Netflix 'Throttling' Heavy DVD Renters: Gives Preference to Infrequent Renters

When you ignore Netflix for a month they get your money and you cost them almost nothing (the amortized cost of whatever DVDs are sitting on your coffee table being it).

The amortized cost of the movies sitting there may be dependent upon a lot of factors; if nobody else would want to rent the movie while it's sitting there, the amortized cost is zero. If having an expensive movie sitting there means Netflix has to buy an extra copy, the amortized cost would be higher.

I am curious why NetFlix doesn't encourage double-shipping of DVDs? I would think that could save them a lot on postage.

They have multiple copies of almost everything so having one copy taken out of circulation for while is probably not too big a problem.

Depending on the deal they've got worked out with the post office double shipping might cost them more. Their envelopes are already non-standard, adding the aditional weight could put them over one of the post office's lines.

re: Or like me. Sometimes I'd get three movies, watch 20 minutes of two of them, decide that they sucked, watch the third one completely, and return them all the next day. They haven't been terrible with me, as I get a fairly good number of releases that are "short wait" or "long wait," but in the past year, they have started to delay shipments by a day. Or they'll send an envelope with a return address for Netflix outside of my city, so it takes 2-3 days to get returned.)))

I've used the service for years, and have always been satisfied. However, I'm not one to care about new releases that much--the queue always warns about waits if there is one. I like renting TV series on DVD now--

Interesting to hear the variety of opinions. My turnaround at Netflix is amazingly fast, and consistently fast, and I'm a heavy user according to this article. Almost every time, I put it in the mailbox one afternoon and get an email the next morning saying that my next movie is on the way. I'd like to know how they manage this! They must have scanners at the Post Office.

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