Netflix To Eliminate Profiles Feature 508
Donald Burr of Borg writes "One of my favorite features of Netflix, the video-rental-by-mail service, is 'profiles.' Profiles lets you create 'sub-accounts' for your friends/family, so that they can share in the video rental love. Each profile gets his/her own Netflix queue that he/she can manage with their own login/password. You can divide up how many movies get sent to you vs. the other profiles under your account. E.g. if you have a 6-out-at-once plan, you can choose to get 3 movies at a time, and have 3 other profiles each receive 1 movie. Unfortunately, the fun stops September 1, at which point Netflix is, for unknown reasons, going to terminate this feature. Why? To '...help us to continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers.' Improvement indeed."
Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not a good sign (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure how it improves things... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:5, Insightful)
Bad Move (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:5, Insightful)
NetFlix you are doing it wrong!
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:3, Insightful)
For your convenience ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Touching. I'm reminded of a sign I once saw on the door of a bank branch, some years ago while I was living in Boston:
For my convenience. Heartwarming, isn't it, how these folks are always looking out for us.Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, from a pure consumer standpoint, this change makes no difference. Netflix already has a pricing model such that, the CHEAPEST plan is 3 DVD / time. If you move from 3 to 4 out at a time, you actually pay more and from 4 to any other number, the price is the same (per DVD at a time).
If you had 6 at a time and choose to go to 3 at a time with 2 accounts, you'll actually save money (mere pennies, though). Since it was a separate login/password for each profile, there's no difference between having a separate account, expect for the "master user" having full view access. For those who allow their children to rent, they will still just use one account and they'll have to spend more time on their end managing their queue and that's an unfortunate hassle.
But I think you're right. I think profiles are causing a real PITA for the site programmers to maintain code and scrapping it all together will allow faster and more flexible programming models. They're probably finding legacy code such that the programmers are like "we want to do this but the way profiles currently work, it's preventing us from doing it without a complete programming change to the profiles system".
Instead of sinking a large cost into fixing profile code, they're probably just going to scrap it all together so they can implement whatever new and shiny features or improve database speeds or whatever.
I thought the feature was awesome, but from a "money" standpoint, I don't see how Netflix is doing this to "screw customers" out of more money, as their current payment plans emphasis 3/time movies over any other. Unless there's some research that says that 3/time people keep their movies longer than 6/time people or something.
Cheers,
Fozzy
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:2, Insightful)
Any discomfort will soon be forgotten, and they may even be able to shed themselves of the dead-beat "customers" that cost them more than they make.
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:5, Insightful)
This "downgrade" in service has reminded me to take another look at the market and see what other companies like Blockbuster are doing. If they are offering this service, I will probably send my Roku back and switch services.
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:5, Insightful)
People who say things like, "Well, obviously, company $x is a business, so they can do whatever they want" or "Your boss pays you money to work, so you have to do whatever he says" are invariably idiots.
NetFlix offered this feature. Some people bought the service in part because of this feature. Now it's being taken away. No discounts or temporary account upgrades or anything. Not even a way to migrate the old profiles to a new account. That's pretty sleazy.
As for "dead-beat customers that cost them more than they make", that does not make someone a dead beat. That makes them thrifty.
It is expected that both sides will act rationally. Customers will make the most out of their money, and NetFlix will cut features that cost them money. Calling their customers deadbeats is idiotic. But NetFlix is not handling this very well at all. They are taking something away without offering a thing. Customers are going to be pissed, and they've got a right to be.
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, it isn't difficult to maintain one queue for multiple people, but it's inconvenient. The entire purpose of Netflix is CONVENIENCE! I don't have to go to a store, I can put movies in a list and drop them in my office's mailbox after I'm done watching. Thus the allure. Now they took away a very convenient feature.
Redbox on the way home is sounding a bit more tempting now, goodbye Netflix.
Cope (Score:5, Insightful)
My boss' response to that kind of reasoning? backed up by the marketing department, CEO, and customers? "Cope."
Massively degrading the user's experience is not excused by programmer's convenience.
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:4, Insightful)
I love it when a firm says something this vague and contradictory when they basically realise that a thing that got people to use them is costing them too much money. I mean, if they really meant they were improving their service, then I'm fairly certain they'd say why.
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't have a netflix account so I have to fly blind here, but I fail to see why you would say that. Netflix is going to have a unique id tied to a customer account and several ids tied to profiles (1->N). The billing would be tied to the customer account and so would tables with a 1 to 1 relation to the customer. Billing usually consists of line items with everything broken down. A charge for an extra profile would simply be another line item. Enumerating profiles and appending them to the billing statement is not complex at all, assuming one didn't design a bass-ackwards schema.
Cutting a bunch of tables out of the system and having to resolve broken dependencies is more complex.
Also, some systems as a rule prohibit entering the same CC on different accounts. Of course, the reasons for doing so are somewhat arbitrary and debatable, but once a system implements that many dependencies wind up cropping up that require the credit info be unique (name/expiry/cc number).
"It's easy" vs. "It just works" (Score:4, Insightful)
Netflix Profiles "just works". I have my queue of 150+ movies, and without further effort the movies I want show up in the order I want, one at a time; ditto for my wife, who being home more than I am gets two a at a time. NO EFFORT.
Now you, and Netflix, pull the "quit whining, it's EASY to get the same thing, just go reshuffle the mutual queue..." without realizing that now that we've _made_ our lists (over 300 movies total), now we have to go _update_ that list every day. That doesn't "just work", that takes constant fiddling when we've got plenty of other things to do.
On top of that, our wildly different tastes (sappy chick flix vs. sci-fi noir & grusome action) means that the "suggestions" tool is useless. One of us gets on to review suggestions, and half the stuff suggested will be undesirable (never mind any bizzare half-breed "because you liked '27 Dresses' and 'Akira'...").
Profiles worked. It's extremely useful to some customers. Fix the code; don't wreck the customer experience.
Duh (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:3, Insightful)
Won't this mess up their recomendation system? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:3, Insightful)
People who say things like, "Well, obviously, company $x is a business, so they can do whatever they want" or "Your boss pays you money to work, so you have to do whatever he says" are invariably idiots.
Hate? Wow, you must have a difficult life.
A business can do as it pleases if there is a financial justification to do so. You as a consumer, can stop doing business with such a business if you don't like the change. It's not like NF has a monopoly on mail order rentals.
That's called choice, and we all have the right to make it. In this case, a good thing is going away. A lot of comments on here have the change related to database management issues, but I'd guess that's a small part of the issue. Most likely, supporting multiple warehouses around the country and the rise in postal rates is putting pressure on their profits. The Netflix folks looked at the features that make the least amount of profit and decided to drop the profiles plan.
It's not the end of the world. It's DVD rentals for gawd's sakes.
Re:The so-called reason (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't buy this crap about it being in the name of customer service ether. I call BullShit! If they really wanted to improve the customer service they would get rid of those fucking sliders / wheel / or whatever they are on the new releases page. I don't want to have to view new releases by clicking on arrows and seeing them 5 at a time. I want them flashed up on one page like they used to so I can view them all at once.
Fucking pain in the Ass.
Re:Cope (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm an engineering manager, and agree with the grandparent. We're not in business for the convenience of the engineers. If you can provide a marketing analysis to support your argument, I'll listen. If you can produce a cost/benefit analysis to support your position, I'll listen. If you can produce an ethical/moral/legal justification, I'll listen. If you're whinging because "it's not convenient," all you will do is piss me off.
This seems like a rather poor move, marketing wise. I'm annoyed that I have to move my wife's 200+ movie list over to my main profile, which is never used. But if its simply for the "convenience" of the engineers, I'll be royally pissed.
DRM (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:3, Insightful)
My theory (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyway, here's my theory. Netflix will bring the profiles back but charge a "nominal" fee each month for each profile. Like maybe 50 cents per month. Overtime the fee will be raised to actually increase Netflix's profits.
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't understand why it's sleazy. It's rude, and it's a good reason to cancel your account, but it's not like you had to make some investment to use netflix. It's a monthly fee, they're free to change the terms of service, and you're free to stop using netflix.
Agreed. But it still doesn't make netflix sleazy. Just stupid.
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:5, Insightful)
Take the airliners a decade and a half ago. "In order to provide a better service to you, our valued customer, we will eliminate the olive from the salad in our in-flight meal", all because some smart ass junior exec figured out that the airliner could save up to twenty thousand dollars a year, from a budget of billions, by eliminating the olives. Slippery slope from there, pretty soon the whole salad was gone, and all we were left with was boiled peas, know what I mean?
I don't think it's about maintenance costs. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:4, Insightful)
The separate queues is, to me, their chief advantage over Blockbuster. I don't really watch Netflix downloadable movies (and hate being forced into using Windows and IE even if I did), so that is no advantage there. Once the queues go away, I will re-examine which service I want to use. If Blockbuster wins on price, they will get my money instead. If Blockbuster takes advantage of this opporrunity and adds separate queues to their service, they score a slam-dunk and I will switch without a second thought or a bit of regret (I hope somebody from Blockbuster reads this). Being able to exchange one or two movies a month in the store is also very convenient, and a big plus in the Blockbuster column.
1) Make customers angry and shoot self in foot.
2) ???
3) Profit.
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a terrible mistake, because the people around here are weird. Deliberately so, it seems.
Not that I have an opinion about this particular story myself, just wanted to point that out.
Re:Yes, I received the same notice. (Score:3, Insightful)
Given all of that, why are you calling Netflix "sleazy"? Is it only idiotic to speak of someone in a derogatory way for acting in their own self interest when they are a customer, but perfectly fine if they are running a business?
Re:Expensive telcos (Score:3, Insightful)
add comments to the Netflix blog post (Score:3, Insightful)