Netflix - Not bad! Qwikster - uh, never mind...

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Netflix makes me want to actually TURN IN my Blockbuster card in defiance. Like, have a ceremony, one with robes and burning sage, in which I sever myself from their shittiness forever.

I have an Amon Duul DVD queued up!! Sharing the account with the woman has been daunting, though - I want Ilsa The Wicked Warden and the Townes Van Zandt DVD, she wants Play Misty For Me and The Wicker Man. Right now, we have A Dirty Shame (sucks but she loves John Waters and insists on calling me a 'neuter' now), Bullshit Season Two Disc One, and Over The Edge.

I have two questions though - what happens if you lose the little envelope that the CD comes in? I don't mean the mailer - i mean the little sleeve with the description? I think we lost one for good.

also - uh...not that i'd do anything UNETHICAL, but, err...how do I put this? What is the 'video guard' situation for burning? Does Netlix guard everything, some things, or none?

― Harvey is a Funny Name, Saturday, 7 January 2006 04:16 (twenty years ago)

Aww, screw it, I'll ask in a new thread. I expect it'll start a whole new debate, anyway.

― Harvey, Saturday, 7 January 2006 05:22 (twenty years ago)

I dunno if this will work, but this gets me to the Fleshapoids page, anyway.

http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=70040927&trkid=90529

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Saturday, 7 January 2006 06:28 (twenty years ago)

Thanks, Eric! It worked, but unfortunately, the little button below the picture of the box doesn't even say "Save", it just says "Unavailable". WTF? Did they maybe decide to phase this title out right after acquiring it?

― Chris F. (servoret), Saturday, 7 January 2006 11:33 (twenty years ago)

two weeks pass...

After mocking the folks who baulked at the Wal-Mart thing and bitched about slow return times, i will now join you! I sent out two discs last Monday, got one return on Wednesday (very good, but as expected) and only got the second yesterday! What fucking gives? Not the first time either.

― phantasy bear (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 19:15 (twenty years ago)

Yea, wtf ours are slow now :(

― A BOLD QUAHOG (ex machina), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 19:57 (twenty years ago)

Also we didn't get disc 2 of BSG 2.0 and were all wtf and filed for it and then they found it there?

― A BOLD QUAHOG (ex machina), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 19:57 (twenty years ago)

They are worse than CRIMINALS.

Just saying.

― phantasy bear (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 19:57 (twenty years ago)

a friend of mine has a theory that when you initially join, they are very timely about sending you your discs. once the romance is over, even before you're ready for it to end, they take long & longer to send you anything on time. i merely joined to save $$ on episodes of Six Feet Under.

― R. Kelsey (kelstarry), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:02 (twenty years ago)

I've never had problems with timeliness. But then they are making a fortune on me, so they probably don't care.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:04 (twenty years ago)

You've sped up, I see.

― phantasy bear (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:09 (twenty years ago)

I had to.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:09 (twenty years ago)

why?

― phantasy bear (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:14 (twenty years ago)

I had to keep up.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:18 (twenty years ago)

what does that even mean?

― R. Kelsey (kelstarry), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:21 (twenty years ago)

Forget it, Kelsey...it's jaymctown.

― phantasy bear (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:26 (twenty years ago)

"a friend of mine has a theory that when you initially join, they are very timely about sending you your discs. once the romance is over, even before you're ready for it to end, they take long & longer to send you anything on time."
I've also suspected this!

― Tripmaker (SDWitzm), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:28 (twenty years ago)

It's true. There are tons of testimonials including some from Netflix employees that basically attest to it. Plus they do some snazzy stuff to ensure that you CAN'T rent more than a certain number of movies a month and they slow down your returns and deliveries to ensure that. It's pretty lame.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:32 (twenty years ago)

I'm going to make a documentary expose' on them.

― phantasy bear (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:36 (twenty years ago)

i just signed on a couple weeks ago. First two weeks free. sent something out, got a new one two days later. we're now about 3 weeks in (paying now) and they're taking a day longer to ARRIVE at the netflix facility, and a day longer to arrive at my house. wtf?

anyone experience the same with blockbuster?

― AaronK (AaronK), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:39 (twenty years ago)

(xpost)Haha well they just got sued about it so you might not be the only one.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:39 (twenty years ago)

Hahaha! That's my email in the middle saying "maybe it was alex"!

― phantasy bear (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:39 (twenty years ago)

You should maybe edit out your wife's e-mail address!

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:40 (twenty years ago)

Uh not to be rude, but SAYING that you get UNLIMITED movies and then RIGGING your system to PREVENT people from getting as many movies as they want is a damn good reason to sue someone IMO.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:40 (twenty years ago)

Movies that I've done multiple searches for on Netflix without success do occasionally end up being made available, though.
I still rent from the local shops, too. I'm probably spending a lot on movie rentals monthly.

― Tripmaker (SDWitzm), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:42 (twenty years ago)

Uh not to be rude, but SAYING that you get UNLIMITED movies and then RIGGING your system to PREVENT people from getting as many movies as they want is a damn good reason to sue someone IMO.

Sign the thing!

― phantasy bear (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:42 (twenty years ago)

btw, that is rude Alex.

;)

― phantasy bear (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:43 (twenty years ago)

I think I had to sign it a month ago. I don't really care about getting one extra movies out at a time for a month. What a lame settlement.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:44 (twenty years ago)

So...it wasn't you.

― phantasy bear (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:44 (twenty years ago)

Hah you don't think I would have told you I was SUING Netflix, Adam.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:48 (twenty years ago)

You seemed so angry about it at the time, it seemed like you could have.

― phantasy bear (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:48 (twenty years ago)

Oh I'm still angry about it, but I'm also lazy and I'd rather just rent something from the local video store than find a lawyer and do something about it.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:50 (twenty years ago)

http://netflixunderground.blogspot.com/2005/03/how-to-get-revenge-on-netflix.html

― phantasy bear (nordicskilla), Thursday, 26 January 2006 19:45 (twenty years ago)

http://www.hackingnetflix.com/

Apparently cancelling then re-activating your account has worked for some people. Netflix throttles for long-time heavy users, but it saves your queue in case you re-join.

― phantasy bear (nordicskilla), Thursday, 26 January 2006 19:53 (twenty years ago)

Netflix - Bad!

― phantasy bear (nordicskilla), Thursday, 26 January 2006 19:56 (twenty years ago)

well, in the terms of use they have what amounts to an admission that they will throttle heavy users:

In determining priority for shipping and inventory allocation, we give priority to those members who receive the fewest DVDs through our service. As a result, those subscribers who receive the most movies may experience that (i) the shipment of their next available DVD occurs at least one business day following return of their previously viewed movie, (ii) delivery takes longer, as the shipments may not be processed from their local distribution center and (iii) they receive movies lower in their queue more often than our other subscribers.

my free trial just ended, and i'm one of those watch the day they arrive and send right back types, so we'll see what happens. but as long as they actually send movies when they claim to, they'll still be a leg up on greencine. (who i quit because they just stopped sending me the movies they checked out on my account. really weird.)

― Matt B. (Matt B.), Thursday, 26 January 2006 20:22 (twenty years ago)

I called and had a 15 minute conversation with Netflix customer support today. He basically blamed their software and pointed out that I still was getting a pretty good deal. I pointed out that if it was such a great deal then why wasn't it the deal I got the first 5-6 months I had Netflix. He politely told me I could quit the service if I didn't like it. I told I had no intention of quitting the service, but every intention of calling every day my movies were bumped to the next day for shipping.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 30 January 2006 21:27 (twenty years ago)

Note: it's actually kind of annoying doing this so I may not, but whatever.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 30 January 2006 21:27 (twenty years ago)

two weeks pass...

You know, the throttling is certainly annoying, but I'm still getting my money's worth so I'm sticking with Netflix until I find a better alternative. What makes it really aggrivating is the underhanded way they're handling it on all fronts.

― inert false cat (sleep), Friday, 17 February 2006 19:28 (twenty years ago)

Yeah that is the most obnoxious part of the whole thing.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 17 February 2006 19:31 (twenty years ago)

Well that and the fact that I got TWO movies this week, because they decided to pretend that half of what I sent got lost. I mean that was fucking obnoxious too.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 17 February 2006 19:32 (twenty years ago)

I've had enough w/Netflix.

― Codename: Paul Scholes (nordicskilla), Friday, 17 February 2006 19:33 (twenty years ago)

Yeah the problem is that the best alternatives are either too appalling to consider (Blockbuster) or supposedly not much better (Greencine).

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 17 February 2006 19:35 (twenty years ago)

xpost
Exactly Alex, that's my biggest problem.

mon: i send back ratcatcher and l'avventura simultaneously
tue: they say "we just received ratcatcher" and send the next movie
wed: nothing
thu: nothing
fri: "we just received l'avventura"

Bullshit. Stop being so fucking slimy and implying it's the postal service's fault. Throttling is in the press, it's (finally) in the terms of service, just tell me you received my movie and the next one is shipping in two days or whatever.

― inert false cat (sleep), Friday, 17 February 2006 19:36 (twenty years ago)

You guys are cute.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 17 February 2006 19:37 (twenty years ago)

I realized how much better Reel's selection is (especially with Criterion things that are out of print), plus I can augment it with the pretty impressive selection at Berkeley library. I go out with the DVD vultures every Saturday morning to check the new arrivals. Whenever I see them swarming, I always assume they're after the same stuff I am but I overheard the weirdo next to me snatch up a disc and mutter in awe under his breath "hmmm...Dan Ackroyd!".

― Codename: Paul Scholes (nordicskilla), Friday, 17 February 2006 19:37 (twenty years ago)

I've seen most of the Criterion things which are out of print and most of the other out of print stuff I couldn't care less about anyway. And the video stores with comparable selections to Netflix are far flung from my house so I couldn't head over there anyway. I should hit up the library though.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 17 February 2006 19:50 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I just discovered a new branch of my county's library really close to my apartment. Their selection isn't very big, but it's well-chosen. I still need Netflix for most things though.

― inert false cat (sleep), Friday, 17 February 2006 19:57 (twenty years ago)

i talked to netflix today about how slowly i've been getting movies, and they totally denied throttling and blamed it on the postal service (surprise surprise). she said she'd send out the next disc on my list even though they hadn't yet processed my last returned disc (which should have gotten to them three days ago)...as if she was doing me a big favor.

was reading a bit similar companies, and i'm feeling like i'm pretty much stuck with netflix if i want my mailed dvds. i wonder how much i can muster up the energy to harrass customer service.

― Juulia (julesbdules), Friday, 17 February 2006 20:16 (twenty years ago)

I'm about to embark upon GREEN CINE. I'll spare you the details of my Netflix displeasure but just say it was similar to most of your frustration and I'm not even a big candidate for the throttling.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Friday, 17 February 2006 20:22 (twenty years ago)

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