Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Netflix Throttling

Today, after receiving my sixth damaged disc from Netflix in the last 60 days (plus two others "lost" in the mail), I sent the following e-mail to Netflix:
Maybe it's just me, but you seem to have a serious problem with your service. You seem to do everything you can to make sure that my "unlimited" account is anything but. (A quick Google search for the phrase "netflix throttling" shows 576 hits including an MSNBC article about your class-action settlement for throttling your customers, so it seems I have some company.)

Lets take a quick stroll through my account history, shall we? In the last 90 days, I have managed only 17 watchable discs ("pathetic is the first word that pops in my mind). In that same 90 days, I have returned 6 damaged discs and had two other discs "lost" in the mail.

Bottom line: my patience has run out. The next bad disc, "lost" disc or significantly delayed check in, you can consider this account canceled.
Anyone like to take any bets this being quickly resolved?

Yea, you're right. That's a sucker's bet if I ever saw one. Fun while it lasted, if you can call this fun.

3 comments:

GreatMatt said...

Yeah, I've read quite a few articles about "Netflix throttling". Most of them over the past year. There's nothing like paying for a service and not receiving it. :-)

Anonymous said...

Ric,
We had Netflix in MD. Great at first We were just up the road from one of their mailing centers. We could get a movie on Monday, get in in the mail by Tuesday morning and have our next movie on Wed. But then we noticed it took forever for us to get "first run" movies. Seems they didnt really like us folks who were doing the quick turnarounds, the customers who held movies longer had priority on the first run/new movies. Hence the class action lawsuit. Think we got a coupon for a free month or something that we have never used.

Ric said...

That's how we started out as well. It lasted just about one month. The Netflix business model is dependent on people hanging on to movies (in contrast to a video rental store where the number of "turns" determines if your doors stay open). From Netflix's perspective, the ultimate customer just keeps their first three movies forever, paying the monthly fee.