1 reply to this topic

[Dr. Avery]

Dear Netflix,

I messed up. I owe you an explanation.

It is clear from the feedback from your organization over the past two months that I have failed to respect how closely you were watching my response to your actions. That was certainly not my intent, and I offer my sincere apology. Let me explain what I was doing.

When you announced that you would be changing your price structure, I was annoyed, but I decided to ride it out, because in the grand scheme of things it was just a few more bucks. I was, after all, generally happy with the service, and impressed by your commitment to creating decent paying American jobs. What I did not then realize, is that by not cancelling my membership immediately, I was tacitly encouraging you to continue dicking me around.

And continue to dick me around is precisely what you did when you decided to split the streaming and delivery services. From my perspective, the services work in tandem. Streaming media is always available right now. DVDs provide greater variety. My ratings on DVDs affect my recommendations in streaming, and vice versa. And it does this transparently. Because to me, the consumer, a streaming video is the same thing as a DVD - a movie.

Now you've decided to drop the Quickster split, and you think that makes everything better. It doesn't. You've just gone from 'balls deep' back to 'just the tip'. You are still fucking your customers. The fact remains that you've doubled the price of your service. All you have done, for many of us is remind us of a simple fact:

We don't actually need Netflix.

There is a competing product. Marvelous selection, including films which haven't even been released yet. And it doesn't just deliver movies. You can get music, books, applications, even games. A fast enough connection will deliver blu-rays in just a few hours. You get to keep as many products as you want for as long as you want, and it's completely free.

A few years ago, I signed on to Netflix as an alternative to downloading movies illegally. Not because of any fear of the consequences of illegal downloading (my methods are far too sophisticated to need to worry about that), but because It was a reasonable deal: I spend $10 a month, and I can stream some stuff, and grab any new releases I'd like to see on DVD. Someone in the entertainment industry was finally making a reasonable proposition.

A one or two dollar increase would have been easy to justify to your customers, and would have added considerable revenue gains - all without deflating your company's stock to rubble. Anyone complaining about a buck would easily have been written off as comically cheap crackpot. But doubling the cost overnight? That's just plain greedy. Playing it off like you've actually reduced the price? That's insulting.

I realize now that my failure to act in the very beginning was misleading, and that I am at least partially at fault for your company's recent actions. It was a mistake for me not to communicate more clearly with you, and I offer my sincerest apology.

Actions speak louder than words. But words help people to understand actions. This is why I have cancelled my Netflix account.

Respectfully yours,

-A.A.

[FreakinWeasel]

Haven't been around for a long time and this is the first thing I read back here, thanks for the laugh this morning, Doc.