Netflix cheats?
I've seen a fair bit of press surrounding Netflix and how users are penalized for becoming a heavy user. While I'm sure the PR hit around this, is causing Netflix to take pause, I'm skeptical as to if they'll actually act other than to release a press release about how they're 'ensuring the best experience for as many customers as possible'. This thinking is flawed for several reasons:
1) The best/most loyal customers aren't getting rewarded... they're getting penalized. This isn't exactly a loyalty program that most companies shoot to obtain :) Think about it - I'm faithfully engaging in your service, getting to know the in's and out's of it, and suddenly my level of service degrades. Instead of penalizing people for their loyalty, Netflix should be embracing them. If I really like something, what do I usually do? I tell people about it and don't mind acting as a free marketer. Also, these customers would seem like the perfect opportunity to open up new lines of revenue streams because of the degree of engagement. Please Netflix, sell me your movies that have fallen off your top 100 for cheap! Or Netflix, let me please have guaranteed viewing of a movie the first day it hits the shelves!
2) C'mon... you tell people that movies ship in 1 or 2 days and follow it with an asterisk that basically says, yes, this is true, so long as you don't rent from us very much. We all know fine print can get us, but not change things this drastically.
3) Blockbuster.com is a big powerful brand with money and a recently designed website to give you a run for your money. The timing for this is lousy, especially because you know as well as I do that the number of people who are going to sign up for a movie service in some fashion (whether via post mail or on-demand) is going to increase massively in the next year or two - don't create any major speedbumps.
Do yourself a big favor, Netflix, and love your best customers.
1) The best/most loyal customers aren't getting rewarded... they're getting penalized. This isn't exactly a loyalty program that most companies shoot to obtain :) Think about it - I'm faithfully engaging in your service, getting to know the in's and out's of it, and suddenly my level of service degrades. Instead of penalizing people for their loyalty, Netflix should be embracing them. If I really like something, what do I usually do? I tell people about it and don't mind acting as a free marketer. Also, these customers would seem like the perfect opportunity to open up new lines of revenue streams because of the degree of engagement. Please Netflix, sell me your movies that have fallen off your top 100 for cheap! Or Netflix, let me please have guaranteed viewing of a movie the first day it hits the shelves!
2) C'mon... you tell people that movies ship in 1 or 2 days and follow it with an asterisk that basically says, yes, this is true, so long as you don't rent from us very much. We all know fine print can get us, but not change things this drastically.
3) Blockbuster.com is a big powerful brand with money and a recently designed website to give you a run for your money. The timing for this is lousy, especially because you know as well as I do that the number of people who are going to sign up for a movie service in some fashion (whether via post mail or on-demand) is going to increase massively in the next year or two - don't create any major speedbumps.
Do yourself a big favor, Netflix, and love your best customers.
posted by Tim O'Shaughnessy at 12:11 PM
2 Comments:
Well, it's kind of like a really fat person going to an All You Can Eat. Management does reserve the right to put a stop to the gluttony. I'm not saying it's right, but if it happened every day the restaurant will go out of business.
This doesn't bug me, because I don't consume a ton of movies each month. My service is always prompt.
Even if I do ramp up my usage, I will never ever ever rent from Blockbuster - because their business practices border on criminal.
If a Blockbuster movie rents for 5 bucks for 3 "nights"...how can they justify charging a 5 dollar late fee if the movie is returned 10 minutes late? Blockbuster will never get another penny of my money. ever
The thing with Netflix, is that there is a built in limitation already, due to postage transit times and the ability to never have more than 3 movies at a time. At an All You Can Eat restaurant, a customer literally could keep eating as long as he wanted if there were no limitation (granted I wouldn't want to be that busboy). With Netflix, there is a limit because they already state it may take a day to process your order, meaning that the fastest you'll get a new movie is usually 2-3 days. And because you cannot have more than 3 DVDs at any given time, there is already a ceiling built into their structure.
In a 30 day month, let's say that I watch all 3 movies as soon as I get them, and drop them in the mail that same day. Even if there is a one day turnaround (meaning you get them in the mail the same day you receive them and Netflix gets them to you the next day -- highly unlikely in both cases), this means that there are only 15 possibly movie deliveries X 3 movies within each delivery, or 45 total movies. Throw in 4 Sundays where mail does not run, and you're reducing your total number down to ~ 39 movies.
The scenario outlined above is probably feasible but not realistic. It seems that the penalties are being delivered to those that fall into a threshold that is just over what most people would consider normal viewing.
Let me give you an example of what would be considered an abuse by Netflix and would get me penalized. My hypothetical family and I like to have movie night twice a week. We watch 2 movies on Tuesday, and 2 movies on Friday and it's our inexpensive way of quality family time. Over the course of a month, this amounts to about 18 movies and I become too frequent of a user to continue my family nights anymore. Doesn't seem like I'm abusing any system does it? Oh well, I guess I'll try bowling…
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