If Netflix wants to knock Blockbuster out, they should get rid of their supremely irritating and, for the most part, unspoken throttling policy.

?

I've tried both services, and while Blockbuster was cheaper, their service was MUCH slower than Netflix. Based on the return addresses both companies have their local distribution center in the same town near my home, but Blockbuster took on average three or four days longer to get a movie out to me. It's worth it to me to pay the higher fees for faster service with Netflix.

Amazon UK have a DVD rental service I use.

Surprised the US site doesn't offer the same service although they're probably gearing up to buy Netflix.

What is going on here? Competition is lowering prices an improving service?

Why didn't somebody say something about this sooner?

When you rent too many movies in a month, Netflix slows down your service. So when they say "Unlimited" they don't really mean that. This policy isn't stated anywhere on their website; you can only find out about by calling them (with the number that isn't published on their website) and specifically asking "What about throttling?"
This past winter, when I was watching a lot of movies, it would take upwards of a week for movies to get from the post office I mailed them at (White River Junction) to the post office where Netflix receives them (also, White River Junction). So, Netflix was essentially saying that it took a week for movies to travel from one end of the building to the other. Now, I yield to no man in my distaste for the USPS, but there's more to it than that.
Do a google search for netflix + throttling and get yourself educated.
Here's a handy calculator to tell if you're being throttled:
http://www.manuelsweb.com/netflixcalculator.htm

Of course, I'm still a loyal customer (I wouldn't patronize Blockbuster if the fate of the Empire depended on it) but let's just say the honeymoon is definately over between me and Netflix.

My husband has gone back and forth and is considering going back again to Blockbuster. Thanks for the education, Governor.

Orrin: Are you saying nothing gets more expensive any more? :)

Nah, he's saying capitalism works. Must be some hangover.

Even with Netflix slowdowns I go through about 15-25 discs a month for an average of $1.75-$2.50 per rental. And the selection is dynamite.

The Netflix throttling can be a little annoying but the value of the service is still greater than any competitor. For instance I've lost 6 discs (2 at work and 4 in the mail) over the course of my membership and Netflix hasn't said a word - just report the loss and they move on.

The reason I switched to Netflix in the first place is when a Blockbuster manager insisted I pay for the rental of a disc that was broken because I returned it the next day rather than the day I rented the disc. I kindly explained that the three bucks for the rental was but a tiny fraction of the dough I dropped every year in his store and that he had he had a choice between getting three dollars now and no dollars later or no dollars now and several hundred a year from here on after. He made his choice and I've made mine. Forever.

Shifting chairs on the Titanic. Eventually pay per view of movies will expand to such an extent that renting a physical DVD vs ordering it online won't make sense for most movies. A company could probably get by with 200-300 most recent titles and people who want older/more obscure titles could go the physical route.

gb: that has been my experience too, and i think it hurts netflix. how ? because i don't trust them to actually allow me to have more movies, over time, if i signed up for their 5x titles at a time plan. it is my belief that no matter how much you pay them, they will only allow you to have a fixed number of titles in a month/year. plus it pisses me off because they won't be open about it. when amazon starts their service here (it is in trials in the u.k.) i will drop netflix in a new york second.

pay per view purchases are declining, at this time. maybe if they lower the cost to $1 ppv would be competitive with renting by mail. also, you usually only have about 25 of the most recent releases to choose from on ppv. movies come out earlier on dvd, too.

From what I understand, Blockbuster has worse return times than Netflix does even counting the throttle. Regardless, I have to question the long-term viability of a company that starts losing money when someone watching more than a handful of movies per month. Not my problem, though. I'm a pretty happy customer.

CJM - Agree that buying movies via pay per view needs to be price competitive with the mail service to compete. My point is that technology could improve to a point to make this possible. Also renting movies used to be a great innovation then it became a drag to have to return them to the store. Now the by mail system is gaining favor but how long until people think even that simple task is a pain?

aww: netflix (and others) are working on direct delivery to the home, via broadband connections. and that i think, is the ultimate mechanism. a customer could select any movie in the catalog, and have it ready to start watching in say, an hour or so. it's interesting to do the bandwidth calculations for delivering movies by mail; e.g. 3x movies in a week, at 7GB per movie, is 21GB a week -- not too bad for snail mail :)

cjm:
That's a lot more throughput than my lousy dialup connection can manage. But the latency is terrible!

gb: dialup ?! take the jail time, next time, it's less painful :) actually, i was on dial-up until my current company sprang for a broadband connection. since i buy my music, there isn't much i need a high speed connection for.