Throttled?

Though Netflix was sued for throttling the releases to super heavy customers, I still think they practice some form of damage control from their "best" customers. The original settlement was a month of allowing all customers to rent 4 DVDs per month at the 3 DVD per month rate, but if they failed to cancel after a month, they'd be charged for the 4 DVD per month rate. It was a terrible settlement for customers, and the last I heard, some judge called them on it and reopened the case.
Usually, if I mail back a movie, it takes a day to get to Netflix, and then a day for the next movie to come back to me, so if I mail a movie back on Monday, I receive a new one Wednesday. Last week I mailed back one movie on Tuesday and two movies on Thursday, and I still haven't received any in return. To add insult to injury, Netflix mailed me a survey asking me on Feb 4 asking if I'd received the movie on Feb 6 or Feb 7.
If Netflix is still throttling its heaviest renting customers, then I'd be really disappointed. That's such a short-sighted business move. The loss of goodwill from the customers that most appreciate your service is bound to cost them more than the cost of fulfilling a few extra DVDs a month.

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Even the Chinese (or maybe especially the Chinese) are not happy with the decision to cast Chinese actresses as Japanese geishas in Memoirs of a Geisha. So the Chinese government simply canceled the movie's release. Of course, this matters little since everyone in the country will watch it on $1 bootleg DVDs anyway.

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It's high time someone on the Internet came up with this: build your own Oscar pool. Or you can join mine.

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Stream the new Beth Orton CD, Comfort of Strangers, if you can. On my Mac, only Safari among my browsers could digest the AOL player.

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Cat Power and concert tours, they just haven't proved to be a good match. The streak continues.