Posted by Nonymous on 07/18/06 11:49

Beavis <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote in news:nobody-CFBBEE.07514317072006
@za6021818.ip.fs.fed.us:

> In article <1153106659.411745.105760@35g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
> saylo1234@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>> Do you guys use Netflix? And if you do, are you experiencing
>> deliberate delays in receiving your films?
>
> Yes, absolutely I did. That's the main reason I canceled; I was
> otherwise happy with the service. But they were outright /lying/ about
> when my discs were "arriving," they'd say "shopping today" for two days
> straight, and so on.
>
> Search for "netflix throttling" and you'll find a wealth of material on
> the subject.
>
>> My sister in law told me that Netflix deliberately slow you down
>> if you watch too many films. Is this true?
>
> Yes.

As long as you keep it under 11-12 movies per month, you probably won't
see any throttling. They'll basically let you get away with 3 movies per
week.


>> And why do they care how
>> many films I watch? Do they have to pay a royalty each time a film is
>> rented?
>
> They have to pay *postage* each time a film is rented, which I
> understand costs them a little under a dollar for a round-trip. So if
> you rent 25 movies for your $20, they flag you as an unprofitable user,
> and slow your movie shipments down.

They ship first class, which at most is $0.78 round trip. But they very
likely have negotiated a bulk rate with the USPS. I've seen some postal
and ex-postal employees estimate that the discount is probably around
about %50, but there's never been any definitive answer with proof.


> I understand they need to be profitable, but they advertised
> "unlimited." If they aren't going to deliver that, they should
> advertise what they *will* deliver.

Agreed. And that sames to be the big consensus: everybody just wants
them to not say "unlimited". You'd think their PR folks would catch on
to that. It would improve their image and shut everybody up.

[Back to original message]