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.
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1 comments:
I agree. I hadn't used the service in a while (though I was still paying for it)... I decided to start paying attention to it more, and started cleaning up my queue. Then, I searched everywhere for the option to add a new profile (for my wife) - a no go. I finally called customer service and they told me they were removing this option.
When I asked why, she said, "Very few customers used the feature." Hmmm... maybe they didn't promote it enough... or maybe a majority of their customers are single... I don't know. But, I don't think that's a very good reason to cut out such a vital feature.
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