Damn You Netflix, Damn You

I got an email about this from Netflix at 0:16 UTC today, but was actually going to wait for tomorrow to blog about it, but since it is hitting Gizmodo already…

Here is the the email Netflix sent out:

Important News Regarding Netflix Profiles

Dear Samuel,

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.

Each additional Profile Queue will be unavailable after September 1, 2008. Before then, we recommend you consolidate any of your Profile Queues to your main account Queue or print them out.

While it may be disappointing to see Profiles go away, this change will help us continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers.

If you have any questions, please go to http://www.netflix.com/Help?p_faqid=3962 or call us anytime at 1 (888) 638-3549. We apologize for any inconvenience.

– The Netflix Team

All I can say is that this is bullshit. Profiles are a critical part of how we use Netflix. Each member of the family has their own queue which they manage separately. (Plus we have one extra queue for other stuff.) We each return our DVDs when we want and get our new DVDs. We have it set so that while I have the 4 disks at a time plan, each profile gets one disk at a time. This makes it easy for each of us to get what we want without having to worry about reconciling our queues into one single list. As far as I can see, to get the same effect in the future we would have to actually have four separate accounts, billed separately, at no doubt a higher total monthly rate.

The economics of Netflix at this point are barely worth it at the rate we actually watch DVDs. With this change we would either have to move everything to one queue, with all the additional confusion and complexity that would add, or we would have to pay a lot more for separate accounts. This is likely to make Netflix no longer an attractive option.

If they don’t reverse this decision before the feature is scheduled to go away, I can easily see us canceling our Netflix account. It just would not make sense any more.

I’d be willing to pay a little more monthly to keep this feature (although not four separate accounts more)… please Netflix, figure out a way to keep this. Or we may well have to say goodbye.