Netlfix announced yesterday that they’ll be eliminating the ability to set up separate queues or “profiles” within one account. Some customers, like reader Stephen are hopping mad about it.
Incredible shrinking service. Every single person I know uses Netflix uses profiles. For those out there who don’t, you can create profiles for different people using the same account, and allow those people to maintain their own list of movies. For example, I get two discs at a time from my queue, my wife gets one at a time from hers, but we pay for just one 3-disc at a time account.
I called Netflix to tell them that if they do this, I will cancel service with them – I made it clear to the poor guy that answered the phone I wasn’t going to yell at him, I just wanted to lodge my protest. It seems he’s taken LOTS of such calls. He told me to log into my account, click on the Contact Us link, and go to Suggestions and put the information in there. Apparently that page sends information to the correct people. I certainly hope every Consumerist reader who is a Netflix user does just that. Netflix has been one of the better companies I’ve dealt with, and I believe that if their userbase tells them “no, you are being dumb, stop it”, they just might. This also might be the point where they have realized they have Blockbuster just about beat and are starting to abuse their customers. I hope not, because I’d rather they not let Blockbuster up off the mat.
Here’s the email Neflix sent out, announcing the discontinuation of profiles:
Important News Regarding Netflix Profiles
Dear ,
We wanted to let you know we will be eliminating Profiles, the feature that allowed you to set up separate DVD Queues under one account, effective September 1, 2008.
Each additional Profile Queue will be unavailable after September 1, 2008. Before then, we recommend you consolidate any of your Profile Queues to your main account Queue or print them out.
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.
If you have any questions, please go to http://www.netflix.com/Help?p_faqid=3962 or call us anytime at 1 (888) 638-3549. We apologize for any inconvenience.
- The Netflix Team
The ability to have “his and hers”, or a kids queue, is pretty essential to the Netflix service for some people. However, according to Netflix’s FAQ, they will be emailing people a copy of their queues so they can rebuild their selections. Will this drive you back to the arms of Blockbuster?
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What next? Gamefly doing that to all the gamers who are to poor to afford video games (like me)? Seriously, our only salvation to Comcast On-Demand and other crappy VOD services is now lowering itself down a notch.
Not everyone uses profiles. I actually like getting movies and enjoy them with others in my family. If I need to get a movie right away, I redbox it, many times with a freebie code.
I will say that it was silly of them to say they were going to improve service by dropping it.
Drop the profiles.
Called Netflix today. The very friendly CSR said that less than 3% of members use Profiles and that profile is “holding them back” from implementing new features.
But she mentioned that she will forward along my wishes to keep Profiles.
So…. maybe they will come up with something better? I’m really disappointed. But if you are a member and want to keep Profiles, please call Netflix and let them know!
@Dakine:
No, they -aren’t- merging the profiles. All profiles other than the main
one will be purged. :p
We seriously just started using profiles YESTERDAY, after years of having one f’d up consolidated queue (boy our recommendations are WAY off). So hearing this news when we finally decide to use an amazing feature is really upsetting.
I know several people who will either switch to Blockbuster or switch to pirating movies as punishment to Netflix. Netflix will lose either way.
This blows. Thanks for nothing, Netflix! Until now I held you in high regard!
I just called and sent in a Comment. I will cancel if this service is removed. It’s a treat I can live without.
I think the people that are brushing this off as a bunch of lazy
whiners don’t understand that technology is supposed to afford us more
efficient lives. Requiring me to micromanage my queue each time my
wife or I mail a movie back isn’t making my life easier.
This isn’t a “brain surgeon IQ required to develop” feature for
Netflix, money can be the only motivating factor. The argument that
only 1% of people are using it so no big deal doesn’t seem to make
sense. Profiles aren’t hurting the 99% of people not using it so why
get rid of it?
Hard to say what we’ll do but right now I’m thinking of switching to
two 1-at-a-time plans rather than our 4-at-a-time plan. Take that
Netflix. Haha.
In the big scheme of life, how is this even an issue?
@sean77 – No, it is not “just dumb”. I was told by netflix that the roku player would be able to use the profile ability w/instant queue and be able to have these multiple profiles for different people in the household, so I could have my profile w/instant queued movies, my wife with hers, and my daughter with hers. I was specifically told this and THAT is why I bought the roku players. I was lied to by netflix and I will NOT grace them with another cent.
As for your other response, that those who say they will not be cancelling the service, I point you to this picture: [tinyurl.com]
I do not support companies that lie to its customers.
@j-yo: In the big scheme of life, why visit Consumerist? And why bother to comment?
@sean77: Well, Netflix guy, I left. And instead of telling my friends how AWEsome you were, I now regale them with how NetFlix had to get sued into admitting that they game loyal customers’ queues and lie when asked.
I also spread my story on consumer-oriented blogs filled with potentially ideal (upscale, internet-savvy, urbane) customers. Some of whom may go, “Eww. I don’t like companies that have to lose in court to admit their consumer-unfriendly shenanigans.”
BTW, the three customers I brought in for you? Gone now. And telling THEIR friends the amusing story of how NetFlix had to be sued before admitting they throttle titles.
And, your Q4 net subscriber additions fell 31% to 451K. Your churn ticked up from 3.9% to 4.1%. So, someone’s following thru on their threats to quit. If you haven’t noticed it, Wall Street has.
This new wrinkle doesn’t lend itself to an amusing story. But the trend – NetFlix changes their terms on whim whenever it benefits them and expects customers to suck it up – is pretty simple to explain. As is the impossibility of contacting anyone with problems at NetFlix unless script monkeys count.
A shame: you guys had a clever concept going and initially were great. Too bad.
@TeraGram: I’d insist on one new free account. Otherwise I’m sure they’d be happy to take twice your money for the same basic service.
My wife and I had been debating on what to do with our Netflix account since we had not been watching very many movies lately (our setup was exactly like Stephen’s: 3-disc at a time account with 2 of those going to me and 1 to my wife). When I read about this yesterday it was the straw that broke my proverbial back; I went ahead and put our subscription on hold for 90 days.
When my wife and I met almost 3 years ago, we each had our own Netflix accounts, both with about 1500 ratings a piece. When we got together we decided to close her’s and use mine. When that happen she lost all of her ratings and had to start from scratch. Now they are going to delete them all again for what? As far as I can tell just because they can and it is easier for them on some level.
Way to screw your loyal user base NetFlix. If they have not remedied this in 90 days I’ll just put my account on another 90 day hold and continue doing that until I’m ready to say goodbye to my 1500 reviews.
I agree with the person who said Netflix is probably targeting power
users they lose money on by eliminating profiles. Simple fact is,
multiple people on one account are probably turning over movies at a
much higher rate then 1-to-1 account holders. So even though they may
get a lot of complaints Netflix probably has little incentive to
reinstate profiles unless they increase prices for them.
I followed suit and left this suggestion:
“If you remove profiles from your service or jack up the cost to allow profiles I will cancel my account. It’s asinine to state that profiles are too much of a load on your web servers. UPGRADE if you need to. Your overhead is absolutely minimal.
Please don’t remove the profiles feature.
Thanks,
Jeremy”
Garbage and suicidal. In the age of social networking where everyone is unique and where being unique is celebrated, Netflix decides that what the people want is to be homogeneous and vanilla. They believe that the hard core users will want to be reduced to a mailing address that rents movies? Not likely. Remove-nose, spite-face.
I’ll be an ex-Netflix user come Sept 1 unless they reverse this nonsense or come up with a suitable alternative…
Totally sux when you have 3 queues for 3 people, like I do.
The only thing you can do is send Netflix feedback, like I did.
@Dacker: Um. Or leave.
I’m very unhappy with this move on the part ofNetflix. My husband and I have very different tastes and so like to have different movie queues. And, while he could have a movie arrive and keep it for days and days, during that time I could have received and watched 3 movies from my own queue. With this new policy, we’re going to have to log onto the damn site every day to figure out the logistics of our movies. It will be EXTREMELY inconvenient. Stupid move, Netflix.
Keep in mind that any online system that ever changes in any way, for benefit (flickr giving video) or loss (this) will be met with people who are pissed off, threatening to leave, and deciding this was the final straw of terrible service that caused them to throw their hands in the air and quit.
I’m not saying that the complaints aren’t justified, it’s just not exactly shocking that some people dislike a change. As was said, they probably looked a the number of people who used it, saw how small it was, came to some formulaic conclusion of how much of a loss it would be to cancel the extra versus how much it would cost to keep it active, and decided accordingly.
As mean as big companies are, they’re not going to just do something without thinking of how financially wise it is. If it was going to be THAT financially devastating to take this away, they just wouldn’t.
I’d find it funny if they said they’re taking it away just to incite such outrage and then install a new system (heck, even a free one) that handles things so much better. That way, outraged customers feel vindicated and because they “won”, they’re even more likely to stay
OH BUSINESSES.
found this wikipedia page on Intelliflix.
i was very surprised on what i read
Intelliflix
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Intelliflix is an online DVD rental service established in Florida, United States, in 2004, which ceased operations in late 2007. The company utilized company-owned distribution facilities, in addition to claiming a nationwide network of independent video retailers (IVRs) to service both pay-per-rental and subscription customers. Its main competitors were Netflix.com and Blockbuster.com. Intelliflix gained notoriety by being the only major DVD-rental company that offered adult movies and game rentals in the same subscription.[citation needed]
Among Intelliflix’s offered features was an annual three-rentals-at-a-time plan (called a “SuperPass”) for only $99 per year. Customers were strongly urged to purchase the annual SuperPass, with the promise that they could cancel anytime. Its advertised prices made it the least expensive online rental plan for three rentals at a time. Its website also claimed faster shipping time than Netflix, even promising to ship new movies before old movies had been returned to their warehouse.
In 2006, Intelliflix was said to have “the best deal in DVD delivery” by WNBC, NBC’s New York affiliate.[1] However, customers’ reviews of the company over a three-year period averaged only one out of ten stars.[2] In addition, the company has received an “F” rating by the Southeast Florida Better Business Bureau, for ignoring or refusing to resolve over 700 customer complaints.[3]
[edit] State of Florida Lawsuit
On August 29, 2007, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum filed suit against Intelliflix and its owner Christopher Hickey for deceptive advertising and operating without a license.[4] An investigation into the company’s practices had been launched in January 2007 by the Attorney General’s Economic Crimes Division, after it received more than 285 complaints about the company. The investigation found that consumers who attempted to cancel their subscriptions were rebuffed, that Intelliflix’s movie selection and delivery times were far worse than represented on its website, and that the company was unresponsive to complaints.
The lawsuit asked that Intelliflix be permanently enjoined from engaging in the business of online video rental. Intelliflix ceased operations by year’s end, though its website is still active.
The lawsuit also charged the company for failing to register a business license with the state. The company faces fines for violating Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (FDUTPA), fines for each year it failed to register its business, and victim restitution.
Why is everybody assuming that Netflix isn’t going to ever give us a similar or better feature in the future? Because really, if the profiles were little used it’s completely conceivable that the code was bogging down the system and making coding and new features much more difficult.
That’s the way these things work, eliminating that code could free them up to make new features, and better things.
Maybe it’s just me, but I trust them to do just that. Seven years of fabulous service and then I have one inconvenience that I need to reorder my queue myself (like I did when I first signed up)? Yeah, not quitting over that.
Honestly, you’re not going to find better service and selection elsewhere. We’ve all seen enough stories about Blockbuster on Consumerist.
And well, as for downloading the movies illegally instead…yeah, as somebody who is going into the entertainment business, I have to say that kind of theft bothers me.
WHY?!
This is terrible. It¹s bad enough that they are eliminating the feature, but
why would they delete all the profile data? We have spend lots of energy on
that. Both of our queues have hundreds of selections in them.
We very much hope Netflix reconsiders this.
If they will not change your mind about eliminating profiles, they really
must provide a profile merge tool. It¹s unbelievable that they would just
delete all our second profile¹s ratings, friends, queues, etc. It seems like
it would even have value to them, as data.
According to their list of impacts, they are already merging certain things
(DVDs in transit and history for example). Why would they just delete our
2nd profile queue? We have hundreds of selections on that? How is a ³print
out² going to help? I’m guessing they expect us to sit and re-key it.
And they¹re going to just delete ratings and friends connections?
And if it’s too complex to auto merge, they also won¹t provide for a new
account to be created based on the profile?
This is ridiculous. We¹re long time shareholders and Netflix fans, nay,
fanatics, but this REALLY hurts.
PS: there¹s a contradictory statement in the FAQ. It says consider moving
all DVD titles in profile queues to main queue, and to do so visit
http://www.netflix.com/DVDDistribution?lnkctr=viewprof_distdisks but that is
where you can allocate the number of DVDs per profile, not a queue merge
tool is the suggestion implies, and as they should provide if they go
through with this.
Even though I dont use the feature I see no logical reason why netflix would mess with what “works” for some ait the risk of making some unhappy customers. Dont fix it if it isn’t broke. I love the service and personally would love to see more development in the communication abilities among freinds and community.
@BLANDspace: I called Netflix about being unable to add a new profile to my account last week. (Before this email was sent out, and while their online help still explained how to add a new profile). They told me “it is taking up too much space in the code.” I assume the CSR was trying to explain something about bloated code or system resources, or it could’ve been something meaningless from a script.
Improve the Netflix website = saving server space = increase the bottom line => loss of customers = closer to becoming Blockbuster Online.
Q.E.D.
I am feeling pretty good about my marriage right now.
Believe it or not, my husband and I are interested in the SAME MOVIES. We need only ONE queue.
I can see the value of the profiles if you have kids, but if not, maybe you and your spouse should sit down and watch a movie together once in a while. That is if you aren’t too busy writing letters of polite complaint.
Just a suggestion.
The different queues clearly are a very useful thing – not just for making it easier to keep separate lists of what DVDs will get sent, but also for keeping separate ratings/recommendations. The ratings and recommendations are far more key to keep separate. With some amount of extra effort, you can manage the delivery of the DVDs that you want next. But there is no amount of effort you can expend to have the system keep ratings for different people separate if you don’t have the separate queues.
I have a friend who has discussed this with them at some length. He reported that they claimed that only 1% of their customer base used the feature at all, and that a substantial portion of people found it confusing.
So rather than improve the interface design, they just remove it…
@Mudpuddle: The system IS broken. They’ve stated in other blogs that the code for profiles was messing up new features they wanted to add to make the site better.
If the profiles, which by all accounts are used by a very slim minority (though a vocal one that seems to be flocking here) are screwing up things that could bring people to the website, how does it make sense to keep them?
Being generous, say 3% of the site uses the profiles and 1% quits over their elimination. Then they implement a very fabulous new feature that brings them a 5% growth.
Who wins? Netflix, and the people who stuck with them and didn’t get their knickers in a twist over one inconvenience.
If anybody is still reading, it’s not too hard to “back up” the queue in case you don’t trust them – you can get a personalized RSS link at the bottom of the queue page. Then I had Firefox save the page. Then you can use the Firefox extension “Linky” to open them in batches for re-adding. Still sucks, but better than doing it totally manually.
I had actually already re-done our budget to drop Direct TV and add netflix – until now. My husband and I have vastly different taste in movies and TV shows, not to mention two kids still at home, boys 13 and 14. Eliminating profiles is a stupid, stupid move. And as someone quite familiar with computer coding – there is no way such code could “mess up” other “features.” What data analysis could possibly be “messed up” by having accurate ratings, preferences, friends, recommendations, etc. that are generated by having separate profiles? Having to have two or three separate accounts is not cheaper than Direct TV, so there’s no point in changing anything. Clearly, their real goal is to force people to buy multiple memberships – there is no other goal here.
Yay, they (and this is belated to this thread) listened to the customers and didn’t remove profiles ;=)