Netflix: Heavy Use Customers Vs. Light Use Customers

Demiurge

<rant>
For the past 6 months, anything from Netflix that is a New Release or mildly popular has been strapped with "Long Wait"and "Very Long Wait" on my queue list, which has about 140 movies on it, half of which haven't even been released in theaters yet.

I had the feeling something was amiss because I am a heavy use customer of Netflix. I watch probably 28 movies a month on the 3 At-A-Time Unlimited Plan. My dad has the same plan, but maybe watches 9 movies a month.

I have had 'The Mist' on my queue since before it was ever released in theaters. I believe it's been out on DVD for about 3 months now. It's said 'Very Long Wait' on my queue ever since. Juno was another movie that's been on my list since before it was released in theaters. My Dad got it the day it came out.

Today I had my Dad add 'The Mist' to his Netflix queue and it said 'Available Now' and shipped to him immediately. Netflix hasn't mailed any of my movies to me yet, so I should have been first in line for that movie if their system is at all fair.

My Dad lives in the same area I do, and gets DVDs from the same distribution center in Milwaukee that I do. They really have no excuse here, but before I ramp things up I just wondered if anyone else here has been subjected to these 'Throttling' techniques on their heavy use customers.

I called them and here's what the girl said:

"Well, the movie studio that released the Mist only made 500,000 DVDs, so we're really light on those."

That doesn't explain why he added it today and got it shipped today, while my 3 month old queue of this movie still says "Very Long Wait".

"We send out new releases on Monday. You should send your movies in on Friday so we get them on Monday and you get the new releases right away."

With the volume of movies I watch, you'd think I would have gotten lucky with a new release at least once in 6 months.

I have been very pleased with Netflix up until this past year, which has sucked something fierce. I'm hesitant to switch to Blockbuster because I hate them for lying about their "No Late Fees" scheme they used to have. It's what made me switch to Netflix nearly 3 years ago. That, and I don't see why it would be any different.

An honest business would have calculated the ratio of heavy use customers to low use customers and figured it into their costs. That, or stop calling their plans "Unlimited."

</rant>

sucks2beme

Demiurge wrote: »

<rant>


My Dad lives in the same area I do, and gets DVDs from the same distribution center in Milwaukee that I do. They really have no excuse here, but before I ramp things up I just wondered if anyone else here has been subjected to these 'Throttling' techniques on their heavy use customers.

</rant>

Is his copy different? Like one was for Bluray, and one standard DVD?

SolidSqual

You should get Blockbuster Online. I never wait for any movies that have been released. Also, when I exchange them for movies in the store for free, I get my new DVDs next day or day after. It's awesome.

If you don't trade your rented movies for new ones at the story but just mail them back, there are no fees whatsoever other than your monthly fee. The new movies come about two days after I drop the old ones in the box.

bobman1235

Blockbuster ignores your queue order entirely, which is one of the biggest reasons I switched. Even if my number one movie was available, I'd get my number 54 movie. Seriously. My number one movie would sit at the top of my queue, available, for weeks at a time while I got random other movies in my queue. So if you're looking to switch for that you're certainly not going to get an improvement.

I'd say I get about 12-15 movies / month on my 3-at-a time unlimited plan (3 a week for the most part), and they're pretty good at sending new releases, pretty much always sending my top 3 and I rarely wait more than one "cycle" when there's a "long wait".

So it certainly sounds like they're throttling you, but.... 28 a month? I mean, Jesus, who can blame them?

SolidSqual

bobman1235 wrote: »

Blockbuster ignores your queue order entirely, which is one of the biggest reasons I switched. Even if my number one movie was available, I'd get my number 54 movie. Seriously. My number one movie would sit at the top of my queue, available, for weeks at a time while I got random other movies in my queue. So if you're looking to switch for that you're certainly not going to get an improvement.

I'd say I get about 12-15 movies / month on my 3-at-a time unlimited plan (3 a week for the most part), and they're pretty good at sending new releases, pretty much always sending my top 3 and I rarely wait more than one "cycle" when there's a "long wait".

So it certainly sounds like they're throttling you, but.... 28 a month? I mean, Jesus, who can blame them?

Hmmm I have a 67 movie queue right now and it is going right down the line . . .

Demiurge

sucks2beme wrote: »

Is his copy different? Like one was for Bluray, and one standard DVD?

No, in fact I disabled Blu-Ray on my own and HDDVD (Because I had no choice) precisely because of these ridiculous wait times.

So we're only talking SD DVDs here.

Demiurge

I don't blame them, per say. It's a lot, granted it's only during the Winter/Spring months that I watch that many movies in a month, and a lot of those are TV shows. In summer I am right around where you are.

What I do blame them for is not being honest about the fact this is happening.

They have no answer for the fact that someone in my office was able to add a movie and have it say "Available Now" while mine still says "Very Long Wait" within a minutes time of eachother.

She actually tried to use the excuse that perhaps they just got one in. I mean, give me an effin' break. :rolleyes: Even if that was true I am in line ahead of him, right?

I'm probably going to get a lot louder about this with them directly. I have read a lot of stories on the web since figuring this all out.

Ricardo

We have had this discussion a few times; I have had BB for a few years now....I hate the fact that they change their policies/plans once in a while, but I too get my movies in one-two days, plus the in store exchange is great.

bobman1235

SolidSqual wrote: »

Hmmm I have a 67 movie queue right now and it is going right down the line . . .

Interesting. This was ~9 months ago so maybe they've gotten better about it. When I quit that was the number one reason I gave for quitting - they were blatantly ignoring my queue order.

How many movies a month would you say you go through?

When I had BB, I was kind of more in Demi's range, because every week I'd get my three mail-ins, and on Tuesday (new release day) I'd return them in-store and get the three free in-store ones. So 6/week = 24-30 a month. I can imagine that they were just giving me their least "desired" movies because I was more or less abusing their system.

treitz3

Demi, that bites. I can easily see how frustrating this would be for you. Maybe you could open up another account? Or would this help you at all? I dunno, haven't ordered it yet.

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=68129

SolidSqual

bobman1235 wrote: »

Interesting. This was ~9 months ago so maybe they've gotten better about it. When I quit that was the number one reason I gave for quitting - they were blatantly ignoring my queue order.

How many movies a month would you say you go through?

When I had BB, I was kind of more in Demi's range, because every week I'd get my three mail-ins, and on Tuesday (new release day) I'd return them in-store and get the three free in-store ones. So 6/week = 24-30 a month. I can imagine that they were just giving me their least "desired" movies because I was more or less abusing their system.

Hmmm . . . I would say I am at about 2 per week but average about 10 movies a month when you factor in the times I exchange at the actual store.

mrmusicman

I go through about 10 movies a month and I 'm also waiting for "The Mist" to ship,I also listed it in my queue way before it released.It seems to be happening more often latley.I always send my movies back on mondays and recieve new ones by wed..never seemed to have problems before with new releases mabe they changed something.

disneyjoe7

Demiurge wrote: »

They have no answer for the fact that someone in my office was able to add a movie and have it say "Available Now" while mine still says "Very Long Wait" within a minutes time of eachother.

Demi,

I'm not defending them and I see why you're ticked off. But have you tried to remove this movie and re-add it to your list to see what the "New" status for you be?

I'm thinking it's a computer database problem as it doesn't update the in que list of members.

pietro944

....do a google search on netflix's intentional slowdown on heavy users.
basically,what they're doing is slowing down the shipments to the heavy monthly users,to prevent them from getting true value for their
monthly fee.

They don't want anyone to get 15+movies a month,so they screw with their queue system.

I read an expose about this about 6 months,ago...it caused quite a scandal.

bobman1235

C'mon, SCANDAL? Giimme a break. Netflix should just come out and say what they're doing and what the circumstances are that they do it. That's the only thing moderately "scandalous", and either way we're talking about a service that costs less than 20 dollars a month and ships movies to your house. They're not stealing your kidneys.

Scandal! Ha!

pietro944

bobman1235 wrote: »

C'mon, SCANDAL? Giimme a break. Netflix should just come out and say what they're doing and what the circumstances are that they do it. That's the only thing moderately "scandalous", and either way we're talking about a service that costs less than 20 dollars a month and ships movies to your house. They're not stealing your kidneys.

Scandal! Ha!

It is a SCANDAL(your caps),when a business attempts to defraud their customers.
This was a national story.....do some research before you chastise me for hyperbole.

bobman1235

Just because the media started with the hyperbole and you echoed it doesn't make it any less hyperbole. I heard all the stories. I agree that Netflix is in the wrong (again, only because they don't tell their customers what they're doing). But they're not actually depriving you of anything. They're technically delivering what they promised - a movie every time you return one. So... defrauding is a strong, and largely inaccurate, term. And again, people getting their panties in a bunch over something so inconsequential is ridiculous. "Heavy users" of Netflix know what they're doing - they're abusing a system because they found a loophole. All power to them for it, but, c'mon.

nikolas812

I noticed when I dropped my netflix subscription from 5 unlimited to 1 unlimited I started getting Long wait movies immediately. I don't know how it works but its odd none the less. I thought there might be a wait when I switched to blue ray format the other day. Nope. I got Juno the day it was released. Its odd. I have moved my subscription to 3 unlimited now and it still working the same way. No long waits at all. I don't understand why. But I like it.:)

Maybe try something different with you account. Get less movies or more movies. Just switch it up and see what happens. I was 5 unlimited forever..... When I started switching my account around everything changed. I started getting new releases much quicker.

Nick

Demiurge

Wait, I found a loophole? What is the loophole, exactly? I don't watch TV really at all, instead I like to watch movies and TV shows I can rent. You're taking my 28 movies a month a bit too literally as well - perhaps that's my fault, let me clarify again. That's probably the most I have ever done, as I have stated. I'd guess I am probably usually around 20-22 a month during the winter/spring the majority of the time. Once in a while it's more than that. Right now it's probably more around 15.

The only people who found a loophole is Netflix and it certainly isn't above board business practice.

It's pretty asinine to say that if you watch "a lot" (whatever that means exactly) of movies you're abusing their system. Their system says "Unlimited". You can split hairs here, but I gave a real life example of their ****. They're sending new releases to people who don't watch much, while people who watch more don't get them -- for MONTHS. They should have figured out the ratios and based their prices on it. I know they did, they're just trying to squeeze more profit by lying to their customers. It is what it is, man -- no need to blame the consumer here at all. A person can only watch so many movies in a month, and there's AT LEAST a 2 day turn around for every return/shipment process.

I'd love for you to explain how I am in the wrong here.

bobman1235

I dunno, once again I find myself arguing about something I don't really care about.

I don't think you're in the WRONG, I just can't say I blame Netflix, that's all.

Look at it from Netflix' point of view - they're making no money off someone who's returning every movie the day they get it. Just like pretty much every company they're going to treat the customers best who make them the most money because they're most interested in keeping those customers. You... they probably WANT to drop their service. I'm not trying to defend them really just seeing it from their viewpoint.

And getting as angry about it as you are just seems excessive because, essentially, you're paying less than a dollar per movie most times. A deal you're not gonna find anywhere else (except maybe with Blockbuster, which is a far worse company to deal with).

I hate being on the side of the corporation here; I still think you should complain to them, I just don't think it's as big a deal as many are making it (not just you, the aforementioned "hard-hitting news stories" about this too).

Demiurge

I always look at it from the businesses point of view, it's impossible for me not to.

Who is to blame for Netflix being in the position of potentially not making money on a person who pays a monthly subscription fee to their service?

Netflix.

If I am putting myself in the position of losing money as a business I need to fix the problem honestly or get out of business.

I actually just read their Terms of Use and this is in there:

" For example, if all other factors are the same, we give priority to those members who receive the fewest DVDs through our service."

There you go folks. It's real, guess I am done with these ****. What a **** way to run a company. :rolleyes:

bobman1235

Well at least they put it in their ToS

reeltrouble1

A very wise man once told me "There is nothing for nothing in this world".

Thanks Dad.

I think I will just keep using my Mom and Pop rental store.

RT1

sda2mike

i watch between maybe 9 to 15 dvd's from netflix per month. i find that some que maintenence works for me. i keep less than 20 in there. now i get the new stuff right away. i do think they play games with the amount of time they take to send the dvd's. when we watch alot of movies, it takes a couple extra days to get new ones. when were busy and don't watch alot, they email ONE day after we mailed them that they are sending new ones! overall i'm pleased with NF;)

dpowell

Demiurge wrote: »

I actually just read their Terms of Use and this is in there:

" For example, if all other factors are the same, we give priority to those members who receive the fewest DVDs through our service."

There you go folks. It's real, guess I am done with these ****. What a **** way to run a company. :rolleyes:

I doubt you'll be any happier at Blockbuster. They seem to have a smaller selection of titles than Netflix and don't always send what's at the top of your queue. I'm on the 1 at a time plan with in-store exchange and get a maximum of 4 movies a month.

zombie boy 2000

I think someone raised a lawsuit over this very same issue about a year ago. And I do believe he won.

bobman1235

He kinda did - it's a class action suit and is under appeal. The revised terms of Service that Demi pointed to above are a direct result of the lawsuit.

dkg999

Or do what we do. If you have neighbors/friends with Netflix, coordinate your queues so that you can all get different movies, then pass them around before sending them back.

Demiurge

dkg999 wrote: »

Or do what we do. If you have neighbors/friends with Netflix, coordinate your queues so that you can all get different movies, then pass them around before sending them back.

I read about that one. I heard there's clubs and stuff that do that.

dkg999

I didn't know it had become that organized! We just do it because of the slow down in them shipping movies when you go over about 12 per month.

AsSiMiLaTeD

Maybe it's in there somewhere and I missed it, but could what you're seeing be due to different Netflix facility locations, as in one having it in stock but the one servicing you not having it??