Today I awake to an e-mail from netflix. It tells me that my profiles are going away. A profile is a second queue under my account to allow for what I want in that second queue, you set number of rentals per queue and then get movies from each. You could use this second queue for your gf, your tv shows, or your kids, whatever you wanted. A friend of mine has 3 queues. This is a useful tool and I know a lot of people that use this feature.
I normally stay out of things like this at The Reviewer, but this has gotten me pissed off. A recent responce from the backlash already from Netflix Spokesman Steve Swasey said that the decision to eliminate Profiles is a "final decision." Swasey also had the following to say:
Netflix is a dynamic company that continues to evolve and grow while consistently giving members to best online movie rental experience.
Think of where we were when I joined a little more than three years ago. Then, we had 2.6 million members and 35,000 titles on DVD. Today, 8.2 million members, more than 100,000 titles on DVD and more than 10,000 choices of movies and TV episodes to watch instantly on the PC and the TV.
With such dramatic growth and site and service improvements comes the occasional adjustment.
While discontinuing the Profiles feature is not desirable for the passionate folks who use it, the decision will ultimately benefit all Netflix members. By discontinuing the feature, we will be able to put more focus and resources site and service improvements that benefit everyone, consistent to how we have grown the service over the years.
Excuse me but what the shit. This is utter bullshit, and there is nothing that you can't handle with profiles that you could not do without, I can't even figure out what this does for the company except piss people off. It has made me look into other options and right now I found Intelliflix. They offer a plan of 3 DVDs at a time, and if you pay all at once for a year, you get each month at $9.99. Now that sounds really exciting. They have profiles, and you can flag a movie as coming back in the mail and get another sent out to you, even before they get it. Now that is some good stuff right there. They also rent porn for a little more if you are into that sort of thing.
You can check out more coverage at Hacking Netflix, or The Consumerist. If you want to complain to netflix you can do it at this suggest page, and please do. The more people that hear about this the more likely they are to change thier mind.
