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Netflix at it again

its called inventory management and copyrights. They might believe that he might be copying the DVDs for viewing later or to keep. Also, if he keeps taking the "rare" DVDs that reduces the amount for the rest of the users. Throttling is a great idea.
 
I see no problem here with Netflix. The problem is only with people who want to manipulate the system and try to get stuff for nothing, like many of the people who sue for exorbitant amounts these days. Okay, they say unlimited, but GET REAL!! You KNOW that Netflix gets screwed even by sending you 13 movies a month for that 18 bucks, and you KNOW that you are getting an extremely good deal. Stop being so selfish and trying to take advantage of others as much as you possibly can.
 
Yeah, if I'm a member and I only "rent" 4-5 movies a month, I'd like to gain priority over people who totally milk this thing, especially if it's a popular movie. He/she has already used up NetFlix's resources by constantly renting and returning movies like an addict, so let me have my chance.

I'd never use this kind of service, but you catch my drift.
 
Im not even a heavy renter as I always forget to return the movies after watching them and I get new releases about 2 months after they come. Its why I am canceling in a few days before my next billing cycle. Torrenting the movies is much easier. Ive been a member for 3 years too.
 
i always wondered why i'd have a "long wait" dvd at the top of my queue only to find it delivered the next day.

i've had great experiences with netflix since i became a customer in 98/99, although i cancelled my account a few years back as my landlord (i'm almost positive) was stealing my dvds and i felt bad for "losing" them all. signed back up a while later and have been happy with their service for ages. i regularly get the fastest turnaround too, send out a disc on tuesday, get a new one thursday for example.

i have no problems with the "throttling", it kinda stops people taking advantage too much.
 
ieani said:
Im not even a heavy renter as I always forget to return the movies after watching them and I get new releases about 2 months after they come. Its why I am canceling in a few days before my next billing cycle. Torrenting the movies is much easier. Ive been a member for 3 years too.
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yeah 'cause that's legal and a better way to go :rolleyes:

as with some previous posters, i'm disgusted at how many people are so so greedy...
 
this is the first i've heard confirmation of it, but i've long suspected that either netflix or my mailman were slowing things down. now i know.

i'm an uneven renter, sometimes i'll let the 5 same dvds sit in my house for a month, but when i've get some catch-up time, i'll watch 1 or 2 a day.

netflix screwed me most recently by sending me discs 2-4 of a series, but sitting on disc 1 for 10 days. i reported it missing as soon as i was allowed and it showed up the next day. bastards.

so i guess because i watch dvds in spurts, i'm a heavy renter, even though most months they make a huge profit from me when i'm too busy to watch even a single dvd.
 
I've rented 15 movies in the last month. I figure that is a bit more than most, but 6 of that was burning through season one of lost. It was a bit of netflix scaring me - disc one sat at the top of our queue for about 4 or 5 months until it arrived one day. after that, we watched as fast as we could. add in the movies that we sent back because they were stupid and you drop significantly to being light users (not that the postal service cares :)). plus, we are a bit like zim - nothing for a week, then all on a slow weekend.

I really don't see a reason to get pissed off about not getting the top movies when you are going through that many movies at once. they must be getting something that they want.

my only complaint is when a movie goes from "short" to "long" or "long" to "very long." that feels like lying. not me-sue-you lying, just what-would-your-mom-say lying
 
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/10/netflix.renters.ap/index.html

The story showed up on cnn.com just recently. The max amount of DVD's you can get per month is 24. 6 movies per week. In that case... Netflix is losing money. It takes dedication to achieve 24 movies per month. If figure that they should allow these type of people to have their 24 movies per month. If so few people try to do it, why make the bad publicity? :eek:
 
hmmm i watch about 24 DVDs a month out of my own collection

not that hard to do o_O

Hell i just watched 10 this week. 6 of them on saturday
 
eva01 said:
hmmm i watch about 24 DVDs a month out of my own collection

not that hard to do o_O

Hell i just watched 10 this week. 6 of them on saturday
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It's not a factor of how many you can watch.. It's a mater of how many you can feasibly get out the postal service. If you receive 3 movies on Saturday and return them on Monday (earliest possible), you receive 3 new ones on Wednesday. If you return those on Thursday, you will receive another 3 on Saturday again. Correct me if i'm wrong, but this comes out to 24 per month (average assuming 4 weeks per month). This seems to be the peak amount of DVD's possible for 18 bucks a month.
 
eva01 said:
hmmm i watch about 24 DVDs a month out of my own collection

not that hard to do o_O

Hell i just watched 10 this week. 6 of them on saturday
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Most people also don't have enough free time to watch 6 movies in one day.....

Ben
 
saabmp3 said:
Most people also don't have enough free time to watch 6 movies in one day.....

Ben
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it was a saturday, no school, no work, and i was putting off my sociology study guide, so i figured i would watch an anime series
 
ieani said:
Torrenting the movies is much easier.
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And so much less legal. Geez.

I've also noticed shipping irregularities. It's not so much that they would restrict it that bothers me, it's that they marketed the service as having no restrictions. I go through about 12 movies a month. Since I'm not in a hurry to see new releases, I keep the high-demand movies lower in the queue. Even movies listed as available now sometimes take an extra day or two to ship and they even seem to lie about that. About half the time the arrival date is off by one or two days. What I suspected before is now confirmed. They also lie about which movies are available and which aren't. I've had a few movies go from "long wait" to "available" almost instantly, and vice-versa. And some movies just disappear completely with no explanation. (Several 007 movies, for example, a couple B-movies and one Best Picture winner.)

It's not enough to make me quit Netflix though. 12 movies in a month for $18 is still a good deal, especially for my eclectic taste in movies. For all that, it's still better than standing in the aisles of the local video store, eyes glazing over at all the movies I've seen already.
 
i don't know, i usually get two a week and that is it. can't seem to get the one that is at the top of my queue but that is okay. i'm gonna rent some favorites anyway. things are pretty heavy for me with work and side projects, so the two a week will probably turn into watching roughly one a week.
 
hcuar said:
It's not a factor of how many you can watch.. It's a mater of how many you can feasibly get out the postal service. If you receive 3 movies on Saturday and return them on Monday (earliest possible), you receive 3 new ones on Wednesday. If you return those on Thursday, you will receive another 3 on Saturday again. Correct me if i'm wrong, but this comes out to 24 per month (average assuming 4 weeks per month). This seems to be the peak amount of DVD's possible for 18 bucks a month.
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My record for a single month was 33 (i was sick alot). I have a postal hub near me, and i can drop off mail by 8pm and still have them sent out same day i get them.
1 day to and from.

Yes, i've been throttled to 12.
 
I see no problem with throttling, if they would let you know they are doing that. Instead all too often a movie is supposed to ship that day, and then gets bumped back a day or two. I've even had a movie ship that wasn't expected to arrive for a week (ended up taking 5 days). I have the 2-at-a-time plan and last week I was only able to get 2 total movies the whole week b/c of them throttling me...and this is early February....so there is no way I have exceeded 24 or 12 or whatever. Usually when I return multipe movies on the same day and they arrive back to Netflix on the same day, my movies my shipping movies get delayed instead of just shipping that day.....even though they are available.
My wife and I have been traveling since November (looking for a city we'd really love to live and stay in for the long haul)...so we have lots of time.....and watch lots of movies right now. It helps keep us from going out a lot and dwindling our savings while we do not work. I just want to know what Netflix is doing to my account.
If they are throttling me and pushing back a movie or two since I've had so many.....just show that and put the shipping date as 2 days from now instead of today and delaying it. It's as simple as that for me. Honesty and I'd be a happy camper with the movies I get and the movies that get delayed.
Since they seem to want to be deceptive about it, I will probably cancel my service as soon as I can go through all the movies in my queue (about 200 right now.........about 40 of those are Ken Burns DVD's....hard to find elsewhere) and switch to the Blockbuster service. At least I'd get a free in store movie each week and have a chance at getting a new release (which I do not right now).
 
I rarely rent new releases so it hasn't been too much of a problem but I still get 4-5 a week for my 3 at a time plan. I wish they would just say something like a maximum of 3 per week or whatever for each plan. It's really annoying when I send one in and they don't list for 2-3 days or shipping is mysteriously delayed. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. Lots of foreign flics, tv shows and documentaries.

I can't wait til they go to downloads. No more making the trip to the post office because the discs don't fit into my outgoing mail slot.
 
This seems quite fair, all things considering. Those that "abuse" the system really are doing just that. I mean, seriously, who's watching 15 movies a month from Netflix? Not many, I'd wager. Most likely just copying them.

A person in my MBA class is a huge Netflix fan; he copies DVDs with reckless abandon. His record is getting a disc at 8am and having it copied and in the mail by noon. He says the trick is to pace yourself to about a dozen movies a month. Any more and you get throttled.
 
Don M. said:
This seems quite fair, all things considering. Those that "abuse" the system really are doing just that. I mean, seriously, who's watching 15 movies a month from Netflix? Not many, I'd wager. Most likely just copying them.

A person in my MBA class is a huge Netflix fan; he copies DVDs with reckless abandon. His record is getting a disc at 8am and having it copied and in the mail by noon. He says the trick is to pace yourself to about a dozen movies a month. Any more and you get throttled.
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Yeah, i'td be fair, except they advertised Unlimited monthly rentals, i fail to see how it is abuse. Do you consider those that eat 7 plates of shrimp at an all-you-can buffet abusing the system? :confused:

And yes, i have time to easily watch 15+ movies a month.
 
krimson said:
Yeah, i'td be fair, except they advertised Unlimited monthly rentals, i fail to see how it is abuse.
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Actually, their Terms of Use is pretty clear:
Netflix said:
A large majority of our subscribers rent between 2-11 movies per month. The number of DVDs that you rent will vary based on a number of factors (See "Allocation, Delivery and Return of Rented DVDs" below). We provide a number of different subscription plans to accommodate a variety of movie watching preferences. Click on the "Your Account" link, located at the top of the pages of the Netflix Web site and see "View Membership Terms" for details on the various plans we offer. In our unlimited plans, we do not establish a monthly limit on the number of DVDs you can rent, however, the actual number of DVDs you rent in any month will vary based on a number of factors (See "Allocation, Delivery and Return of Rented DVDs" below).
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Netflix said:
In determining priority for shipping and inventory allocation, we give priority to those members who receive the fewest DVDs through our service. As a result, those subscribers who receive the most movies may experience that (i) the shipment of their next available DVD occurs at least one business day following return of their previously viewed movie, (ii) delivery takes longer, as the shipments may not be processed from their local distribution center and (iii) they receive movies lower in their queue more often than our other subscribers.
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So, I'm not sure what you're complaining about. Netflix states that it's unlimited, with provisions for those who rent higher-than-normal volume.
 
Don M. said:
Actually, their Terms of Use is pretty clear:


So, I'm not sure what you're complaining about. Netflix states that it's unlimited, with provisions for those who rent higher-than-normal volume.
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Those provisions are a recent change that was forced into their Terms of Use by a class-action lawsuit. Many of us joined back when they really did claim it was unlimited, and there were no official policies regarding heavy renters.
 
aloofman said:
Those provisions are a recent change that was forced into their Terms of Use by a class-action lawsuit. Many of us joined back when they really did claim it was unlimited, and there were no official policies regarding heavy renters.
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Oh, I understand that. As well as this:
Netflix said:
Netflix, Inc., reserves the right, from time to time, with or without notice to you, to change these Terms of Use in our sole and absolute discretion. The most current version of these Terms of Use can be reviewed by clicking on the "Terms of Use" located at the bottom of the pages of the Netflix Web site. The most current version of the Terms of Use will supersede all previous versions. Your use of the Netflix Web site or continued use of our service after changes are made means that you agree to be bound by such changes.
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