Netflix: Disgruntled customers rejoining service

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57435709-93/netflix-disgruntled-customers-rejoining-service/

by zacharye • 14 years ago

28 30 14 years ago

news.cnet.com

mmuro• 14 years ago

Here's one disgruntled customer who doesn't miss Netflix at all. Redbox fills the void nicely and it's way cheaper for my viewing habits.

muhfuhkuh2• 14 years ago

So, how many discs do you rent a month? Because if it's <5, then I'd say, okay, you'd be better off without the $8 netflix. But, if it's more...

We love netflix at home. They're seriously starting to ramp up on TV series licenses and 80s and 90s hit movies now (where we as Gen-Xers go for our nostalgia trips).

And, I'm starting to see some AAA blockbusters show up from the recent past (<5 years ago). So, it's coming along nicely for our needs and definitely for the price. I've never understood how people who say "well, cable has bigger hits faster", but not only do you have to pay $50+ for digital HD cable, but >$10 on top for HBO/Cinemax/premiums, and pay to "rent" on-demand recent hit movies.

Now that is the ripoff.

devs10103• 14 years ago

Haven't you heard of Amazon Instant Video? It has no subscription fee and has the latest movies for rent, on demand, and the highest they go is, I believe $3.99. I don't have a cable or satellite TV subscription at all but I have a PS3 and can use Amazon Instant Video with it, I believe there are devices that you can get to use it if you don't have a current gen video game system.

Personally, I don't like Netflix's streaming video model, I much prefer that of Amazon's but I would definitely like to see the price decrease. Having a large library of movies (mostly older, some fairly recent), doesn't do me any good unless it has the movie I want to watch at that time. I don't watch all that many movies so when I do watch one I want it to choose from any movie to do so, not be limited to a subset of movies for which they were able to negotiate rights to stream them.

I think the "buffet" model of streaming content works for TV shows a lot better since they're shorter and most people are more willing to watch what they consider a "sub-optimal" choice of a show than a movie.

mc32• 14 years ago

I don't think it's too surprising. What were their viable alternatives --besides cutting off from video entertainment altogether?

I don't think they have credible competitors§ yet. There's Hulu and there's Amazon Prime videos, but neither, to me, have the same breadth.

§I mean, via internet delivery. Even DVD mail delivery, they are very good, but that's not a growth market.

pavel_lishin2• 14 years ago

Hulu's advantage is that they have more things that are available on cable - I can see Bob's Burgers and Once Upon A Time the day after they air.

The downside is that I cannot watch the first season of the former... unless I fire up Netflix :)

reneherse2• 14 years ago

How have you found the browsing experience on Hulu? I tried it recently and was shocked at how difficult it was to look through the different titles.

One advantage of Netflix is that they give you a really dense page full of easy to read selections when you're hunting for something to watch.

laconian• 14 years ago

Isn't Hulu going to become exclusive to cable subscribers soon (a la HBO GO?)

devs10103• 14 years ago

Where did you hear this? Its hard to believe given that they've expanded to so many devices now, I could only see this if they were bought out, in which case I think another competitor would arise.

greggman2• 14 years ago

I know I'm like the only person in the world who cares about this but I quit Netflix the moment I saw they used pop-unders for advertising.

People used to be screaming at all the popups and popunders in the early 2000s. People stopped screaming because adblockers and customer complaints in general end up getting rid of them.......except for Netflix! WTF!

They still use them. Saw a few this week, and I still won't support Netflix because of it.

Personally, I think as a geek, you shouldn't support them either.

recursive• 14 years ago

I've never seen a pop-under ad on netflix. I've never seen any advertising on netflix. You may have some malware or something.

andrewljohnson• 14 years ago

Same thought...

tantalor• 14 years ago

greggman is referring to Netflix pop-unders on 3rd-party sites.

jedberg• 14 years ago

I think you have some malware. As far as I know Netflix doesn't use popunders or overs.

dchuk• 14 years ago

there's a good chance those are ads being run by affiliates. I've seen them a bunch, it's actually impressive how they can circumvent most popup blocking technology

TheHegemon• 14 years ago

You're most likely mistaken. Netflix probably has no idea about the popunders, as it's most likely a third-party affiliate site doing something against the TOS.

If you report them to Netflix I'm sure they'll be glad to shut down that affiliate's account.

Either that or you got malware.

greggman2• 14 years ago

The only legit companies I've seen use popunders in the last 5 years are (1) Netflix (2) American Express. There must be something those 2 companies are doing as it's specific to them and them only.

reneherse2• 14 years ago

What, I rejoin last night and there's already an article about it? ;)

Seriously though, in my search for cheap/free movies what pushed me off the fence about rejoining Netflix was that they were offering the first month free, even though I'm not a new customer. All the details of my account were saved, and all I had to do what update the security code and expiration date on my card. Pretty damn good UX through the re-signup process.

The annoyance factor came when I tried to watch a movie. I got an error message with an obscure DRM error code, and instructions to call a Netflix 800 number. Rather than wake Reed Hastings up at an ungodly hour, I Googled around and followed advice to delete a particular Silverlight related file, and restart the browser.

Again, no dice, but at least now the error code was one that prompted me to upgrade my version of Silverlight. Downloaded, installed, restart browser. Log back in for the third or fourth time. NOW I can watch my movie.

Let's just say that was only mildly annoyed by all of this because the first month was free. And the process in the end was somewhat less painful than hunting for a working stream (...or what that must be like, I'm sure). ;)

One free month is more than enough time to re-evaluate whether their streaming catalog is worth the 7.99 monthly price. I do hope they've added more A-list movies on the streaming side, because it's just not worth it for me to tack on another eight bucks to get access to the DVD catalog.

Netflix: Disgruntled customers rejoining service

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