Perhaps it's because of the movies I tend to rent?

[trinityvixen]

ETA: After posting, I went to look at what's coming in the mail to me today. It's Dragonball Evolution--the live-action movie with white people pretending (or not) to be Asian. No wonder I never have to wait for movies!

Someone has been unable to get a DVD through Netflix for almost three months.

How does that even happen? I have never had to wait longer than maybe a couple of days even for something that said "Very Long Wait." I bumped G.I. Joe to the top my queue a few days before going to San Francisco because I thought my brother-in-law would watch it with me. (Turns out he already owned it.) I was mad at myself at the time because I was sure it would never arrive in time--"very long wait" and all. It came like three days later, maybe one whole extra day from the usual two-day turnaround I get on my Netflix movies.

Granted, I live in NYC, and we've got a huge Netflix processing center in Queens on top of the fact that our giant population means that there are always fifteen billion copies of every movie imaginable ready to go at any time. But really? You can be kept waiting for movies? It's always the other way around for me--my movies are waiting on me--and have been to the point that the XBOX is threatening to mutiny if I try to make it load all fifty billion Watch It Now movies I have in my queue one more time.

Other Netflix news: Supposedly Netflix is negotiating with movie studios to arrange a no-rental window on new releases. This is entirely being done to prop up waning DVD sales. It's both a dumb and a smart move. It's dumb in that Netflix risks losing customers who really want new releases as they come out. (Because Netflix, like the old brick-and-mortar video stores of old, gets its new releases on the Friday prior to their general availability, they can mail a new movie such that it arrives on the day it actually comes out.)

It's smart, however, in that I cannot believe Netflix won't get something reeeeeally good out of this. I'm not entirely sure of the power dynamics at work here, but it's the studios who have something to lose. They're not going to pull out from Netflix--that would be suicide--so they don't have much to bargain with. They're going to be the ones coming to Netflix for the favor, and the favor-granter has the power to extract more in return. I wouldn't be surprised if this turned into a cost-cutting measure, where Netflix agreed to the freeze but paid less for the discs or the licensing of streaming movies. If they're smart enough to demand that, that is. The streaming is where so much business is going, but it's hard to get a start in it without a broad, shared base library like Netflix already has (and which Hulu has but weeds out with time). No studio-run start-up streaming sites have taken off. Once again, they need Netflix, and Netflix would be crazy not to milk that for all it was worth.

Comments

[negativeq.livejournal.com]

Netflix is missing loads of its streamed anime. I suppose the licenses ran out =(. Many of the DVDs are on Saved status, probably because people are hoarding them.

In 2003, I received NO DVDs for two months. I reported the first batch of 3 (all Trigun) as missing and requested them reshipped. They still didn't arrive. I repeated the procedure two more times. Still no DVDs. That meant 9 Trigun DVDs that vanished into the mailing stream. I complained, and got a free month. The final reshipment arrived. I finished Trigun, and canceled Netflix. Later I resumed it at Stony Brook, and never had such a problem again.

I don't know what happened. Was someone stealing those Trigun DVDs? The same three over and over again?

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I just got a stack of Netflix discs I'd reported missing in July, along with a bunch of other July mail. Win, post office.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Many of the DVDs are on Saved status, probably because people are hoarding them.

DVDs go to "saved" status on streaming if they've lost the license to stream it. If it's "saved" on the regular DVD menu, that means the DVDs literally don't exist yet. Even if people are hoarding DVDs, they have them on your queue with the word "very long wait"--that thing I see but never experience.

I don't know what happened. Was someone stealing those Trigun DVDs? The same three over and over again?

It's a fair possibility. There was a story about some postal workers boosting either NEtflix or Gamefly discs not too long ago. Maybe someone liked your set. Maybe the machines at yours. I had the outer flap of a Netflix arrive and nothing else once. It was inside an envelope from the Post Office saying, basically, shit happens, and it happened to your disk this time. It does happen. I've also had more trouble with the Post Office suspiciously delaying mail that I would consider to be worth snatching (magazines were a big one) that I would trust Netflix to get it right more than the PO. (Note that Netflix made it up to you, the Post Office says what?)

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I had to wait about three months to get the last disc of Project Runway season 4. By the time it arrived, I'd forgotten about it.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Also, I suspect that when you're waiting for a dvd, who gets the few copies is determined more by who has just sent back one of their dvds than by who has waited the longest. Because in the cases where I've had to wait for something, I still get discs with the regular turn around, they're just the one disc I'm waiting for. Which means the disc I'm waiting for has to be in their warehouse on the business day a disc I send back arrives. Which makes the distribution of rare discs more random (like you getting one in three days and me waiting months), but I'd rather that than they not send me anything.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I'd like to think that there is a queue for the rare or highly requested discs but that doesn't mean you're wrong. There is probably a factor of who most recently returned things. Perhaps because I'm so good at getting discs back, I just increase my chances of catching something sooner when it gets in?

[saturn-shumba.livejournal.com]

I had no idea there was an issue with new DVDs. That's probably because most of the movies/tv shows I Netflix were made before 1989.

I really wonder where this woman is from...I'm from the Midwest and I've never had a problem with things in such a high demand that I can't get them. I've only had a few short waits and Netflix is pretty good at sending me an extra disc when I have to wait longer than 2 days for it.

I feel bad though, whenever something doesn't work out 100% for someone. It can be incredibly frustrating. Although in my case, if I was that obsessed with a show, I would just buy it for cheaps on Amazon/Ebay.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

My list is usually far enough behind the times, too, such that I don't have to worry about my DVDs being too highly in demand. I save just about all new releases and, with few exceptions, rarely bump them up high on my queue. I just let them cycle to me. (Which is why movies that came out two years ago still haven't gotten to the top.)

Netflix has kept me waiting at most a few days, barring those odd occasions where the DVD got lost in the mail and they ask that you wait a week before considering it good and lost.

[six-demon-bag.livejournal.com]

Wow, that is crazy. I'm a reasonable guy and I believe in taking responsibility, so, to me, it seems like Netflix should simply cough up the $ to get enough copies of Dexter to cover the demand more adequately. If that's my business, I'm sure as hell not going to let something like that tarnish its good name and reputation. Still, I also have to believe that there could be other complications we don't know about that really do make it a difficult situation for the company -- otherwise, why wouldn't it be taken care of? Maybe I give them too much credit.

Haha I worked a second job at one of the old brick-and-mortar video stores as a supervisor up until earlier this year when I finally felt like my full-time job was enough to support me by itself. I do miss the free rentals, but I had been thinking of signing up for Netflix anyway because of their enormous selection. Seriously, I could spend hours just browsing the titles, and have fun doing it! I rent anime, concert and music DVD's, some classics I should but haven't gotten around to seeing, and maybe some random stuff I stumble across that piques my interest. If I really wanted a new release, I'd just go to the local video store and get it the old fashioned way or just borrow it from a friend, since I have several who buy just about everything worth seeing when it comes out.

Interesting news about the possible no-rental period. I don't know if it would be worth pissing off as many customers as it would though. Having worked at various video stores for a total of about six years, I can say that (sadly, in my opinion) people often care as much or even more about a movie being new when they watch it as they do about it being good. They want to be in the now and all that. Haha I wanted to run my own video store for a while just to experiment on the customers. They want to watch the new big thing, no matter what it is, so I figured that if I took an awful movie nobody's heard of and filled an entire shelf, top to bottom, with it the same way you would with something like Twilight, people would rent it simply because they thought it was a big deal. I also wanted to use this tactic to up the sales of movies I really wanted to do well, like Serenity.

ANYWAY, enough rambling.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Still, I also have to believe that there could be other complications we don't know about that really do make it a difficult situation for the company -- otherwise, why wouldn't it be taken care of?

The one time I had to call Netflix with a complaint--their envelopes had suddenly gotten so shitty that I'd lost about three-four DVDs to either being broken or totally lost in the system--they were already aware of the problem. In that case, they couldn't fix the issue--the crappy quality envelopes were part of a bad batch and were already in circulation--but they were much more willing to take my word for it that there had been a problem. As such, they expedited the replacement DVD procedure. Normally, if you don't get a DVD or one you sent back doesn't arrive, they make you wait a week before you can call it truly lost and get another/get credit for having sent back the disc. In this case, they knew they fucked up, and they sent me another DVD ASAP.

Generally, Netflix is one of the better companies when it comes to customer service. They give you a lot more than you ever have to ask for, as far as my use has gone. The Post Office, on the other hand, is more responsible for the problems with me getting my Netflix movies on time than Netflix is. It's easier to blame them even when some delays might be Netflix's fault. Still, Netflix is pretty awesome, and they're one of the best companies with which I interact on a weekly basis.

Interesting news about the possible no-rental period. I don't know if it would be worth pissing off as many customers as it would though. Having worked at various video stores for a total of about six years, I can say that (sadly, in my opinion) people often care as much or even more about a movie being new when they watch it as they do about it being good.

Yes and no. My experience is that people are lazy about their Netflix queue about 70% of the time--so more than half, but not too much more, won't change their existing queue to bump up new movies to the tippy top. You still have folks who are concerned about NEWNEWNEW (very funny social experiment you've thought out there), but most of them will be of the fanboy/girl variety who just couldn't bear to wait another month for the movie to come out. Most casual moviewatchers only ever notice movies are available to rent when they a) show up at the Blockbuster that weekend, or b) are on Netflix. As Netflix takes a bigger piece of the market of renters, more of that don't-know-until-it's-under-their-noses percentage will be on their service. If it has a month-long delay, they might get annoyed if they spot the DVD at Best Buy and can't rent it on Netflix right away, but given the way DVD sales are going? I don't think Netflix has to worry about too many disgruntled customers.