Netflix Throttling

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

You send in a disc. Netflix's computers tries to give you your #1 movie, but no discs are in stock. Same with #2-#10. So you get #11. You watch it and send it back and you next get what was #12 since #1-10 are still not in stock. Six months go by and you've seen movies 11-34 and #2 because once you got lucky and it was in stock.

We had Netflix about 6 years ago, and this was not uncommon. But, it was completely transparent. Either you got the first item on your queue, OR, that item had a status of "Out of stock" (or whatever phrasing they used) and you'd get the next in-stock item on your list. 6 years ago, that happened consistently (with popular and unpopular movies alike since they probably only had 1 or 2 copies of unpopular movies).

We canceled our service for several years, and now that we're back, they seem to have significantly improved their supply of DVDs as I have yet to see anything on our list listed as "Out of stock". So we always get the first DVD on our queue. I don't see them skipping that first DVD without the "out of stock" status showing, and that just doesn't seem to happen, at least not within our distribution area.

Really, all they need to do to "get away with it" is make sure there's language in the terms and conditions that say they reserve the right to adjust shipment schedules as they feel necessary.