Hawk’s Babble-Log

I’ve been a NetFlix customer for many years now, so I was very interested in all the recent news on NetFlix “Throttling”. The action of “throttling” is the system where NetFlix creates delays in sending you your next disc so that the price per rental is greather than $2 per disc.

You can read all about it here:
[http://www.dvd-rent-test.dreamhost.com/](http://www.dvd-rent-test.dreamhost.com/)

and here:
[http://www.manuelsweb.com/netflix.htm](http://www.manuelsweb.com/netflix.htm)

In my humble option, NetFlix should be forthcomming with this information. They should plainly state what their policies are, and what my level is at any particular time, so that I can better understand why certain discs were delayed to me.

One notable example of this was the recent release of all the Aeon Flux animations, four discs as I recall. I added ‘em to the top of my queue as soon as I could. They were released about a week later, but the first one was “Very Long Wait”. So, I could not get that one right away. It seems that I was recycling too many discs for NetFlix. Of course, I do not have proof of this.

The end result: I could rent any of the other Aeon Flux discs, except the first one, for about two weeks.

How much do you wanna bet a brand new subscriber could have gotten the first disc straight away?

It makes me feel like I’ve been cheated when they advertise “UNLIMITED” movie rentals, but then use these sneaky methods to slow down my rate. If they had been upfront about their system, I would have _no problem with it whatsoever_. But they claim “UNLIMTED” movie rentals. Hence, I feel cheated.

Because of this I’ve dropped my plan down from 7-out-at-a-time to 5-out-at-a-time. I don’t think I was a heavy hitter like Manuel linked above, but still, _I would like to know where I stand_. And I’m going to try and keep up my rate. I just checked, and the last 30 days I rented 22 discs.

If I believe Manuel’s [NetFlix Turnaround Prediction Calculator](http://www.manuelsweb.com/netflixcalculator.htm), using 22 for both fields and the 5-at-a-time plan, then this will be a _very tough task_,

We’ll see.