Oddball Update

I’ve always heard rumors about this, but a syndicated story that ran in many newspapers yesterday indicates that the DVD rental-by-mail giant Netflix is throttling what it considers to be “heavy renters,” or people who turn around more than 11 or 12 DVDs per month. This is done automatically by Netflix’s software. This was interesting to me because I’d say Apple and I qualify for the label. We typically return most of our rentals within one or two days of receiving them…I’d guess we turn around as many as 16 to 20 discs a month. And, in the last couple of months, we’ve noticed that it’s been taking longer to receive our movies each shipment than it used to.

Indeed, shipments used to arrive within one business day. Now it often takes two days, even three once in a while. If this is the result of Netflix throttling us, then I can sorta understand their reasons, although not necessarily give two enthusiastic thumbs up about it. However, the news story I spoke about also mentioned one other action Netflix takes as part of their throttling process. They move heavy renters to the bottom of the wait list for new releases and other discs in high demand.

Now, I don’t get this at all. That just seems like out-and-out punishment to me, and it does not seem to have anything to do with the reason for the throttling — high DVD turnaround volume. In fact, with new releases that are in high demand and short supply, wouldn’t Netflix prefer subscribers to return those discs as fast as possible, so that it can make the rounds more quickly? I’ll metaphorically shove Netflix a great big rusty piece of rebar up the ass in response to this one; if it’s true, it’s just a bunch of bullshit.

Categorized as Media, Media/Movies, Rants, Media/Television