My wife and I have been Netflix customers for about a half dozen years. We have used the four movie at a time plan. With Profiles, this gives us two movies each and our own separate queues. This works well because our DVD tastes differ. Sometimes one of us will be working through many disks to catch up on a TV series, while the other just wants to watch a movie. Profiles have allowed for this.
About a week and a haf ago the folks at Netflix sent out an email saying: “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.” And apparently this was being done to, “improve the Netflix website“.
My immediate reaction upon reading this email was to call Netflix at about 11:00 at night (seems they are there 24 hours a day) and cancel our membership, while pointing to the email as the cause for the decision. It seems that others had the same reaction and Netflix has changed their mind.
Yesterday Netflix sent out an email saying, “You spoke, and we listened. We are keeping Profiles. Thank you for all the calls and emails telling us how important Profiles are. We are sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused. We hope the next time you hear from us we will delight, and not disappoint, you.”
Looks like I can join Netflix again and continue with my plans to purchase the Netflix Player by Roku and then happily begin streaming content from the Netflix website to my TV. Of course I do feel a little sad at this point, now having realizing that my product loyalty is only one bad policy decision away from non-existent.
