Netflix

Siji · Post by **Siji** » July 24, 2007, 7:30 pm

Is it me, or has anyone else noticed that Netflix has been sucking the big dong lately? Nearly two full days of web outages in a row less than two weeks after a previous full days outage.. and the top 13 movies of my queue are either Long Wait or Short Wait. I've had "Bobby" on Long Wait since its release. I mean, wtf.. Until a month or two ago, I don't think I'd ever had a movie in my queue be more than Short Wait, and never had it out longer than 2 or 3 shipping cycles. (1-2 weeks).

The main reason I haven't switched to Blockbuster is because I'd heard that they don't have the supply of movies that Netflix does.. but lately it doesn't seem like Netflix has that great of a supply either.. unless you're looking for some off the wall Hungarian Disco Funk Pilates movie that you really don't give two shits about.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » July 24, 2007, 7:42 pm

Order Gamerz! Good movie!

Trek · Post by **Trek** » July 24, 2007, 7:59 pm

I have not noticed

Lalanae · Post by **Lalanae** » July 24, 2007, 9:06 pm

I'm on 8 at a time plan now and haven't had any problems. Could be a regional things though. I haven't noticed anything other than their site was down yesterday eve until sometime today. I don't have many listed with a wait. They even sent me the first disc of Weeds Season 2 the afternoon before the official release date.

One thing I have noticed is that your place in line as far as getting a movie has something to do with what number you have it on your list. So, I keep anything with a wait that I want to see in the next couple weeks at #1. I swear the status changes the day after I move them, but I guess it could be coincidence! Right now the only thing I'm waiting for is Deadwood Season 3 Disc 1.

Netflix is supposedly reducing its rates soon to compete with Blockbuster. I also hear that Amazon may be offering the same kind of service soon.

Xatrei · Post by **Xatrei** » July 24, 2007, 9:24 pm

We're on the 4 at a time plan with Netflix. We tried Blockbuster and Netflix simultaneously at first, and Blockbuster sucks goat ass compared to Netflix. Netflix has a much better selection and, for us, a significantly faster turn-around on movies. There's a distribution center here in Birmingham, so that makes a big difference. The biggest slow-down is generally caused by me forgetting to put the envelopes into the mail

I haven't noticed any problems with their website the last few days, but from the other posts in the thread, that's most likely because I didn't try to access it during the time that it was down heh.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » July 24, 2007, 9:31 pm

I too noticed the site being down the last couple days, but not before that for over a year...

How long have you had your membership Siji? Do you tend to return movies quickly and have fast turn-around times on each one you get? If so, you might have finally fallen in to the "Throttle-zone!"

I've been there for over a year now, and it really isn't too bad. Being throttled is better than the Blockbuster Online service!

Siji · Post by **Siji** » July 24, 2007, 10:37 pm

I've been there for several years.. (5+) The whole 'throttle' thing was supposed to be taken care of with the lawsuit they lost recently. (Don't ask for details, I didn't pay attention) I've also been rather lax about sending them back in recent months, keeping some 'rounds' up to 3 weeks. My turnaround for movies has been at worst 3 days, and that's if it's coming from across the country for some reason.

L - I'd say it's just coincidence, as I've had the "Long Wait" movies at the top of my queue since before they were released.

8 at a time? Dayum. I thought I was bad with 5.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » July 24, 2007, 10:59 pm

The throttle wasn't exactly taken care of due to a couple things. One is that the settlement was not approved. Another is that the issue with throttling that was being addressed before was that they were limiting the number of movies that could be taken in a month when they originally advertised unlimited rentals. They don't advertise that anymore, heh. What you might see is that the newer movies have longer wait times only when at the top of your queue. That's what has happened to me over the last year, and I found that adding something like a season of a TV series tends to "unlock" the newer movies again. It's a PITA, but it works.

I also thought I was bad with five! I do tend to watch close to the same number of hours on Watch Now in a month as well though.

Found story about the outage: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19932882/

SAN FRANCISCO - Netflix Inc. frustrated investors and customers alike Tuesday as its stock price plunged to its lowest point in more than two years while its Web site was inaccessible most of the day because of unexplained technical problems.

The 7 percent drop in Netflix’s shares wasn’t a shock after the Los Gatos-based company reported the first quarterly customer losses in its history and dimmed its earnings outlook for the rest of the year.

But the Web site outage was a surprising — and embarrassing — setback.

The online hub of Netflix’s rental system went down Monday evening and remained unavailable until Tuesday afternoon, locking out subscribers for more than 18 hours. Spokesman Steve Swasey attributed the outage to an unanticipated problem that he declined to describe.

The breakdown didn’t appear to be related to San Francisco power outages that were blamed for temporarily knocking out several popular Web sites, including Craigslist, Technorati, Typepad and Livejournal.

Service to Netflix’s site was finally restored around 3 p.m. PDT after Netflix’s engineers had missed several earlier estimated times for fixing the trouble.

Netflix had been in the process of updating its computers to reflect price reductions that took effect Tuesday.

Netflix was the 74th most visited Web site in the United States during the week July 21, according to the research firm Hitwise. It accounted for about 12 percent of all U.S. online traffic to movie and entertainment sites, ranking behind only Amazon.com Inc.’s IMDb.com.

The timing of the breakdown was especially awkward because it occurred shortly after Netflix management had briefed industry analysts on plans to improve its customer service in an increasingly bitter battle with rival Blockbuster Inc.

Lowering prices will erode Netflix’s profit — a sacrifice that the company is making in an attempt to regain market share from Blockbuster. The decision led to a further drubbing of Netflix’s already battered stock, which has plummeted by 38 percent this year.

The shares dropped as low as $15.62 early Tuesday, their lowest point since June 2005. The stock later rebounded, but still finished down $1.20 at $16.07.

Hoping to retain more of its current customers while enticing new subscribers, Netflix is decreasing monthly fees by $1 on its two most popular plans to match Blockbuster’s prices for comparable Internet-only services.

Netflix has been having trouble signing up subscribers since late last year, when Blockbuster began giving its online customers the option of swapping DVDs at one of its stores instead of relying on the mail and waiting at least two days for another movie.

“We are in a very competitive, large battle,” Reed Hastings, Netflix’s chief executive, said in an interview Monday after the company released its second-quarter earnings. “But we feel like we are still in a great position.”

Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter believes Blockbuster may have exposed Netflix’s Achilles’ heel by aggressively promoting the convenience of Blockbuster stores to build its online service.

“Netflix has a broken model,” Pachter said. “They aren’t used to competition and now someone is competing against them very effectively.”

Netflix ended June with 6.74 million subscribers, a decrease of 55,000 customers from April. It marked the first time Netflix’s total subscribers have declined from one quarter to the next since the service began renting DVDs through its Web site in 1999.

Blockbuster is expected to update its online subscriber count Thursday when it releases second-quarter results. The Dallas-based company ended March with 3 million subscribers after outstripping Netflix’s customer growth for two consecutive quarters.

The gains haven’t helped Blockbuster financially. The company lost $49 million in the first quarter. Blockbuster last month indicated it might try to reverse that trend by raising the prices of its online service. If that happens, Netflix’s earnings during the second half of this year might not shrink as much as management currently expects.

Assuming Blockbuster holds steady, Netflix expects its performance during the second half of the year to lag 2006’s pace. Management expects Netflix’s full-year profit to range from $42.4 million to $52.4 million, down from an April forecast of $55 million to $60 million. Netflix earned $35.4 million through the first half of this year.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » July 25, 2007, 9:05 am

Netflix was the 74th most visited Web site in the United States during the week July 21, according to the research firm Hitwise. It accounted for about 12 percent of all U.S. online traffic to movie and entertainment sites, ranking behind only Amazon.com Inc.’s IMDb.com.

Seems like Netflix was ranking behind 71 other sites as well as the 2 mentioned in the article. I wonder why Amazon and IMDB were the only ones mentioned? Were they they only other movie related sites out of the 73 sites that got more traffic?

I don't know why that stuck out to me, but it seems like product placement in a movie to me.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » July 25, 2007, 9:08 am

Fairweather Pure wrote:
Netflix was the 74th most visited Web site in the United States during the week July 21, according to the research firm Hitwise. It accounted for about 12 percent of all U.S. online traffic to movie and entertainment sites, ranking behind only Amazon.com Inc.’s IMDb.com.
Seems like Netflix was ranking behind 71 other sites as well as the 2 mentioned in the article. I wonder why Amazon and IMDB were the only ones mentioned? Were they they only other movie related sites out of the 73 sites that got more traffic?

I don't know why that stuck out to me, but it seems like product placement in a movie to me.

hehe, did you miss the four words before your bolded portion?

movie and entertainment sites

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » July 25, 2007, 9:12 am

Yes

To give myself an excuse, I don't remember the last time I was up this early!

Is porn not considered a movie site?!?

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » July 25, 2007, 9:25 am

Fairweather Pure wrote:Yes To give myself an excuse, I don't remember the last time I was up this early!

Is porn not considered a movie site?!?

Tyek · Post by **Tyek** » December 17, 2007, 5:55 am

I have a quick question for the Netflix people. I switched to Blockbuster last year because they had the new program where you could swap out in store. They sold me on the concept and after the major knee surgery in January of last year, the movie swap out program let me relax and watch movies regularly. I also noticed I seemed to be getting throttled with Netflix.

Several months ago, their swap out program changed. They raised the price 7 dollars for unlimited swapouts and changed mine to 5 swap outs a month. Then I started noticing that all the movies that I am receiving are 15-25 movies down my queue. I have not received a "new release" in months. Anyone else noticing this trend? Is it happening in Netflix as well?

Since the surgery last Weds, I joined Gamefly to get some games and frankly that eliminates any reason left for Blockbuster, but the movies issue is bugging the crap out of me. I purposely stayed away from newer movies in store since I figured I would be stuck on my ass again for some time. While I enjoy the first season of Sliders, and will watch it, it pisses me off when that is the 20+ number on my queue and that is what I am getting. I cannot believe they don't have a few copies of Pirates or Harry Potter or Ocean's 11.

So again, is Netflix experiencing the same issues? Is anyone with Blockbuster having the same issues I am????

Thanks

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » December 17, 2007, 9:49 am

I haven't had issues with the Netflix throttling for months now. I don't know if it is because I stopped moving the brand new releases to the very top of my queue or something else. I now move them no higher than the 10th spot (5 at a time plan). I might have 5 brand new movies in slots 10-15, and I will generally get at least 4 of those without a delay. I canceled my Blockbuster plan when they changed the way the in-store returns worked. I did not really benefit from that option before it changed, and their turn-around time to get movies to me sucked. When they added the FastReturn barcodes that the USPS uses to scan incoming mail, every third dvd would be registered with them in order to send me a replacement. So, I just have Netflix (5 at a time) and Gamefly (2 at a time) now. The drawback to gamefly vs Blockbuster in-store is the crappy turn-around on time, but it can be managed fairly well with two games.

Xatrei · Post by **Xatrei** » December 17, 2007, 2:54 pm

We have the 4-at-a-time package with Netflix, and have never experienced throttling. Like I said before, there's a distribution center here in town, so we usually have our movies no more than 2 days after they go in the mail (1 day if I make the early pickup at the post office). New releases are usually not a problem, but like Boogahz, we try not to have too many too high in the queue or else the waiting lists for them can make things kind of wonky.

Tyek · Post by **Tyek** » December 17, 2007, 2:57 pm

I went to DVDRR.com. Lots of complaints about both services actually, but one recently posted caught my eye.

Just cancelled my membership, out of 34 movies in my q, only 1 was in avail. status. Sign up w Netflix 2 weeks ago and out of 28 movies in my q, only one is in short wait status. Thanks Netflix

sounds like what I am experiencing. I am going to call them today and find out wtf is going on.

Siji · Post by **Siji** » December 17, 2007, 4:17 pm

I actually find it surprising how many times the Blockbuster membership terms have changed. Since signing up to NetFlix years ago, it hasn't changed at all other than to ADD the feature of being able to watch movies on the web site.

I've still got the 5 at a time plan and haven't noticed any throttling in forever.. I've usually got my movies the day after it mails other than those that have to come from another distribution center or something. I'm pretty certain NetFlix has a larger inventory than Blockbuster, I think you're almost always going to get your movies from them faster.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » December 18, 2007, 11:46 am

It's obvious that video stores like Blockbuster had to start doing the netflix style stuff to avoid going out of business, but does anyone really think it's working? Netflix was already doing very well before Blockbuster started to try, and the only advantage to blockbuster is the ability to return stuff in store and pick something up there (which to me isn't even an advantage - every time I go to a movie rental place 90% of the movies I want to rent are out of stock.

I think that video rental stores aren't going to be around too much longer (yeah there are people that still prefer just going to the movie rental place, but not enough to keep them afloat.) In the area I live in, several Blockbusters and Hollywood video (no idea if they are nation wide) have gone out of business recently.

Personally, I don't watch enough movies to use netflix and the video store never has what I want to see, so I basically find what I want either on our cable PPV or on the marketplace on the 360.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » December 18, 2007, 12:00 pm

Funkmasterr wrote:Netflix was already doing very well before Blockbuster started to try, and the only advantage to blockbuster is the ability to return stuff in store and pick something up there

I think that is what Blockbuster turned into a "premium" option. As in, you pay more to be able to do that.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » December 18, 2007, 12:13 pm

Boogahz wrote:
Funkmasterr wrote:Netflix was already doing very well before Blockbuster started to try, and the only advantage to blockbuster is the ability to return stuff in store and pick something up there
I think that is what Blockbuster turned into a "premium" option. As in, you pay more to be able to do that.

Ah see, that makes it even less worthwhile. If Gamefly got it's shit together and started getting games out to people promptly, I think that might be the death blow for rental stores.

Lalanae · Post by **Lalanae** » December 18, 2007, 3:06 pm

No problems with Netflix here, although most of my queue is not new releases.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » December 18, 2007, 3:15 pm

Lalanae wrote:No problems with Netflix here, although most of my queue is not new releases.

yeah, I think that is the key to avoiding throttling, unless they changed their internal procedures due to the class action case. I have been going to the Alamo Drafthouse more, which results in me adding fewer new releases to my queue. Whenever I do add them, I never move them above the 10th spot right away. I let them work their way up from there, which seems to be working fine.

Siji · Post by **Siji** » December 18, 2007, 8:51 pm

Just to add.. I keep all new releases at the top of my queue, including those not yet released yet but with a release date posted - and I haven't been throttled in probably a good two years or so. Movies are always within 2-3 days and this last shipment I received 4 new releases out of a 5 disk shipment.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » December 20, 2007, 7:56 pm

Speaking of the Blockbuster options...it appears that they have once again hiked the price on the Total Access plan up again:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20 ... -hike.html

A handful of disgruntled (and in a couple of of cases, soon-to-be-ex-) Blockbuster customers wrote in this morning to point out that the video rental giant has hiked the prices for its Total Access mail order rental plan. The biggest change comes to the highest-tiered Total Access Premium plan, one which allows customers to have three movies out at a time and get unlimited in-store exchanges. That plan is going from $24.99 to a whopping $34.99 per month. In addition, the Total Access Premium plan is no longer listed as an option on the company's Total Access signup page.

The company announced the changes in an e-mail sent to subscribers yesterday. Telling customers that the hikes are necessary to "continue to bring you the unmatched convenience of both online and in-store DVD rentals," the company plans to make the price increase effective at the next billing cycle.

The fee hikes for the other rental tiers aren't as dramatic, but are still substantial. Two-at-a-time, Total Access Premium customers will see the cost of their service go from $21.99 to $29.99 per month. Those with plans that allow limited in-store exchanges will see a $2.00 per month price hike.

Blockbuster's rate hikes, especially those directed at the Total Access Premium tier, are likely to send some of its customers running to the arms of Netflix—and that's fine with Blockbuster. The rental chain's disappointing earnings last quarter prompted it to reexamine Total Access (among other things), concluding that it was time to shed some of the more unprofitable customers. As a result, the company is more than happy to lost customers like the man who managed to get his rental price down to 36¢ per DVD by returning 200 mail rentals to his local store for a free movie.

Blockbuster began making changes to Total Access during the third quarter. Customers who wanted to continue unlimited in-store rentals were forced to pay an additional $7 per month for the Total Access Premium plan, meaning that the heaviest users have seen the price of the service nearly double in the last six months. In addition, the company cut advertising for the service and stopped promoting it in store.

Total Access was created as a response to Netflix, and Blockbuster aggressively pursued Netflix customers by pricing its plans competitively and offering what Netflix can't: in-store rentals. The payoff—in terms of raw subscriber numbers—was good. By last spring, Blockbuster had managed to make up significant ground on its rival. But the strategy was arguably a financial disaster, with mail-order growth cannibalizing in-store traffic.

The latest round of price hikes are another indication that Blockbuster is willing to cede much of the mail order market to Netflix and concentrate on other efforts, including downloads and retail. The company is playing a significant part in Jackass 2.5's efforts to do an end-run around the box office, streaming Johnny Knoxville and the gang's latest antics for free online through the end of the year. And for Total Access Premium customers so upset by the price hikes that they cancel their plans, Blockbuster's unspoken reply is short, but sweet: "good riddance."

Canelek · Post by **Canelek** » December 20, 2007, 9:16 pm

Blockbuster has been getting crushed by its own ego for years now.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » December 21, 2007, 12:07 am

I've never been a fan of Blockbuster or Hollywood Video since I worked in a mom-and-pop video store in High School.

Siji · Post by **Siji** » December 21, 2007, 2:28 pm

Blockbuster is right up there with Wal-Mart in my list of disliked stores.

Aardor · Post by **Aardor** » December 21, 2007, 2:35 pm

Anyone get HD-DVDs from netflix? I don't really want to buy any more before the format war is decided, and I like watching movies, but don't very often watch them twice. The selection of titles for HD-DVDs seem good, but do they come at the same time frame as normal DVDs (since they have less i assume, but less demand, just curious if their are problems)

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » December 21, 2007, 4:01 pm

I have had a couple show up when they shouldn't have

I reported a movie as damaged a while back, and something got screwed up and an HD-DVD version showed up instead. It took the normal day to get here.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » February 11, 2008, 12:10 pm

It sounds like Netflix will be going BluRay as well:

http://www.statesman.com/business/conte ... u_ray.html

Netflix Opts for Blu-Ray High-Def DVDs
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Netflix Inc., the online movie rental company, said Monday it is switching exclusively to the Blu-ray format for high-definition DVDs, following four major movie studios in selecting the Sony technology over one pushed by Toshiba Corp.

Toshiba and Sony have been vying to set the standard for high-definition DVDs for several years. The stakes are high because the winner will also get a boost in sales of DVD players needed to read the new format.

The Walt Disney Co., Sony Corp.'s Sony Pictures, News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer have endorsed Blu-ray. Paramount and Universal Studios publish their high-definition DVDs in Toshiba's HD DVD format.

Netflix has stocked both formats since they became available in 2006, but said the decision of four of the six major studios to issue films only in Blu-ray format made it likely that the Sony format will prevail.

"From the Netflix perspective, focusing on one format will enable us to create the best experience for subscribers," the company said, adding that not many customers order high-def DVDs.

Many consumers have held off on buying a high-def DVD player until the dominant format is decided.

Siji · Post by **Siji** » February 12, 2008, 9:31 pm

I'd imagine it'll be much less expensive for them to only carry 2 DVD types instead of 3 as well..

Speaking of Netflix.. am I the only person in the world that absolutely f'n HATES the way they've changed browsing new releases? I don't want some graphical scrolly bars, I want to see all of the new release titles like they used to have. I seriously hate this thing.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » February 12, 2008, 9:32 pm

Siji wrote:I'd imagine it'll be much less expensive for them to only carry 2 DVD types instead of 3 as well..

Speaking of Netflix.. am I the only person in the world that absolutely f'n HATES the way they've changed browsing new releases? I don't want some graphical scrolly bars, I want to see all of the new release titles like they used to have. I seriously hate this thing.

I hated it too. I found the old-style page, and it still gets updated. Let me see if I can find the link again.

Here it is:

http://www.netflix.com/AllNewReleases?l ... ewReleases

According to their community blog, it changed around 12.21.07

Syenye · Post by **Syenye** » February 14, 2008, 3:19 pm

Siji wrote:I'd imagine it'll be much less expensive for them to only carry 2 DVD types instead of 3 as well..

Speaking of Netflix.. am I the only person in the world that absolutely f'n HATES the way they've changed browsing new releases? I don't want some graphical scrolly bars, I want to see all of the new release titles like they used to have. I seriously hate this thing.

it's awful. i just subscribe to the RSS feed now.

Lalanae · Post by **Lalanae** » February 14, 2008, 5:29 pm

Siji wrote:I'd imagine it'll be much less expensive for them to only carry 2 DVD types instead of 3 as well..

Speaking of Netflix.. am I the only person in the world that absolutely f'n HATES the way they've changed browsing new releases? I don't want some graphical scrolly bars, I want to see all of the new release titles like they used to have. I seriously hate this thing.

I HATE it too.

Most of the "New Releases" are NOT really new releases either. Some of them have been out for months. My theory is that this is a sneaky way of making it harder for people to add new releases to their queue. When you have less new releases queued, you have less movies with wait times, meaning you're going to bitch about the wait times less.

I fucking hate scrolling through the same shit over and over IN HOPES that I may something that is *gasp* actually new.

I hate the new search results screen too.

Lalanae · Post by **Lalanae** » February 14, 2008, 5:31 pm

Boogahz wrote:
Siji wrote:I'd imagine it'll be much less expensive for them to only carry 2 DVD types instead of 3 as well..

Speaking of Netflix.. am I the only person in the world that absolutely f'n HATES the way they've changed browsing new releases? I don't want some graphical scrolly bars, I want to see all of the new release titles like they used to have. I seriously hate this thing.
I hated it too. I found the old-style page, and it still gets updated. Let me see if I can find the link again.

Here it is:

http://www.netflix.com/AllNewReleases?l ... ewReleases

According to their community blog, it changed around 12.21.07

Thanks! Bookmarking it...

Siji · Post by **Siji** » February 15, 2008, 3:25 am

Ditto. I actually emailed them complaining about it, but of course received no response.

Lalanae · Post by **Lalanae** » February 15, 2008, 7:48 pm

another change I just noticed that really ticks me off is the number of movies in your queue. There used to be a total number that included movies in your Saved list. Now the nuber is JUST the movies in your active queue, but you are still limited to 500 total (active and saved). So seeing that I'm always at max capacity, I can't tell how many open slots i have without counting up all my saved slots (they don't total that for you) and adding them to the number of movies in my active queue.

WTF was wrong with the way they had it?!?!?

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » February 15, 2008, 9:28 pm

I don't think I've had over 300 or so in my queue for a while

Siji · Post by **Siji** » February 16, 2008, 6:20 pm

My queue has been pretty lean lately as well. I used to have a few hundred in there at all times, and I was turning shipments around every 3 days.. but I've stopped making 'backup' copies due to lack of interest and haven't really found many movies worth seeing. More often than not it seems lately I'll add stuff that looks good in a trailer, but when I get it home and am flipping through the ones I've received they don't sound interesting so I end up sending them back unwatched.

Spang · Post by **Spang** » February 16, 2008, 6:39 pm

Watch Cashback, it's good!

Siji · Post by **Siji** » March 24, 2008, 3:55 pm

The Netflix web site is temporarily unavailable.
Our site is temporarily down. We're working hard to get the site up as soon as possible. Sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience. You can contact Netflix Customer Service at 1-888-638-3549.
-- Your friends at Netflix

So annoying.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » March 24, 2008, 7:55 pm

Siji wrote:
The Netflix web site is temporarily unavailable.
Our site is temporarily down. We're working hard to get the site up as soon as possible. Sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience. You can contact Netflix Customer Service at 1-888-638-3549.
-- Your friends at Netflix
So annoying.

I wonder what happened. It has been down all day!

Doh, found an answer:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hyOL ... QD8VK240G0

Breakdown Knocks Out Netflix Site
2 hours ago

LOS GATOS, Calif. (AP) — Online DVD rental leader Netflix Inc. is suffering a technology breakdown that's knocked out its Web site, inconveniencing its 7.5 million subscribers.

The outage could mean some customers will have to wait longer than usual for their next rentals.

Company spokesman Steve Swasey says the trouble blocked access to Netflix's Web site about 7 a.m. PDT Monday. The site was still down in the afternoon.

Swasey says DVDs that normally would have been mailed Monday may not go out until Tuesday because the problem also has hobbled some Netflix distribution centers.

Netflix is based in Los Gatos.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » March 26, 2008, 3:25 pm

I'm impressed. I did not expect anything like this.

We're Sorry Your DVD Was Delayed
Dear Corey,

As you may have heard, our shipping system was unexpectedly down for most of Monday. We should have shipped your DVDs but were unable to. Your DVDs were shipped today, Tuesday, March 25th, instead.

We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. We will issue a 5% credit to your account in the next few days. You don't need to do anything. The credit will be automatically applied to your next billing statement.

Again, we apologize for the delay and thank you for your understanding. If you need further assistance, please call us at 1 (888) 638-3549.

-The Netflix Team

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » March 26, 2008, 4:15 pm

That's better than Dreamhost who accidentally charged everyone for an extra year, withdrawing the money from their debit/credit cards and then just said, "oops! Fat fingers"

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » March 27, 2008, 9:13 am

Yeah, that was the first thing I thought of when I was trying to think of another company trying to remedy any situation with customers. This one had such a minor impact on me personally, that it feels like it is worth more.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » March 27, 2008, 12:53 pm

Boogahz wrote:Yeah, that was the first thing I thought of when I was trying to think of another company trying to remedy any situation with customers. This one had such a minor impact on me personally, that it feels like it is worth more.

Netflix is close to starting up an Xbox 360 movie download service. It's been in the works for a long time. If you can get an "all you can watch" type service with three movies downloaded at any one time, it will be a great service IMO.