What is Digg?104 Comments
- isomorf, on 06/30/2008, -0/+170What a pleasant change: a company that actually *listens* to its customers!
I think they may be onto something here. - yazheirx, on 06/30/2008, -0/+168FTA: "We were persuaded by the well-reasoned, sincere responses of loyal members who very much value this feature"
Proof that there is still room in today's age for reason and civility. - chevetter85, on 06/30/2008, -2/+68From the post:
"Simplicity is only one virtue and it can certainly be outweighed by utility."
My God a coherent reasoning from a large company! - gnalnad, on 06/30/2008, -0/+44The people have spoken!
- arthritix, on 06/30/2008, -4/+45This is awesome!!!!
- saegiru, on 06/30/2008, -0/+40We spoke... They listened? I'm frightened.
- griffindj, on 06/30/2008, -1/+39Interesting way to judge use of a feature:
Threaten to take it away and see who complains. - froschhosen, on 06/30/2008, -0/+34Great success!
- infamousjre, on 06/30/2008, -0/+31Do as you did when they decided to take them away. Let them know what you think.
http://www.netflix.com/Suggest
I thanked them for listening to their customers - DCstewieG, on 06/30/2008, -1/+30Just got the email. This is great. I hope they now realize that having Profiles is a great feature that just hasn't been marketed well. I was reading that only around 1% of subscribers use them. If that's true, it's unbelievable. I would bet that at least, at LEAST a third of their customers could make use of this, and probably many more. How many households are there where everyone has the same taste in movies?
- MattS, on 06/30/2008, -0/+25Thank you Netflix!
I cannot believe the 'process' worked. What am I going to complain about now? - mdpolaris, on 06/30/2008, -1/+19I sent a nice calm emailing detailing my love of the Profile's feature so that my fiancées chick flicks don't invade my sci-fi/action queue; and it is refreshing to have a company be open minded. I'm sure the parents with children were the biggest reason Netflix changed their minds, but I'm sure they have a place in their heart for couples that don't want to breakup over their movie queue wars. Besides, I never want to see Sex and the City as a recommended title for me!
- PxCxG, on 07/01/2008, -2/+20well-reasoned? sincere?....must not have read the emails from diggers...
- mightytribble, on 06/30/2008, -0/+17Yeah, and if you do the revenue math there, it makes Netflix look dumb:
1. Deal with it. Revenue gain to Netflix $0, less any loss of goodwill from you badmouthing their decision to friends.
2. Open an account for each person. ( Say, 3x 1 disc accounts instead of 1x, 3 disk account). Revenue gain to Netflix: $10 ( $9 per plan, x3, less $17 for the 3-a-go plan).
3. Leave. Revenue gain to Netflix: -$17, assuming a 3 disc plan.
4. Scale back your account. Revenue gain to Netflix: anywhere from -$3 to -$30 or more.
Given the options, there were *profound* negatives to canceling Profiles. And very little opportunity to get more revenue. And did they expect that there were some number of potential customers out there who were waiting to Profiles to be axed before they signed up? Or that a Profile-free website would suddenly become so compelling that more people would join Netflix?
Someone did a very poor cost analysis. Or they didn't do one at all. - rilus, on 06/30/2008, -0/+16I was extremely displeased with their decision to remove profiles as it was going to make their services a pain for me and my wife to use. I am glad I can continue to use them happily, as usual.
- quomen, on 07/01/2008, -1/+17Or he might be making a Borat reference.. fail.
- krische, on 06/30/2008, -4/+18I'd still like to know the real reasoning behind hit. I'm almost afraid it was a ploy to get more individual customers. I mean if they had gotten rid of it, people had 3 choices.
1) Deal with it.
2) Open an account for each person that had their own profile.
3) Leave. - artofficial, on 06/30/2008, -0/+13Netflix is one of the only companies that I praise non-stop. They rock, simple as that. If push came to shove when the corporations take over the world, I'm livin in netflixonia.
word. - tallguyg, on 06/30/2008, -0/+11Well *****. There's 3 hours I spent transferring my queues gone to waste. Oh well...
Hooray Netflix! - DeviantDragon, on 06/30/2008, -0/+10Well you can always complain about "The Man" holding you down.
- formergthing, on 06/30/2008, -1/+10Are you sure Blockbuster offers profiles? I don't think that's true.
- applebyte, on 07/01/2008, -1/+105 steps on how to advertise a lesser known feature of your product and generate good PR for your company at the same time:
1. Tell your customers that you'll be removing a feature in your product used by a small, yet vocal percentage of your customers.
2. Wait for public outcry from customers who use said feature.
3. Tell vocal minority that removal of the feature is for the benefit of all customers.
4. Wait for disappointment from the majority of your customers who never heard of the feature until now.
5. Tell customers that you have listened to them and will keep the feature in place (even though you never really intended to remove the feature in the first place).
Success! - birch25, on 06/30/2008, -0/+8very awesome. this is the reason netflix is so successful. they listen to their customers much more than pretty much any company i can think of. customer satisfaction is a high priority at netflix and it is the reason they have maintained such a good reputation over the years. i love netflix!
- doktorrocket, on 06/30/2008, -0/+8I always assumed they convinced themselves they were losing money to college kids/coworkers/neighbors that were sharing a subscription. I suspect they don't really know how much money they're losing to the above people, but they had enough angry letters threatening to cancel for them to reconsider.
In other words, keeping profiles may have been a simple business decisions, just like the decision to drop it in the first place. - PhoenixAvatar2, on 06/30/2008, -0/+6You've got way too long queues.
- Zachariah, on 06/30/2008, -0/+6The did this with the price hike a few years ago, too.
- Zachariah, on 06/30/2008, -1/+7I'm more likely to buy the Roku now. I was thinking about it, but changed my mind with the profiles going away.
I'm glad to see that just like in 2004 when they raised and then lowered their rates, they continue to listen to their customers instead of trying to screw them like 99% of the companies out there.
It is a bummer that some people may have already consolidated their queues now.
A bonus is that I now have like 10 netflix customers (friends and family) who are now interested in setting up profiles once the feature resumes. - baldr, on 06/30/2008, -0/+6the netflix blog post needs to be confirmed? I'm pretty sure the official blog is a pretty good source...
- sfacets, on 06/30/2008, -0/+5Good on ya Netflix, listening to your customers is a good move.
- jhuebel, on 06/30/2008, -0/+5I think Netflix gains from keeping profiles around. For one thing, it spreads out the genres of movies that are being rented, keeping the wait times for movies lower. Let me explain... My wife and I split the two-movie subscription between our queues. She loves Jane Austin movies (god help us all). I love Sci Fi. If we got rid of queues, inevitably I would have to relinquish control of the queue to my wife. That means she would have two Jane Austin movies out, keeping other lovelorn housewives from their cherished Sense & Sensibility. With profiles, my wife's Jane Austin addiction is limited to a movie at a time, allowing other addicts to get their fix more easily. ;-)
- funnyboy88, on 07/01/2008, -0/+56. Profit
- jpop, on 07/01/2008, -0/+4Just like New Coke!
- mediaspree, on 07/01/2008, -1/+5Its like Coke 2. Nobody liked it. But when they brought the "classic" formula back, everyone adored it.
Marketing. - diggdat, on 07/01/2008, -0/+4
I left my praises as well. Thanks for the link.
It is not a feature I use but I really enjoy this service and have used it for years. It seems to me they just keep adding value. Blue Ray, downloads, Roku box etc.
These days it seems rare to me to open my e-mail or read an article and something I use or something I need gets better instead of worse or cheaper instead of more expensive.
Yes I guess I am a fanboy but it seems they earned it... - Boofster, on 06/30/2008, -0/+4Go Netflix! :thumbup:
- aspec, on 06/30/2008, -4/+8Really? That sentence suggested to me that thousands of people emailed and called saying, "If you don't bring back profiles, we will switch to Blockbuster. Really... we mean it this time. Stop laughing."
- Ludwig, on 06/30/2008, -0/+4I'd still very much like the ability to "split" profile users off into their own account.
An annoying and surely common scenario would be kid moving out and going to college but not wanting to have to lose their queue, ratings or friends. - decker12, on 06/30/2008, -1/+5The Internets do works afteralls!
- khuongsta, on 06/30/2008, -0/+3...so why dont they just give us the option to delete profiles? currently once you add, u're stuck with it.
- Meursault, on 06/30/2008, -0/+3And thus avoid enmity!
- boerseun, on 06/30/2008, -4/+7I am very happy they changed their minds. I was waiting to see what will happen since I am looking at getting the Roku Netflix player. I did not want to get it, and Blockbuster offers the Profiles feature which will prompt me to switch. Now there is no reason (yet) to switch to Blockbuster.
- neferiousrich, on 06/30/2008, -0/+3I am glad to be a netflix customer. They have always exhibited an excellent business model, as well as the best customer service of any other services-based company I have ever dealt with. This decision just continues a long line of good business sense.
- Yarnage, on 07/01/2008, -0/+3I don't have Blockbuster but I was told by several of their members that they did not offer this feature.
Now I am even further confused. - PhoenixAvatar2, on 06/30/2008, -0/+3Nevermind... FTA:
"Non-users of the feature and new members will be able to access Profiles in 2-3 weeks. Existing users will be able to continue their use, uninterrupted." - jpop, on 07/01/2008, -0/+3My take on it is that someone did the math, and the "few percent" of the users added up to quite a rabid number of people. :)
Personally, I've never used profiles. Not because I didn't understand them, but because I never knew about them (nice promotionthere). Now that I know, I'm going to be setting them up. A lot of people had good ideas on managing their queues with them. - WhoRadley, on 07/01/2008, -0/+3If this dealt with politics, digg users would be saying FLIP FLOP over and over again.
- TheKillDoctor, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2and just imagine everyone in a family fighting over who's movie is next in the queue.
- cgruber, on 07/01/2008, -0/+2I agree. It was actually the feature that closed the deal with us returning to Netflix. We had the service for about 2 years and dropped it just because of all the queue micro-managing was a pain.
- apathetic13, on 06/30/2008, -7/+9Great! Now can we start a petition to get rid of profiles!
- DickBreath, on 06/30/2008, -5/+7I was an am skeptical that only 1% of their user base is using profiles. If that were true, then why would they change a major decision, which they obviously had spent some time making?
Thank you NetFlix for listening to your customers. Why were you so OUT OF TOUCH with your customers in the first place? A decision by some MBA who has never even used the NetFlix site? Some money gubbing idea that people who used profiles would be forced into buying multiple accounts? Guess again.
As I pointed out (in one of those "well reasoned responses" I might add) one of NetFlix's huge business advantages is its convenience over the local video store. By eliminating profiles, they lose a significant amount of that advantage. If three people in my house (including a minor) have to constantly deal with managing a single queue (and never can be sure who's disk will arrive in the mail next when someone returns one), then they just LOST A LOT of their convenience over the local video store. I told them on the phone and by email that at that point it becomes easier for me to just go to the video rental store. Each time I return a disk and NetFlix sends a disk for someone else in my house, it is one more time I'll go to the video rental store.
(I made all the other standard arguments as well. How can a minor share a sub account with adults? Convenience. Difficulty of management, etc.) -
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