Re:Kudos to Netflix by snowgirl · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Bad decisions are made all the time. A lot of time, companies will listen to consumers if enough of their customers scream and holler.

      Situations where you end up with bone-headed decisions get pushed through despite what the consumer thinks are places where consumers are essentially hostages anyways. For instance, Microsoft... "What? Are you just going to mass migrate all of IBM from Windows? HAH! We'd like to see you try. We'll talk to you again in a week, after you realize it's financial suicide." or "What? You're going to Linux/Mac? Who cares, we have IBM, bitch." Also, gas stations, and oil companies, "You don't want to pay $4.40 a gallon? Hah, let's see you not use gas then..."

      The later really bugs me a lot... it's like every year the oil company has been saying things like "we're only making 7% profit, which is the average for a company like ours in a different business." But what they don't see is that they're making a profit in a situation where they SHOULDN'T. Your costs are exceeding the price we're willing to pay... the only reason we still are is because we don't have a choice.

      There were a bunch of large companies in IT that imploded because they weren't making money, and this happens all over the place (where companies don't have hostage consumers), so the question should be, "do you deserve to be making 7% profit even though your model is technically failing?"

      --
      WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
    2. Re:Kudos to Netflix by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Your costs are exceeding the price we're willing to pay...

      The market says otherwise.

    3. Re:Kudos to Netflix by dreamchaser · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I'm not sure I see the logic that oil companies shouldn't make *any* profit. Should the margins be lower given the HUGE volume they sell and the necessity of their product? Sure. No profit at all? Nah.

    4. Re:Kudos to Netflix by mattack2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You do have choices:
      * Mass transit/carpool
      * Bicycle/walk
      * Buy a more fuel efficient vehicle
      * Much more drastically, change jobs so you are closer to your work and can use one or more of the above.

      None of those are easy, and I admit I'm mostly just paying the higher prices too, but for a long time I've known that my next car (I drive relatively little, my first new car is 10 years old and only has around 56000 miles on it) will at the very least be a hybrid...possibly a used one.

    5. Re:Kudos to Netflix by FooAtWFU · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There is no choice. We *must* drive to work, we must take our kids to the doctor, we must go to the grocery store, etc.

      I think you're just considering "willing to pay" one thing (dude goes: I am fine and happy with gas at this price) and the economists are putting the bar a little higher (which includes a dude going: I just went out and paid this price, and I'm really upset that it was that much, but when you get down to it I suppose it IS worth it in terms not-having-everything-fall-apart-on-me). And the moral of the story is that gasoline has a rather low price elasticity of demand.

      P.S. A monopoly or cartel can be, and usually is, part of a market economy. Not usually part of a free market, mind you.

      P.P.S. The oil cartels have plenty of incentive to reduce inefficiency in production! More inefficiency means less profit! However, the efficiency of the global economy overall is (indeed) not something they set out to optimize.

      --
      The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
    6. Re:Kudos to Netflix by jnana · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Where did you get the 3% number from?

      I'm curious because the first night that they announced profiles were disappearing, customer service initially said to many users that "only 1%" of users used profiles, and that half of those who used it were employees (don't ask how a company with less than 2,000 employees can have 0.5% of 8 million users [40,000] be employees).

      After a few hours, customer service started saying that "only 2%" of the users used profiles. And then they stopped giving numbers altogether, and the next announcement said it had nothing to do with upgrades or the backend but was being eliminated solely because users found it too complicated.

      Did you get the "only 3%" number from Netflix? I'd be seriously impressed if they changed the numbers yet again.

    7. Re:Kudos to Netflix by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Has the cost to produce and distribute oil gone up that much also....why?

      Yes, because the price of oil has gone up.

    8. Re:Kudos to Netflix by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      We *must* drive to work, we must take our kids to the doctor, we must go to the grocery store, etc.

      Well, we could live in a city, and then we wouldn't need to drive to do those things. I assure you it's possible...I (and countless million others) do it every day.

    9. Re:Kudos to Netflix by joshuaobrien · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In ECON 101 you should have learned that the Petroleum Industry does not follow "market economy" rules. I don't think anyone in America believes they are paying less than their "willing to pay" price. We pay what they tell us to pay because we don't have a choice. OPEC decides the price per barrel.

      No. OPEC and you decide the price per barrel. By definition, nobody pays more than they are willing to, so it's reasonable to say most people are paying less than they are willing to pay. Watch the price rise next week. Watch people continue to pay.

      OPEC decides how many barrels to produce each day (as a way to alter or skew the S&D curve).

      OPEC can influence supply. Consumers control demand.

      There is no choice. We *must* drive to work, we must take our kids to the doctor, we must go to the grocery store, etc. Sure, people are cutting down the amount they drive as much as possible, but in many cases you can't cut out a substantial amount of driving (i.e. oil consumption).

      There are many alternatives you've chosen not to pursue. There are many choices you've made in the past and are now experiencing their outcomes. You decided to risk a livelihood that was exposed to the price of oil. You decided to live far from work in a city with poor public transport. You decided to live further than walking distance from the doctor and the grocery store. You made those choices and now you are paying for them. But you still have choices. Choose a more efficient car. Choose a motorcycle. Choose public transport. Choose to move closer to the grocery store. Choose to get a job closer to home. The longer you think you have no control over your life, the longer you will be at the mercy of others. But I think you'd still rather pay high fuel prices than make any real and difficult change to your life. It will be when the price gets much, much higher that you and many others will decide to change.

      I think what the original comment was saying is that due to the 'nature' of this market, the fact that the consumer doesn't have a choice, the Oil companies are not forced (by normal market conditions) to increase efficiencies or compete for the lowest price per barrel. OPEC shields them from being forced to compete for consumers' monies!

      You don't have much power to effect lower oil prices. Not even your government has much power in that regard. You can continue to rail against the evil oil companies but it won't change them. Find something else to do.

      If a company makes a widget for $1 and the market is willing to pay $10 for that widget, then yes, the company deserves 90% profit (obviously not taking into account other costs & distrution scenarios). In this case, the consumers have a choice to buy the product and normal 'market economics' takes effect. There is no 'market economy' in oil. Period. So, do the oil companies still deserve 7% profit? It's debatable. Btw, how accurate is that 7% number? How much has the price of Oil increased over the last 10 years? Has the cost to produce and distribute oil gone up that much also....why?

      It's harder and more expensive to extract oil from the ground now. There's less of it. We're finding less of it. This is all very simple stuff. The cheap oil party is over.

    10. Re:Kudos to Netflix by es330td · · Score: 2, Insightful

      When will people understand that ExxonMobile et al do not control the sale price of their product? Oil is sold on futures markets. Representatives of XOM sell production contracts to buyers for whatever price the buyer is willing to offer. XOM can try to set a price but if it is too high nobody will buy. At the end of the day the margin is determined by the buyers, not the sellers.

    11. Re:Kudos to Netflix by dubl-u · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There is no choice. We *must* drive to work, we must take our kids to the doctor, we must go to the grocery store, etc.

      Hear that rushing sound? It's me crying you a river.

      There is plenty of choice.

      A lot of Americans have chosen to commute long distances. To buy houses in suburbs where driving is the only option. To drive large vehicles. They've supported more highways, less transit, and zoning that favors cars over walking and biking.

      At the national level, they have chosen to support a full-on war against a major oil-producing nation. And they've chosen to accompany it with a lot of imperialist, anti-Islamic rhetoric that sure isn't going to win many friends in the world's oil-producing nations. And let's not forget choosing to support subsidies and tax breaks on oil and oil-intensive lifestyles.

      There has been plenty of choice. What people aren't liking is the consequences of their choices.

      There is no 'market economy' in oil. Period.

      That's flatly wrong. Read The Economist. Last week they had a 14-page section on the future of the energy sector. OPEC nations, as well as many others, have been adding supply. All sorts of previously uneconomic oil sources will be tapped because the new price makes it uneconomical. It's just that demand in Asia has grown a lot faster than supply.

      The current peak also has a lot to do with the crash after the previous one. For a long time, oil was cheap, so nobody invested in exploration or development of new oilfields. It takes many years to bring new supply sources on line. If we haven't hit peak oil, look for prices to be absurdly low again circa 2015, hopefully modulo a $2/gal carbon tax.

  2. Isn't it a little sad ... by TechnoWeenie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    that it is surprising that a company listens to its customers.

  3. I think it's funny by tacokill · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While I applaud Netflix, I think it's odd/funny/sad/hilarious that we make a big deal when "companies listen to their customers".

    Isn't that what they are supposed to be doing?

    Thanks for fixing the issue, Netflix (really). I'm not trying to pick on you individually. I just find it hilarious when we write headlines about things that are supposed to happen. (cue Chris Rock jokes)

    1. Re:I think it's funny by SputnikPanic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's really unfortunate that so few companies do customer service right these days. Off the top of my head I can think of only two that have provided me with exemplary customer service: Amazon and American Express. You call either with a problem and it's quickly resolved. Practically everyone else and it's like pulling teeth.

    2. Re:I think it's funny by Scutter · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Practically everyone else and it's like pulling teeth.

      That's because with practically everyone else, you're dealing with people who can't figure out change for a dollar. It takes 45 minutes of explaining the problem before you get to the end of their script and they escalate you to someone capable of understanding what's wrong.

      --

      "Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
  4. alright by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Congrats to those who wrote in about this. Now we just need to convince them not to charge a higher price to those of us who rent Blu-rays.

    --
    This guy's the limit!
  5. Re:Coke II by statemachine · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm not sure why you were modded troll.

    Saying you're going to take away a feature, then backtracking, does not make you a hero.

    Other analogies:
    1) "Unleaded" gasoline. When unleaded gasoline came on the market, it cost more than leaded, even though lead was an additive. But the refineries acted like it was some new process to "remove" lead.

    2) When a US federal budget is proposed that cuts funding for a program, then in the final spending bill funding is restored to the previous year's level (which may itself have stagnated for many years), and Congress acts like it added funding. What really happened is that funding still gets cut because it doesn't get adjusted for inflation.

    While it's still news (because it negates their previous announcement), Netflix does not deserve to come out looking good. At best, it's neutral, because they're simply doing their job and nothing happened!

  6. Sigh.. by Artuir · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Queue the sound of thousands of tinfoil hats being put on everywhere. Also queue the sound of billions of keystrokes per second of wacko negative conspiracy theorists that believe this was simply a stunt, like 9/11 or the moon landings.

  7. Re:Good PR? by brjndr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    2. Announce feature will not be pulled.

  8. Re:Coke II by noidentity · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Unleaded" gasoline. When unleaded gasoline came on the market, it cost more than leaded, even though lead was an additive. But the refineries acted like it was some new process to "remove" lead.

    The cost of something isn't just production; it's also affected by demand and one-time costs of ramping up production. By the above logic, I should be able to get milk in the store without vitamin D added (but otherwise just the same product) for cheaper, or orange juice concentrate in an 11.5 oz container for less than the 12 oz container.

  9. Re:Isn't that what they are supposed to be doing? by hazem · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, they're supposed to be maximizing shareholder profits.

    Actually, their fiduciary responsibility is to maximize shareholder value. Adidas could make a lot of profit (for a while) by firing most of their employees and licensing their brand for use on all kinds of things like power drinks, car air fresheners, condoms, and breath mints. This would, however, diminish the brand as well as the value of the company to the shareholders.

    While value and profitability are closely linked, they are not the same thing.