For the first time ever, I am genuinely upset my something Netflix has done. I got an e-mail this morning from them saying they are doing away with Profiles. WTF.

If you have a single account and don't share it, you probably have no clue what I'm talking about. Basically its a way to share your account with multiple queues. I have a 3 disc plan, where I have 2 DVDs at a time, and my has 1 on her queue. Its completely seperated on what she likes, what she's watched, and what ever she wants. When she sends her movie back, she gets another. I love it. I was planning to get a 4 DVD plan when my boys gets a little older so they could have their own queue of kids movies. But now they are abolishing them after September. Here is the somewhat baffling response:

Quote :

"While it may be disappointing to see Profiles go away, this change will help us continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers."

What is Profiles messing up that makes customer service worse? I know for many folks its not a big deal. But if you have a family and a bigger plan, its just so much easier to split the damn thing up. Anyhow its a minor inconvenience, but its the first time I've ever gone WTF to something Netflix has done.

6/19/2008 8:10:51 AM

damn that sucks, and i agree, i dont see how doing away with that will make it better.

6/19/2008 8:13:00 AM

that really sucks I use them religiously

6/19/2008 10:16:36 AM

aww
consumerist is already on it

6/19/2008 10:21:37 AM

that sucks

im still waiting for my first movies...im trying it for a month to see if i like it

6/19/2008 10:22:59 AM

I am guessing they will start offering additional accounts at discounted rates soon. Real nice.

6/19/2008 10:26:47 AM

goddamnit, i hadnt actually looked at that email until i saw this posted.

my wife and i use profiles and it is the shit. why would they get rid of them?



The least they could do is merge the queues automatically so I don't have to. I am still not switching back to Blockbuster because Netflix is much faster with mail turnaround, but I hate that they are removing a feature I like without reducing the price any.

[Edited on June 19, 2008 at 10:44 AM. Reason : d]

6/19/2008 10:28:37 AM

I've had it for a few months now and never really had a problem getting newly released movies. The past couple months I've had to wait forever to get them. Right now I have Jumper and National Treasure in my queue and they both say "Long Wait".

6/19/2008 10:54:10 AM

6/19/2008 11:05:11 AM

6/19/2008 11:06:40 AM

totally wish i still had netflix right now

if i could have forseen on monday that i'd be sick all week i could have caught up on all the movies i've missed!

6/19/2008 11:10:27 AM

Apparently Netflix has pissed off lots of other people with this. Still don't understand WTF they are thinking with this thing.

6/20/2008 5:17:08 PM

does it allow you to have more movies per month or something?

6/20/2008 5:29:47 PM

I signed up about a month ago and noticed that the feature was gone. I called customer support and they said that profiles were "using too much infrastructure"

6/20/2008 5:53:46 PM

so by saying it would help the customers it's really to help themselves

big fucking surprise

6/20/2008 5:55:04 PM

Well, if it's costing them a lot to maintain then yes, it is helping themselves. The other option is to raise their prices to cover the rising cost of keeping profiles going, which would also cause consumer outrage. So they have two options, eliminate profiles or raise prices. It seems like a pretty easy choice to me since most of the time people are full of shit about canceling their service.

6/20/2008 6:36:06 PM

Damn, I didn't even know about that option. Would have used it if I had

6/20/2008 7:52:58 PM

No it does not allow you to have anymore disks than somebody without them. The only difference is, you can allocate you pot of discs to different users. In my case, I have a 3 disc plan. When I setup my wfes profile, I gave her one of those, and my queue pulls 2. Down the road we were going to give one to the boys to use, so we would each have one.

One of the guys on the Netflix blog said that it was because of shitty code. They are apparently going to tear down the whole site and redo it from square one. If thats true, then they should have SAID THAT. I would understand a lot more if they had said that. Instead they just make comments like "For the good of the many" and "this decision is final". That is SHITTY PR.

6/21/2008 12:14:13 AM

ppls would rather talk to their friends and not have anonymous fools beat chest

6/21/2008 12:18:50 AM

It was a good feature for roommates to share one netflix account instead of having multiples. If they don't rebuild the feature, maybe they'll offer a discount on multiple accounts at the same address.

6/21/2008 4:50:28 PM

Success

6/30/2008 6:20:00 PM

SCORE!

W00t. This makes me a happy Panda today. Thank you very much Netflix for listening to us. I will probably be increasing my plan by 1 disc after this.

7/1/2008 8:03:49 AM

IT'S BUSH'S FAULT! lol

7/1/2008 8:07:18 AM

AN OFFER YOU CANNOT REFUSE

Just completed the Godfather marathon last night

7/5/2008 11:01:06 AM

I wish they would add the option for people that signed up recently to have profiles. I still can't make any

7/5/2008 12:49:00 PM

now they'll just raise the price instead

7/5/2008 12:52:17 PM

Well now they haven't shipped a damn thing all week and have no ETA. Started Tuesday, which was when all my movies made it back. Not a big deal, just playing TF2 and shit instead, but sucks that they have some software problem so bad that it has completely crippled the company.

8/14/2008 6:40:57 PM

Quote :

"IMPORTANT: Your DVD Shipments Have Likely Been Delayed Click here to learn more We’re sorry to report that since Tuesday we’ve been experiencing issues with our shipping system, so many of you have not received DVDs in a timely manner and many of you have not received emails letting you know we got a DVD back from you. We pride ourselves in delighting you, and we’ve let you down. We apologize and are working around the clock to restore normal operations. To all of you whose shipments have been delayed, we’ll be automatically applying a credit to your next billing statement. Or, if you are new to Netflix and your first shipments have been delayed, we recognize that this is not a good way to begin your Netflix membership and we’ll automatically extend your free trial. Our goal is to ship DVDs as soon as possible and to keep you updated. Again, we are sorry for the inconvenience we’ve caused you and thank you for your patience. The Netflix Team"

sad panda.

8/14/2008 10:22:38 PM

NETFLIX YOU SUMNOMNAMITCH!

8/14/2008 10:41:17 PM