Slashdot Mirror
Netflix Woes Mean a Gap In Shipments
Loopback writes "It appears that I'm not the only one waiting for my NetFlix movies. It seems they are being bitten in the rear by their home-grown proprietary inventory management system. 'Netflix has been facing shipping delays and outages in its distribution centers for the last two days and is fumbling to find a fix. The tab is roughly $1.8 million to $3.6 million in revenue a day.'"
Sounds like the reason I've been disappointed in my trial membership. I'm planning on canceling because why pay if they can't get me movies at a reasonable rate. I'll go back to the RedBox.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Dear xxxxxxxx,
Our shipping system is unexpectedly down. We received a DVD back from you and should have shipped you a DVD, but we likely have not. Our goal is to ship DVDs as soon as possible, and we will keep you posted on the status of your DVD shipments.
We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. If your DVD shipment is delayed, we will be issuing a credit to your account in the next few days. You don't need to do anything. The credit will be automatically applied to your next billing statement.
Again, we apologize for the delay and thank you for your understanding. If you need further assistance, please call us at 1-888-638-3549.
-The Netflix Team
Most Netflix users are mindless fat slobs who wouldn't notice a few days of delay.
Hey, some of us aren't fat!
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
Can't watch movies live.
Us nerds get on Netflix / Blockbuster Online / etc. depending on what gets us the most number of movies per dollar as we rip them to our hard drives / burn copies.
Yep! NetFlix nets me about six discs a week with their three-at-a-time plan. Thank Cthulhu for AnyDVD and CloneDVD! :)
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
They were using VMWare.
Perhaps they're going to be honest and not charge subscription fees for when they're not providing the subscription service.
No, that's too positive. It must be that the herd of genetically-modified sheep they keep to eat damaged DVDs and convert them to compost will now need to be fed from an outside source, costing them lots of money - especially with such short notice.
RTFA.
On a related note, I think it's fantastic that a company decided to 'do the right thing' though they were not obligated to do so. Pre-emptively issuing credits to subscribers whose shipments were delayed? Awesome for the customers, and a nice CR move by Netflix. There are many companies out there who would not take the same stance.
This is in addition to Netflix not getting rid of multiple profiles per account, after a vocal minority of subscribers complained.
Is it really possible that Netflix is a company that actually understands that making their customers happy and loyal is a good business strategy? I wasn't sure there were many of those around anymore.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
They've promised to credit user accounts for the interruption in service.
rj
I shipped back two DVDs on Tuesday then got the notice they were received on Wednesday. Today (Thursday) I got the notice from Netflix that shipments might be delayed, but I also received two DVDs in the mail (the correct DVDs that were next in my queue). What I did not get was the normal notice from Netflix that they had shipped me anything.
Do you think it is a coincidence that Netflix's problems started on the same day?
Or maybe it is just idle speculation.
Haven't we all thought, while at work, how in the hell can this company stay in business when it is run so poorly? Well, all that is necessary in order to stay in business, is to run it less poorly than competitors. And then you imagine how other companies could be worse, and you shudder.
I see that ZDnet's Larry Zignan concluded from a 2004 Baseline article that Netflix had startup problems for their homegrown business systems, but he apparently misread the article. It says the system was reworked in 2000, 2002, etc. as customers grew to 1.5 million, but tha's not startup problems, that's keeping with massive growth you wouldn't be able to get and handle if you had startup problems.
rd
Actually this is the best time to have this problem. I haven't even watched the movies I have at home due to the Olympics.
"Netflix users are mindless fat slobs... Us nerds get on Netflix"
So, you're a mindless fat slob nerd? You should probably get out of your parent's basement while you can still climb the stairs. If you can.
Just wondering...
I'll admit fat slob, but not mindless.
We got Netflix to save money on renting and/or buying DVDs. If Netflix can't deliver enough movies to make it worth the subscription fee then we may just cancel the service.
As someone else posted, it seems like most of the loss is from automated credits for late deliveries.
Work Safe Porn
Redundant?? Really? Check some timestamps, you foolish mod.
According to the moderator's guidelines, a question asked that is answered by TFA deserves to be modded redundant. So sayeth /. !!!
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
Netflix has the biggest volunteer distributed backup system on the planet. If they were smart they could have planned for this outage and had their customers supply backup disks to other customers who were not getting shipments on time.
I'm sure their stuff is very nice, it's never had such a major problem before.
So, is it that they are having a problem, or simply pushing people to more expensive plans. Sure, some of the low end customers might leave, but so what? A top end customer bills for 3X the revenue, but likely more than 3X the profit.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Agreed, and 24 hours after I received my letter (same as above), I received my next movie.
Not too shabby.
-k
Your mind moves quicker than a nun's first curry. - A. Rimmer
Yep! NetFlix nets me about six discs a week with their three-at-a-time plan. Thank Cthulhu for AnyDVD and CloneDVD! :)
I have the 1-at-a-time plan and I get 3 discs per week. :-P
They're even cooler than just that.
I've been using them a long time with the 3 disk unlimited plan. One day my girl broke a dvd. Her response: "Let's just mark it as never arrived."
Being all into personal accountability and shit I told her "no, we'll say we broke it and pay for it. We did in fact break it."
Their response: "Do you want us to send a replacement?"
No charge for disk. Nothing. I guess if you don't abuse the shit they overlook the occasional accident.
I write inventory and supply chain management software! Gives me a job!
Microsoft cheerleader, blue flag waving, you got a problem with that?
Living in Colorado, I have more than a few discs that are broken in the mail during winter, I assume due to the cold-hot cycles.
They replace them for free, no comments asked.
It has been like that for the 5 years I have been with Netflix.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
After a few days of normal use, I suddenly found myself unable to use the Netflix site with Firefox. Basically anything with a bitmap that you click on, like the tabs for Your Queue, etc., is now messed up. Anyone got a workaround? Apologies if this were rudely off-topic.
I fail to understand, how they can send a letter to someone saying hey sorry we didn't send you any DVD's here's a letter letter you know we know we didn't send you anything.
Perhaps me as the authors of this letter should include your DVD's in with the letter, however I'm an asshole and so I'm not going to.
Have a nice day.. netflix retarded#87
I have reported your post to the MPAA
We've also had a few disks disappear in the mail, they either never got to us or they never arrived at Netflix after we definitely posted them. It was never a problem, you just mark the disk as missing and that's it. One or two of them actually re-appeared later, not sure if they were found in the back of a truck or if Netflix lost them. I guess they'll cancel your account if you "lose" a disk per month, but they deal well with the occasional problem.
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
that site has never rendered quite right with FF... I simply installed the IE Tab add-on for FF and set it to always render Netflix with IE(still shows up in FF). I also found that the interactive map on weather.com requires me to do the same thing....
hope this helps!
it appears also now that the instant service is flaky, maybe too many people without DVDs watching online now and overloaded the server?
You say tomato, I say fruit.
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
You do realize that the money you're saving on not buying or using traditional rentals is going directly to fund your continual battle for more hard drive space, right?
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
You say tomato, I say fruit.
What? No funny?
IIRC, after you've lost a few, they start charging you for each one you "lose", but refund you if you find 'em and send 'em back later.
I recently cancelled because of the TV season starting (well, early with the Olympics), but I used Netflix on Firefox all the time and didn't have any problems except Instant Viewing. Had to switch to IE for that.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
I imagine that any rental company (online or off) make contracts with the various distribution companies with a clause allowign them to replace discs for cheap. At the very least, they won't pay full retail price. Even at retail price, the cost of replacing a few discs per customer per year is worth it to keep that customer happy.
OTOH, DMCA aside, NetFlix still owns a license on the copyright and can theoretically copy a disc to replace anything lost.
Not a typewriter
About two months ago, I had this problem for a couple/few weeks with Ubuntu & FF 3.0, but it seems to have been resolved.
Nope....goes to blank DVDr's.....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
... they were using a Beowulf Cluster.
I've never lost or broken one yet, but all of my experiences with Netflix have made me say goodbye to blockbuster long ago. And their customer service is prompt (in that you don't wait on hold for 10 minutes before talking to someone) and courteous.
With even worse quality. I don't get it
Not necessarily....that completely depends on the terms of their contract with the distribution companies. They don't buy DVDs the same way an average consumer does, because, for one, when the average consumer buys it the use is constrained to "for personal use". Any corporate/renal use contract may look radically different (and they pay different rates accordingly).
It seems they are being bitten in the rear by their home-grown proprietary inventory management system.
Because definitely if they had used another company's product or something open source, it could never have broken. Clearly being "home-grown" and "proprietary" is the part that caused the problem.
Netflix makes their own disks for many movies now.
How? If it is going to a DVDr then I assume it is a straight rip... no transcoding.
I don't have that kind of turn around time, unfortunately. I even often times send the film back the very same day it arrives!
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Blank DVDs aren't too expensive, really. Quality wise, most films rip and burn at 100%. Those that do not usually end up having the menus and already useless extras cut out so as to manage 100%.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
What do you mean worse quality? It is an exact copy (I use dvdbackup, then mkisofs, then growisofs)...
I'd have to guess the streamed stuff is less than dvd quality...?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
What are the odds the esx license bug came into play here?
One or two of them actually re-appeared later, not sure if they were found in the back of a truck or if Netflix lost them.
There have been a couple instances now where postal workers were investigated and found to have stolen hundreds of random DVDs from their routes. I also heard of one instance where kids were going through the mailboxes in a neighborhood. Since these incidents are detected, I suspect NetFlix and the post office share data about who loses DVDs and what postal worker's route they are on.
After a few days of normal use, I suddenly found myself unable to use the Netflix site with Firefox. Basically anything with a bitmap that you click on, like the tabs for Your Queue, etc., is now messed up. Anyone got a workaround?
I've never had a problem using Safari (if you're on Windows or OS X). The one exception is that their streaming movies are Windows+IE only. You'd think after all the other companies started streaming movies and television for free, Netflix would have been able to fix their crap by now. Last I heard they were working on a Silverlight version, ick.
Hell, I'll admit them all. Who do we think we're kidding?
Actually, how long before they offer a discount if you opt into a "direct handoff" network? When you return a movie, instead of shipping it back to netflix, you print out a label for the next member and slap it on the mailer.
Sure, there's a ton of problems, but it could cut their overhead by up to 60%: they spend half as much on postage and the disks are in flight for one day instead of two each transaction. The savings aren't so much in postage as in inventory reduction: for a popular movie that stays out two days at a time, you cut the postal overhead from 50% to 33%.
Kinda off topic, but ***** I hate Blockbuster. Anyone know if there are any GOOD (as in price and service) Netflix-like services in Canada yet?
But Maaa! Everyone else has a
My Netflix instant queue has over a dozen movies all queued up so I don't care if the plastic arrives a bit late. I'll just pull in the bits over the net and watch "Strange Brew" tonight. Its not quite DVD quality, but I'm not going to be demanding a rebate.
I guess this means they signed up their 16,777,216th subscriber.
Hear recorded Slashdot headlines on your phone! New service beta testing. Just call (248) 434-5508
The only story here is Netflix honors it's obligations. I think very highly of Netflix for this. Now if I could only figure out why the went with M$oft for XBOX360 movies. They are free if you have the Roku player but to do the EXACT same thing with the Xbox 360 you have to PAY M$OFT for the gold online account.
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
Netflix charges by the month, not by the disc. Unless they're going to offer a refund, they won't lose any revenue, excepting disgruntled customers who leave.
In fact... since they aren't paying postage, they could actually be saving money, particularly if they told their employees "Too bad, don't clock in for the next few days."
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Don't feel bad, you're not a slob just exercise challenged.
PS: Blame it on your genes.
And how are they going to guarantee that I'm not going to send the wrong movie (intentionally or not)?
This kind of option could turn out really bad...
Can you imagine if a sick bastard rents Madagascar 2 and sends pron instead of a kid's movie?
They do work with them quite closely - to the point of actually setting up little sting operations.
PS: Blame it on your genes.
i do blame my genes... roddenberry and simmons.
They could implement tracking on each piece, and find out where these are getting stolen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OneCode
is the newest version of the barcode to be used on all mail starting next year. It will allow for optional individual piece tracking.
Currently they can also do this with a second barcode called a PLANET code.
These extra barcodes add about 1 cent per piece. The scary part is they probably have figured it out to be cheaper to eat the loss, or let their insurance company eat the loss, than to pay an extra 1 cent per piece.
Their postage costs are actually quite high. There was also talk during the recent (may 07) rate/size changes the Post office implemented of a 17 cent surcharge:
http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2007/12/usps-considerin.html
The funny part is that anyone doing the volume netflix is can get direct discussion with the post office. Apparently they pick up at the post office. I believe blockbuster talked about having postmen scan dvd's upon pickup to save time, but I don't know if that happened.
Living in Texas, I have more than a few discs that are full of bullet holes, I assume due to the drunk-sober cycles. And also, many movies just deserve it.
It has been like that since the beginning of time.
Dude, lose the girlfriend. If she's so quick to pull one over on them, pulling one over on you probably isn't far behind.
Good luck!
How will they guarantee you're going to send a movie at all?
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
I've had 3 different managers lately explaining that their asset databases are actually Excel spreadsheets, and I've been shuddering as they hit the 65,000 entry limit.
Their inventory seems fine to me - I got Roadhouse, Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot, and Battlefield Earth right on time.
Oh, they tried to warn us disaster would strike if they could not be rid of user queues - and now doom is upon us all! Or at least slight shipping delays! Curse the day I did tear my queue apart into multiple convenient streams!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Just have to upgrade to Excel 2007 it can support 1M(2^20) rows.
how long before they offer a discount if you opt into a "direct handoff" network?
In my country at least, bulk mailers get substantial discounts compared to consumers, because their mail is properly and clearly addressed, and presorted before it enters the mail system. So instead of the mail company OCRing all Netflix's outgoing mail on arrival to send it to the right distribution depot, it comes prepacked by distribution depot. Less cost for the post company, less cost for Netflix.
It probably works similarly in the other direction; you put a netflix DVD in the post, it gets OCRed, and instead of getting sent to distribution depot foo who sort it again, it drops directly into the 'netflix' bin.
The upshot of this is: Consumer mail gets sorted twice per journey - one sort to the right distribution depot, one sort to the right house. Bulk mail gets sorted once per journey - on the way out from netflix, just the second sort; and on the way back to netflix, just the first sort.
Furthermore if the disks go via the Netflix depot there are obvious benefits for Netflix; they know for sure disks have been sent, they can correct wrong disk errors, they can periodically test disks, they know for sure mail labels are clearly printed and affixed, and they don't need to radically change their already-problematic software system.
In other words, you might never see a direct handoff network because it might not make economic sense due to the existing bulk mail infrastructure.
After being screwed by Blockbuster for years over late fees and going into stores to find the shelf where the movie I want to see is always empty while the shelf next to it filled with dozens of copies of movies that suck I don't care what kind of problems Netflix may occasionally have and I wouldn't care if their monthly service was twice as expensive as Blockbuster's, I still wouldn't go back to Blockbuster.
I have faith in your service! It's become just another utility bill for me, and I am mostly okay with that EXCEPT:
no streaming play in linux. that's ridiculous and annoying and come on.
I don't like being taken off my screen to recommendations after I've selected something. redirection of most kinds bug me in general. just offer the option to check out recommendations. you could do it well, the "move to the top" thing is pretty good.
You think that is puzzling? I'm even more puzzled that the first post can be redundant.
The only way to pull off three deliveries a week is to drop them at the post office the same night you receive them.
I have the two at a time plan and can get in 6 movies a week if I'm feeling the need.
Most the time I just hang onto them for over a month when I'm feeling like a 'fat slob' too lazy to even watch them.
As it happens, Netflix works nicely for people like me who sometimes have the time to watch the movies and return immediately or just sit on them until I can enjoy a few relaxing days to catch up.
Hard drives are cheap. And if you rip it to a smaller format (DIVX, mp4 for iTunes/AppleTV) then you can archive even more crap that you'll rarely ever watch again ;)
http://slashdot.org/~tf23/journal
I tend to use double layer ones for longer dvd's...and single sided for ones that will fit.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
For about eight weeks the local Blockbuster has been shipping DVDs back to their processing center via Express Mail.
Based on the weight, we figured they were sending at least 100 DVDs per box. It actually turned out to be cheaper at $17-22 per box, minus a corporate account (EMCA) discount and shipped with free $100 insurance, than to send out the DVDs as-is, which we know is nowhere near .17-.22 per piece (which would be about break-even with EMS).
I don't know if it's company-wide but it certainly saves Blockbuster the trouble of "direct discussion with the post office" as any business who hits minimum shipping levels can use EMCA with just a few bits of paperwork. Obviously this is where Blockbuster can realise more cost-savings than Netflix.
I first learned about this an hour ago. I read a good review of Trumbo and logged on to added it to my Saved list... I hit this great big conspicuous notice saying "IMPORTANT: Your DVD Shipments Have Likely Been Delayed."
My first thought was that it was a sales pitch to upsell me to a higher-tiered plan, but no, it was a straightforward notice and apology.
I for one really appreciate this approach. Most companies' SOP would be to say nothing... wait for you to call.. make an individual apology to you without happening to mention that it was affecting thousands of others... and hope you don't read newspapers or Slashdot.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Despite the other rants in this post, Netflix has some of the best customer service. They actually ADDED more people to the call center and it is based in the US. I have been a subscriber since 2003 and started with 3 DVD plan at 21.99. One day I got an email that said "Hey dude, we've decided to only charge you 17.99 instead." How many other companies do the same, while at the same time improving their customer service and their product? If I have one gripe about NF its that they don't have any rugby dvds and their catalog for Instant watching is grandma old.
Dude, think. Do you want other people to know that you are the next in line for "Boys Life 6"?
It seems they are being bitten in the rear by their home-grown proprietary inventory management system.
Scalability, scalability, scalability.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I assumed he was referring to his daughter. Hence the teaching personal accountability.
I got an email from them indicating my shipment would be delayed and I would be credited. However, it did arrive on time. I have noticed no lapse in service.
How do they guarantee that when you report a movie lost in the mail that it's not really lost?
By charging you for it it you do it too often.
I think this direct forwarding concept is pretty cool.
These extra barcodes add about 1 cent per piece. The scary part is they probably have figured it out to be cheaper to eat the loss, or let their insurance company eat the loss, than to pay an extra 1 cent per piece.
Luckily Netflix is one of those companies that understands the value of keeping customers happy. It might be cheaper to replace the DVDs instead of track them closely, but replacing them doesn't stop the DVDs from disappearing when the customer is expecting them. If that happens too often, customers will find another company to do business with.
Most Netflix users are mindless fat slobs who wouldn't notice a few days of delay.
I'm on Netflix because I'm taking a course which requires me to watch a list of movies and turn in a report a week on them (no, it's not a "film" course, it's comparative religions).
I shipped back my last movie last week and am still screwed... hopefully the prof will cut us some slack...
Definitely a good enough plan if you want to buy double layer discs. I'd rather forgo all of the extras and save some money however.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
With Block Buster Online (back with the original pricing and unlimited in-store returns) I was netting 18 or 21 discs a week. About 80 per month.
Netflix would still pay for the postage.
If you're making the person buy stamps, it's a cost to them and an inconvenience. The mailers already have paid postage anyway - why mess with success?
You say tomato, I say fuck you.
Alternatively...
For new/popular titles, the mailer they give you already has the address (but not name - "Netflix Customer") of someone who has the movie near the top of their queue, or is in line waiting to receive it.
The problem with direct mailing is that you can't track it. You don't know when people have returned movies. Then you don't know when to send them new ones. People could just log in and say "Yeah, I sent these 3 out, give me 3 more.".
It's similar to the "I never got it / No really, I returned it!" problem, but it's much more complex. You lose all tracking, and if you allow people to send to people to send to people to send to people, good luck.
You may be able to simplify it by only allowing direct mail customers to send to non-direct mail customers. This itself is still an NP-complete problem (who should send what to who?).
"OMG someone sent me porn!", "OMG I sent my wedding DVD!" and other such issues can be mitigated by printing the sender's address as the return address (or Netflix, with the sender's address on the inside).
With pre-addressed mailers, you wouldn't be able to realistically do more than one level of direct mailing. You could create some crazy flip-flap turn it inside out multi-mailer, and have some crazy scheme for predicting when people will be next in line for a popular movie or when a movie will be at the top of their queue, but you still need to figure out when people will send it out.
Would make for a great experiment with a few (20?) people. It would become a logistical nightmare pretty quickly though.
Back when I was doing it, I would get the movies at 11 or so, "watch" them on my pc, and return them to the mail box at the corner in time for the 1 PM pickup.
It was great.
Most commercial DVDs are dual layer.
I personally rip out everything but the main movie and English subs. I keep DTS tracks only if they fit without added compression.
You say tomato, I say stop sucking dick for moderation you little bitch.
As long as they don't mess up my queue! It's taken me months to get hundreds of movies in that queue in the order I want.
If all the movies were available online I would do that too. But they are not and also Xbox isn't streaming them to my TV yet which is another downside. So I mostly wait for a physical DVD to show up. I'm not fat either. I just ran a 5k and I'm going on a mountain bike ride this weekend.
I've been using Netflix lately to watch TV series. Are they implying now that I'll have to wait AN ENTIRE WEEK for the next episode? That's just cruel and inhumane!
Do what?
I was talking about waiting for a physical dvd to show up, then copying it.
That's what most nerds do.
From Netflix:
---------------------
We're happy to report that all of our shipping centers are resuming normal operations (after 3 days of issues). If you should have been shipped a disc Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it will ship today (Friday).
We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. To all of you whose shipments have been delayed, we'll be automatically applying a 15% credit to your next billing statement. Or, if you are new to Netflix and your first shipments have been delayed, we recognize that this is not a good way to begin your Netflix membership and we'll automatically extend your free trial by a week.
Again, we apologize for the delay and thank you for your understanding.
The Netflix Team
---------------------
I'm still curious as to the actual problem. They have been very vague about the whole thing.
I received an email from NetFlix saying my two dvds would not arrive until next week, and in my queue the delivery dates showed as next Wednesday.
The weird thing though was that both dvds had already arrived on the same day the email was sent to me.
I feel for them right now. They're dealing with the condition known as FUBARitis for sure.
"The future can only affect the present if there is room to write its influence off as a mistake." - Yakir Aharonov
Hell, take it a step further.
What happens when someone decides that it's fun to start putting anthrax in the mailers they forward?
It's not that someone could send any *movie* they want, they can send pretty much any compact object or substance they please. Since it's "Netflix", people are going to have a higher trust level for it than for a random unexpected package.
I doubt Netflix would want to deal with any potential liability implications.
Literally, I think it was me. On Sunday night I mailed back three movies that had been out for like 3 months. The system probably choked when it saw what I held onto for so long.
"Can you imagine if a sick bastard rents Madagascar 2 and sends pron instead of a kid's movie?"
Or even worse, if he sends Madagascar 2?
how about - umm, no. Giving out personal information of other customers is not good business.
I'll admit fat slob, but not mindless.
CowboyNeal, is that you?!!
No, the problem is that outside of their company, no one has any idea of how the thing works. They can't bring in a consultant, and there isn't anyone to turn to for advice. Even if they hired a small team of talented professionals to help them, that team would still need plenty of time to get up to speed on the whole system.
As opposed to a proprietary app, where if the vendor doesn't want to or can't help you fix the problem ... you're out of business. Unless perhaps you violate your license and reverse engineer it.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Actually, how long before they offer a discount if you opt into a "direct handoff" network? When you return a movie, instead of shipping it back to netflix, you print out a label for the next member and slap it on the mailer.
So, when I want to return a movie, I need to go to my computer and print out a label? With all of the troubleshooting and other boo-boos that occur with label printing; I suspect that such an approach would end up being MORE expensive.
No, I will not work for your startup
Could this be related to the VMware license timebombs from earlier this week?