Netflix Removing Separate Profiles, Trying to Destroy Marriages
Back in 2005, Netflix introduced a feature they themselves called the “marriage saver“. Well, evidently, Netflix has declared war on marriage since they have decided to remove the ability to have separate queues for each member of the household. This screenshot illustrates it well.
On September 1st, they will delete all of your additional profiles. If you haven’t moved any movies from your family profiles into the main profile, which you are expected to do manually one movie at a time, then you loose those lists forever. Too bad for you. To make this “improvement” even more absurd, they actually suggest you “print them out”. Yeah, because we all joined Netflix so we could have printed paper lists.
There is no reason for them to remove this feature other than they suspect multiple people are sharing accounts just to save money. So, since they suspect they’re losing revenue, they are going to make the entire experience less convenient for everyone by removing this obvious and necessary feature.
This change will help us continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers.
Just ridiculous. There are plenty of alternatives these days, so one can easily see a lot of canceled accounts over this. (Starting with mine.)
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[...] a very sad day in the Gloddy/Taylor household. We are canceling our subscription to Netflix. Yes, I’ve been frustrated [...]
Me too, good bye netflix if this feature is removed. Before I figured out about profiles it was a constant struggle over who’s movies were at the top of the queue.
The second I read that ridiculous email I was on the phone to ask why they were REALLY removing the profiles feature. The bullshit line they have chosen to use is that it wasn’t a very popular feature and it is eating up a lot of resources. If it’s not very popular, how the hell is it eating up a lot of resources??? At least choose a believable story if you’re going to do something that is obviously going to alienate any members with the 3-at-home or more services!!! I told the CS rep to note on my account information that I would be cancelling my account the DAY that this feature went away. Say goodbye to a 6+ year customer, netflix.
I have also sent a suggestion to Netflix customer service to give us an alternate solution or do not remove the feature. This was the only reason I went with netflix in the first place and decided to go with a 4 at a time plan. If they do get rid of this feature I will look to their competition for it. You can also submit a petition here: http://gizmodo.com/5017808/netflix-ditching-profiles-mommy-and-daddys-movie-recommendation-lists-look-funny
Wow. We’ve never yet gotten around to starting a Netflix account in my household, and you can bet your ass we won’t be getting one now!
Here’s what kills me, though — despite the previously stated complaints about how this is a great service and they’re using a bullshit line to justify removing it, the actual mechanics you described are SO laughable.
I mean, isn’t this the company whose big ole contest was “come up with complex algorithms that beat some of the Google engineers’ for us”, and whose general theme is something along the lines of making technology work for customers in a convenience-related way? They seriously want you to MANUALLY move every title, ONE BY ONE, and suggest PRINTING IT OUT in order to do so?
That’s… like… it’s so archaic and backwards that I’m having trouble even coming up with a comparison with which to mock them. Because NO ONE DOES ANYTHING THIS TECH-STUPID ANYMORE.
Wow.
This change is clearly profit driven by Netflix. I see no other reason!!!
My wife and I have VERY VERY different taste in movies and we have both spent many many hours rating movies to get the most out of the recommendations tool on the site. We both have hundreds of movies in our queues.
My family will be taking our business to BlockBuster if this change goes through with nothing to replace it.
Great to see that they reneged and Profiles will continue. See Pogue’s piece in the NYT.
I saw that, but I was well canceled at that point. I’ve been using AppleTV and a local video store ever since and have been very happy. If anything, it’s pushed me to explore more podcasts.