What a dirty trick

My dh and I signed up for Blockbuster online so I was happy to read this article about a dirty trick Netflix is pulling on its heavy renters. Signing up for movie rentals online seems like a great deal, doesn't it? You can order 3 at a time and you can constantly have the movies going back and forth. You pay your $17.99 or so monthly fee and basically can rent an unlimited number of movies all month long. Your investment pays off very quickly if you watch a lot of movies.

But...wait! What is this that Netflicks is doing? They're penalizing their heavy renters for returning the movies so quickly! There's an automated system that tracks the rentals, of course, and apparently it "flags" the heavy users. The person in the article was renting 18 to 22 movies a month and is now down to 13.

How did that happen? The company delays sending movies by various nefarious methods. One of the things they do is put a heavy user at the end of a line of newer or lighter users asking for popular DVDs. Delaying the mailing of DVDs to heavy users is called "throttling".

"In determining priority for shipping and inventory allocation, we give priority to those members who receive the fewest DVDs through our service," Netflix's revised policy now reads. The statement specifically warns that heavy renters are more likely to encounter shipping delays and less likely to immediately be sent their top choices. ...

Because everyone pays a flat fee, Netflix makes more money from customers who only watch four or five DVDs per month. Customers who quickly return their movies in order to get more erode the company's profit margin because each DVD sent out and returned costs 78 cents in postage alone.

But wait a minute, why say there's unlimited rentals? That's why we signed up with Blockbuster Online. We paid $9.99 for the first month and hubby ordered 3 movies...and just one arrived. We were kinda annoyed about that ... and now this.

We can cancel Blockbuster Online any time we want.

Another Netflicks subscriber published a website that supposedly proves the company has people even in the same household waiting different amounts of times for DVDs, depending on their usage: Analysis of Netflicks Allocation System. There is also a forum called Hacking Netflix.

Hmmm...Gotta go check those out!

Lyrical Sunday

Share a favorite line to two, 3 songs you like or listened to the past week; include titles and artistes.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up: To more than I can be.
"You Raise Me Up"
Celtic Woman CD

May it be the shadow's call
Will fly away
May it be you journey on
To light the day
When the night is overcome
You may rise to find the sun

"May It Be"
Enya

But dreams don't last
Though dreams are not forgotten
And soon I'm back
To stern reality
But though they pave
The footways here with gold dust
I still would choose
My Isle of Inisfree
"Isle of Inisfree"
Celtic Woman

Just enjoyed listening to Celtic music this weekend.