Netflix announced yesterday evening that they are going to be eliminating profiles.
A Netflix profile is a very useful tool that allows one account to have multiple queues. Common uses of this tool includes families setting up multiple queues to cater to separate members of the family. For instance I want to have my queue filled up with Rambo, Transformers and the like and my wife can have her queue filled up with Notting Hill, Sense and Sensability and the like. With profiles, we each would have our own ratings and reccomendations.
But no more.
Now we will have one queue that we are constantly manipulating to make sure that I have something interesting to watch and she has something interesting to watch (and perhaps something interesting to watch together).
Exacerbating this problem is the fact that I consume my movies much more slowly than she does, leading to a situation where we could end up with three Guy Movies and no Chick Flicks at home on our 3-at-a-time plan.
Netflix: the competition from iTunes rentals and Amazon Unbox is too great for you to go and make this inconvienencing move. You are competing against the instant gratification that these other services provide and by messing with my queues and making me work harder to get what I want, you make me reconsider the value that you deliver for my money.
Bad move Netflix. Bad move. Your service is now less valuable and arguably more trouble than it is worth without profiles.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Cell phone contracts
Why do I have to sign a contract to get cell phone service? Why do cell phone companies "subsidize" the phones?
Why can't I go out and buy whatever device I want and get service for it?
Well, I can... but only for the really high end phones and only on the GSM networks (AT&T and T-Mobile in these parts). Well, I guess there is a pretty healthy second-hand phone market for both GSM and CDMA (Verizon Wireless, Sprint, Altel, U.S. Cellular in these parts) if you're willing to risk eBay.
But why can't I just go find a $50 handset with a decent (but not over-inflated) feature set and get it up and running with whoever I want, so long as the tech is compatible with who I would choose as a provider?
There are a couple reasons that I'm complaining about this:
1. My phone is broken. It can't send picture messages (it crashes upon attempting to add a picture to a message) and it has a rather large crack in the outside housing. Beyond this, it's just a crappy phone. The interface is clunky, the volume is rarely good and it likes to chop up the audio even though there is sufficent signal strenght.
2. I want a new iPhone. But, according to the word on the street, as an existing AT&T customer, I'll have to pay "full retail price" for the new iPhone. They haven't said how much that will be...
There needs to be a healthy market for handset competition. Perhaps if this were true, we'd start getting some decent handsets at decent prices. Right now, the "retail" value of these things are over-inflated because the carriers use them as a ball and chain to keep you on their network. They can justify their two-year contracts as "payback periods" for subsidizing the cost of the cost-inflated phones.
Perhaps with some good competition we'll see some attention paid to the quality of the user experience: both in the effectiveness as a device and the usability of the features.
Why can't I go out and buy whatever device I want and get service for it?
Well, I can... but only for the really high end phones and only on the GSM networks (AT&T and T-Mobile in these parts). Well, I guess there is a pretty healthy second-hand phone market for both GSM and CDMA (Verizon Wireless, Sprint, Altel, U.S. Cellular in these parts) if you're willing to risk eBay.
But why can't I just go find a $50 handset with a decent (but not over-inflated) feature set and get it up and running with whoever I want, so long as the tech is compatible with who I would choose as a provider?
There are a couple reasons that I'm complaining about this:
1. My phone is broken. It can't send picture messages (it crashes upon attempting to add a picture to a message) and it has a rather large crack in the outside housing. Beyond this, it's just a crappy phone. The interface is clunky, the volume is rarely good and it likes to chop up the audio even though there is sufficent signal strenght.
2. I want a new iPhone. But, according to the word on the street, as an existing AT&T customer, I'll have to pay "full retail price" for the new iPhone. They haven't said how much that will be...
There needs to be a healthy market for handset competition. Perhaps if this were true, we'd start getting some decent handsets at decent prices. Right now, the "retail" value of these things are over-inflated because the carriers use them as a ball and chain to keep you on their network. They can justify their two-year contracts as "payback periods" for subsidizing the cost of the cost-inflated phones.
Perhaps with some good competition we'll see some attention paid to the quality of the user experience: both in the effectiveness as a device and the usability of the features.
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