Netflix revisited: Someone with more free time than me
If you really want an in-depth view of Netflix, this guy has exhausted himself in that very cause. In fact, to test their recommendations engine, he rated nearly every one of their 14,500 titles.
Entertaining study, though I came to the same conclusion about the mediocrity of Netflix's recommendations engine after only rating some 80 or 90 movies.
Someone going by the handle dvd-rent-rest published a study, covered by Slashdot and other forums, which claims that Netflix prioritizes customers who turn over their movies more slowly when allocating scarce DVDs. That would mean they'd be punishing their most active users, presumably because those customers cost more for them to service (analysts believe that if you watch 5 or more movies per month, you're an unprofitable customer to Netflix).
No idea if that's true or not, but if so, it's a fairly short-sighted decision in the quest for profit. Any business that punishes its most ardent users should change their business model instead of punishing those customers, likely to be their greatest evangelists.
Entertaining study, though I came to the same conclusion about the mediocrity of Netflix's recommendations engine after only rating some 80 or 90 movies.
Someone going by the handle dvd-rent-rest published a study, covered by Slashdot and other forums, which claims that Netflix prioritizes customers who turn over their movies more slowly when allocating scarce DVDs. That would mean they'd be punishing their most active users, presumably because those customers cost more for them to service (analysts believe that if you watch 5 or more movies per month, you're an unprofitable customer to Netflix).
No idea if that's true or not, but if so, it's a fairly short-sighted decision in the quest for profit. Any business that punishes its most ardent users should change their business model instead of punishing those customers, likely to be their greatest evangelists.