When I first joined Netflix, it was sweet. I could rotate through a bunch of items in my queue in a single week.
Picture this:
Watch title 1 on Sunday
Return Title 1 on Monday
Netflix receives Title 1 on Tuesday
Netflix ships Title 2 on Tuesday
Receive and Watch Title 2 on Wednesday
Return Title 2 on Thursday
Netflix receives Title 2 on Friday
Netflix ships Title 3 on Friday
Receive Title 3 on Saturday
…wash rinse and repeat…
at this rate I could go through the 260 titles in my queue in 28 weeks. Of course, that means i have to stay on schedule too, and dedicate a lot of time to watching DVDs every week.
But that's not how it's been working lately.
Lately it's been like this:
Return DVD on Monday
Netflix receives it on Wednesday
Netflix ships new title on Thursday
I receive it on Saturday
now I know the 2 days for shipping may not be Netflix's fault (it could be if they are simply not "receiving" the in pile of DVDs until the day after they arrive, but I digress) but the "receiving on one day and shipping of the next one in my queue on the following day seems like a deliberate slowdown to me.
Especially since I usually get the received notices in my email by 8 AM one day and don't receive the "we've shipped the next one" notice until around 4 PM the next day. What are the robots that process everything at Netflix doing for 32 hours?
It's especially painful when you consider if I want a particular DVD by Monday, I have to make sure and return something the previous Monday. I know, better safe than sorry and all that, but it's a little annoying that when i return a DVD on Wednesday, and they receive it on Friday, they don't ship out the next one until MONDAY – apparently they don't ship on Saturdays – and then I don't get it until Tuesday or Wednesday. One week turn-around is just too slow.
All in all, it's still a good service, and I'd recommend it to anyone. Just don't count on there ability to do anything in a timely manner.
6 Comments
Ah grasshopper, but you must run Netflix with an indian run… you watch disc 2 while disc one is being returned. you watch disc 3 while disc 2 is being returned. Then, by the time you are down with disc 3, disc 4 has already arrived and is ready to be watched.
I'm on the 5 disc plan. And I do it that way, but am annoyed by the slowdown in the turn-around at netflix. when i started the 5 disc plan, I could watch 8 or 9 DVDs between Monday and Saturday. Now with the slow turn-around, I can only watch 5. That's what I find annoying.
And I thought *I* had too much time on my hands…
Check it – your blog posting scooped CNN!
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/10/netflix.penalty.ap/index.html
see how I am!
You know that Netflix has a stop gap mechanism. If you get more than 9 movies a month your mailing gets drop down a level in priority. This causes turn around times to increase greatly. The reason I dropped my priority of netflixs to 0 and quit them.