The Official Netflix Blog: Profiles feature going away

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Profiles feature going away

As a Netflix product manager I'm tasked with the wonderful job of helping members find movies they'll love. But today my job is more challenging as we've decided to terminate the profiles feature on September 1. Please know that the motivation is solely driven by keeping our service as simple and as easy to use as possible. Too many members found the feature difficult to understand and cumbersome, having to consistently log in and out of the website.

Continuing to maintain the profiles feature for the passionate few who use it (including myself) distracts us from the mission of presenting to all our members the easiest way to find the best titles for them from the 100k plus on DVD and the 10k plus available instantly.

We will do our best to find better ways for families to share accounts than the existing profiles feature and will continue to invest in improving the website experience in many different ways.

- Todd

820 comments:

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Caroline said...: Also, I hope in addition to expressing your feelings on this blog that all those dissatisfied will send an email to Neflix. Of course they don't have a complaints option, but please utilize the suggestion option. Maybe if we flood them with our dissatisfaction they will have no choice but to listen to us. As usual the only thing that matter to them is money, so let's show them how that profit margin of theirs will be shrinking come Sept 1st.; June 19, 2008 8:46 AM
Nobe said...: Make a suggestion to keep the profiles.

http://www.netflix.com/Suggest; June 19, 2008 8:47 AM
Anonymous said...: I am not happy about this at all. My wife and I use this system with no problems at all. I like documentaries, she likes more mainstream movies. The profiles make it so easy for her to get the movies that she wants and for me to get the movies that I want.

I called customer service and they informed me that we could set up 2 separate accounts for the same address, but it would cost us about $5.00 extra per month for us to have a 3 movie plan.

Just this past weekend we were telling our next-door neighbors (a family of 3) about how great Netflix is because they could each get their own profile and could have 1 movie out at a time for each of them; I guess we need to let them know that it is not going to be as great as it was.

This is seriously bringing me down. I guess I need to start shopping around for a new service...; June 19, 2008 8:47 AM
Mark Rickert said...: I blogged about my dissatisfaction with this news at my personal site:
http://www.ear-fung.us/2008/06/wtf-netflix/

So I won't re-hash it here. I'm very upset.; June 19, 2008 8:48 AM
Zach said...: NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Please Please Please Don't do this! Don't Take the Profiles away! This is a major part of my Netflix experience! It lets me keep my wife's musicals out of my movies! At least EXPLAIN why?!?!?! Don't just give us an ETD(Estimated time of Death) for one of the best parts of the service! If something better is on the horizon, please let us know, but if not PLEASE rethink the destruction of my "Movies I'll Love" it knows what I like, and that needs to stay separate from the TERRIBLE MUSICALS! PLEASE I BEG OF YOU! THE MUSICALS!!!!! Sincerely, Zach

Besides, If this is taken away, how would you keep, lets say the children's Roku Queue separate from the adult's Roku Queue, This is a terrible idea, Here I'll explain the Profiles for the people that don't get it:
1. Primary account holder can divide the movies up to the Profiles He/She creates. Example: I am the Primary account holder. I have the 3Disc at a time/unlimited plan. I set my wife up a separate PROFILE so that she can have her likes and dislikes and I can have mine, I get 2 discs she gets 1. Our suggestions stay separate, and everybody is happy! AND IT SHOULD STAY THAT WAY!!!!; June 19, 2008 8:50 AM
Anonymous said...: Nothing you just said makes any sense. It all marketing, pr, product manager double speak. Like something out of "The Office"

Look it super simple, people need a way of managing their queues so that they get what they want when they want it. Its a way of managing multiple viewing tastes and multiple. That as I think you will soon find out is way more important than finding the movies. That feature is called Search and you guys already do a bang up job of that. If that's the "real" business decision then maybe you need to look at that feature.

This justification seems ill thought out and ham-fisted at best. You really are going to have a sh*t storm on your hands if this is the best explanation you can come up with.; June 19, 2008 8:50 AM
Andrew Elmore said...: I'm really disappointed that the feature is going away. As an investor (and longtime customer), I'm concerned about removing an innovative and convenient feature that customers clearly feel passionate about.; June 19, 2008 8:52 AM
Anonymous said...: How much you want to bet that after Sept 1 anyone trying to log into a secondary profile will be given the "option" to "upgrade" to their own account, of course complete with their thousands of ratings!.

My wife and I will be cancelling and either using Blockbuster online or brick & mortar.; June 19, 2008 8:53 AM
Anonymous said...: I've just canceled my Netflix account. Removing the profiles was just a minor inconvenience, but when I tried to contact customer service I discovered that Netflix had removed their online contact form! All customer service is now handled by phone, so a process that would normally take thirty seconds now takes ten or twenty minutes. That's not smart thinking.

What's more, when I canceled my account, I expected that at some point during the cancellation process Netflix would ask me to explain the reason for the cancellation. You would think that a company would want to know why their customers are dissatisfied with their service, but apparently Netflix is not interested.

There's a new book out called "Designing for the Social Web" by Joshua Porter which describes best practices for the web and what happens to companies that don't follow them. The folks at Netflix should probably pick up a copy or two.; June 19, 2008 8:53 AM
Anonymous said...: You really expect us to believe this isn't a thinly veiled attempt to get users to sign up for multiple accounts? Come on.

One of the best Netflix experiences I had was discovering this option and setting it up for my wife and I. The service is infinitely better because of it.

And it doesn't seem to me that the best way to improve a service some users found confusing (a fact which confuses me) is to disable it completely.

Can you give us specifics on how this will improve the site experience for everyone and not just be a takeaway from those who are using it?

I am very disappointed and will cancel in protest if this change actually goes through.; June 19, 2008 8:54 AM
Anonymous said...: This is a stupid, greedy, ill-considered move by Netflix... Why would anyone choose Netflix over Blockbuster now? From the customer's standpoint, This was their only real advantage!; June 19, 2008 8:57 AM
Anonymous said...: I'm sorry to hear that Netflix has found their average customer is too stupid to use an advanced feature, and so chooses to eliminate it for those who not only "get it," but love it. I won't relist the points that have been made multiple times regarding this customer dis-service decision. I agree with them, and post this to register my discontent.; June 19, 2008 8:59 AM
John Jackson said...: I am disappointed. :(; June 19, 2008 9:00 AM
Anonymous said...: Sold my Netflix stock this morning. Netflix has screwed over its customers and that doesn't bode well for NFLX as an investment...

Jake; June 19, 2008 9:02 AM
CC said...: Heh heh ... I see our Blockbuster mole is still safely in place at Netflix ...

This is her greatest achievement yet! The solution - to remove from one queue what was sent out from another - was so obvious, yet she managed to get Netflix to remove profiles altogether! Ha ha!

One day WE SHALL OVERCOME! Hahahahahahaha!; June 19, 2008 9:03 AM
Anonymous said...: Check this out! Get one account for the kids (3 at a time would be $16.99) and and one for the adults (2 at a time would be $13.99). The total would be $30.98. But go to Blockbuster and the get the same two accounts for $29.98!!! GOOD BYE Netflix thanks for helping me see the error of our ways!!!!; June 19, 2008 9:05 AM
Joshua and Kara said...: I have to say, I'm incredibly disappointed by the loss of this feature. It has allowed us to maintain separate queues for different times in our lives, and the loss of this feature represents a great loss of convenience to us - and convenience is the hallmark of your service.

Frankly, this seems like a transparent money-grab - a change to two 2-movie accounts, rather than a two-queue, 4-movie account, would obviously be more expensive, and therefore more lucrative for your company. It's sad to see a company that's been as innovative and customer service-driven as Netflix make such a blatant anti-consumer move.

Sadly, we will be looking at the other DVD services available in the marketplace, to see if any of them will more fully meet our needs.

Thank you for many years of good movies. I'm sorry you feel it's necessary to make this change at the expense of your users.; June 19, 2008 9:08 AM
Anonymous said...: Worst decision you could have ever made. I'll no longer be a netflix subscriber if you take this feature away. I like other people, have two people managing the rental queues in order to keep the peace of the system. You should really get the arbitrary decision maker out of your company if you hope to retain customers.; June 19, 2008 9:10 AM
wyopistachio said...: I predict a rise in Divorces come Sept.

I could never recommend Netflix to anyone if you go through with this.

What will it take for a company to get a clue about it's users? The feature should stay, be improved, and whoever made the decision should be fired and replaced with someone who has a family.; June 19, 2008 9:11 AM
Gus said...: The loss of this feature is a big, big disappointment. For me and my wife (who will lose tons of ratings) it transforms Netflix from an ideal service to a flawed one.; June 19, 2008 9:11 AM
Lamont said...: Canceling this feature is a bad move. And what is worse is Netflix does not seem to have a plan to merge the lists into the main one.
I don't buy the argument about "making the web site easier." Information architects know how to move more obscure features one or two layers down to increase simplicity. I think this is a pricing issue -- Netflix fears we are sharing accounts.; June 19, 2008 9:12 AM
Nate said...: Mark me up for another one leaving before September 1st. Great business strategy, hope it works out for you.; June 19, 2008 9:13 AM
Anonymous said...: That is a bad idea. Half the reason that we use Netflix is to have separate profiles. Dumb.

What on earth is the reason for Netflix to change this feature/policy? Because of a bunch of luddite dullards can't figure it out? I doubt that. They probably figured that since so many accounts contain separate profiles, a large enough percentage will open up a separate account if profiles are eliminated. Its a business decision. The ROI will be ultimately higher if they eliminate the separate profiles and force the "account growth."

I am sure that Netflix will have all sorts of "family" options that surely cost more money.

Lame, lame, lame. Extraordinarily dissapointing. And it is not even April 1st.

I will look elsewhere.

Andrew in Brooklyn.

Acct 419 562; June 19, 2008 9:13 AM
David said...: Wow Todd. Feeling the pressure today? It seems that you and your product management team may have made a very poor decision. I would suggest you think about improving the feature if some users are having difficulties with it instead of taking it away from users who use and rely on it.

I'm one and will definitely be looking elsewhere for movie rentals come September.; June 19, 2008 9:13 AM
Anonymous said...: I felt really upset also when I read this. My kids have their own queue and I have mine. It is easy for them to work and they are only 9 and 7 yrs old. If we have to re enter everything, and you take away features we like, I will leave netflix also.; June 19, 2008 9:16 AM
Russ said...: Why don't you figure out an alternative first, before dropping this feature? When I found out about this feature, I spent several days going through and reorganizing the queues, setting up one for my wife and one for tv shows, in addition to my existing one. It allowed us to ensure that we wouldn't end up with 3 TV shows and no movies, etc.

Also, she has spent a lot of time rating movies, and of course has much different tastes than me. So we could actually see individually what movies we would like, instead of having all movies be rated as 3 stars, since it was just combining our choices.

Also, if you had advertised the feature more, I would bet more people would have used it! Any household which had more than 1 family member, would love this if they actually used it.

Improvements should be made with moving back and forth between profiles, etc, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater!!; June 19, 2008 9:16 AM
Mack said...: Come on, Guys! Hooya trying to kid with this "too confusing" crapola? This is obviously just a money issue. And -- for me and my family at least -- that's fair enough, since multiple profiles obviously require more admin than single ones. But why not just charge us a nominal amount extra (say 99c?) per profile to cover yourselves? Then we have the option of either paying a little more per month or consolidate all our queues into one (I can already hear the screaming every time the mail arrives........!!!).; June 19, 2008 9:18 AM
libertynews said...: I am disappointed in your lack of candor on this issue. Everyone I know with Netflix has 2 queues, it is the only way I keep my family happy.

I guess I'll have to explore alternative services who actually SERVE my wishes.; June 19, 2008 9:20 AM
Anonymous said...: NOT FAMILY FRIENDLY!!! This decision may affect my membership.

I am extremely disappointed in the profiles going away. By using profiles, I can regulate the access my kids have to their DVD selections, they have the independence to go in and select the movies they choose, and it forces them to be responsible to find and return their DVD if they wish to watch a new one without impacting the remainder of the family.

I dont have time to go in and log in my kids requests when they want them, which is what I am forced to do without profiles. They can set up their lists on their own and with a family of 6, having members do things for themselves is a requirement.

For those who are confused - why not just not use the feature? They are not forced to use it. I would guess this is the window dressing for some other reason - cost cutting, or something like that....

I would think about the impact to your customer base - I am a pretty quiet customer with few complaints - takes alot to get my dander up.; June 19, 2008 9:21 AM
Terry said...: you just lost out to redbox--congrats; June 19, 2008 9:23 AM
Phantom Of Netlfix said...: Add my name to the list of customers unhappy with this decision. If there's a petition somewhere, I'll sign it. Otherwise, I'll be looking elsewhere for my movies come September.; June 19, 2008 9:23 AM
Beth Griese said...: I'm extremely disappointed in this decision. My family and I share profiles on an account. We now have the option of:

1) Combine both of our queues into one, which will SO not work and would require constant updating to make sure each person in the house has a movie they want coming in. Or...

2) One of us will have to get a new account, but the profile page doesn't let us port our queues and ratings to a new account.

We have a choice between two ways of getting hosed. Please, consider a surcharge for the option of opening additional profiles within an account, or give us the option to port our profile into a new account. Either would help us tremendously.

What are families with kids supposed to do? Give the kids their own account??; June 19, 2008 9:24 AM
Dan Collis Puro said...: I am not happy about this *at all.* Profiles were the only thing that kept me using netflix - I've got a blockbuster around the corner. It's going to be a lot more work and confusion managing a queue of stuff for my daughter, my wife, and myself.

I cannot buy that profiles were confusing users that weren't using them. People are very adept at ignoring parts of the UI that don't apply to them.

I hate blockbuster, but now that profiles are going away I guess I'll be leaving netflix. There's no way in hell that I'm going to sign up for more than one netflix account. I'd even be willing to pay some nominal monthly fee to keep profiles active, if possible.; June 19, 2008 9:26 AM
Anonymous said...: I really liked this feature. Please think twice about getting rid of it. My wife and I have drastically different tastes. With both of us in one queue your suggestion system couldn't make heads or tails of our likes. But with different queues it was able to work better. Add I liked ONE bill not two. If I get a second account I will be paying the same 3 + 3 = 6; June 19, 2008 9:27 AM
deathscythe4123 said...: This saddens me. I personally never used the profiles myself as I'm the only one that actively uses netflix, but I always had comfort in the fact that I could create a profile for other members of my family should I choose to do so. Cumbersum services are something that should be fixed not pitched out the window.

I'm disappointed in you as a company.; June 19, 2008 9:28 AM
Anonymous said...: How many customers could possibly have had difficulty using multiple profiles? If they couldn't manage the whole logging in thing, then they should only use one profile - why take away a great feature from the rest of us who have mastered basic computer skills?

If the profiles feature goes away, we will be cancelling our subscription.

Poor choice, Netflix. . .; June 19, 2008 9:29 AM
John said...: We have to show netflix what this means to us by doing something that they can't ignore. While I applaud those who plan to cancel their account, I haven't seen any competitors I'd be willing to switch to. However, I plan to lower my monthly plan from 3 to 2 movies per month in protest, and because maintaining an equal balance on one queue for me and my wife is a burden for us.

I encourage everyone else to do similar - hit them in the pocketbooks.; June 19, 2008 9:30 AM
Spornoc said...: Lazy.

Short-sighted.

Incompetent.

That's EXACTLY what I think when I hear this. You planned poorly when implementing the feature, and now that it's biting YOU in the ass, you're passing the buck onto customers.

Instead you should suck it up, clench the belt tighter, admit the Mea Culpa, and get it under control. Leave it in place and build a better version that is maintainable going forward. Then swap the two so that we don't notice. I almost posted this with an extended lecture on your requirements for all new features, but knowing that is your job.

I've worked in multiple small companies that deal with major players in the software industry (Dell, HP, Aspect, Bell, IBM, Microsoft, Sun just to name a few) and this kind of crap is unacceptable there. It should be unacceptable here. For my family it is.; June 19, 2008 9:31 AM
LGRick said...: I am very disappointed with this. I use profiles for our family to divide up the queue. Works great. Not happy.
From Los Gatos
Rick; June 19, 2008 9:34 AM
aperock said...: My wife and I have spent countless hours rating 1500-2000+ movies, writing reviews, sending notes to 20+ friends, etc. Now all this work is going to be eliminated without being able to migrate to a new account? Personally I would set up two 1 at a time accounts rather that one 3 at a time account, because the social networking/recommendation system is more valuable to us than the extra movie a month.

However, I am NOT going to rebuild my ratings, friend list, etc. from scratch. Why is it so difficult to migrate it to a new account? I talked it over with my wife and come Sept.1st we will either cancel our account, or lower to one at a time.; June 19, 2008 9:35 AM
Nicholas Evans said...: I fail to see any way in which outright dropping this feature could possibly help you continue to improve the Netflix website for all of your customers.

This will not work for me and my wife, who have our own ratings, recommendations, and priorities for movies. In protest, I have already dropped my account from 4-at-a-time to 3-at-a-time. If you lose this feature, I will strongly consider switching to another movie rental company. If you choose to keep this important feature, I *might* upgrade my account back to 4-at-a-time.; June 19, 2008 9:37 AM
Shelley said...: I don't care if you get rid of the system, but to have us manually merge the queues is almost incomprehensible.

Doesn't Netflix have even a tiny clue in how to provide customer support?

You all make the worst decisions.; June 19, 2008 9:37 AM
Anonymous said...: How does this make the site more useful? Doesn't it make it *less* useful? That's like taking out different wash cycles on a washing machine and saying that it's more useful that way. Oh, and...CONSUMERISTS UNITE!
(http://consumerist.com/tag/Netflix-profiles/?i=5017887&t=netflix-eliminates-user-profiles-infuriates-customers); June 19, 2008 9:37 AM
The Hamzinger said...: Just to pitch in on the effort here: Why take away something incredibly useful, that adds value to the account/subscription, that's a benefit in terms of market presence, at all? That's just bad business. If you need more competent project managers that understand what customer service is I'll gladly get you a c.v. Quit ruining your customer base by sacrificing them to the bottom line!; June 19, 2008 9:38 AM
JustKristin said...: Bad bad bad idea. Currently my husband, my daughter and I get 6/mo., 2@. If this happens, managing to keep our distribution fair will be too much work. We will probably just go down to 1 at a time .

As far as I am concerned, can the instant movies. There is not enough there that I want to watch, and the jerkiness (even on the T1 to our house) makes it worthless.

Kristin; June 19, 2008 9:40 AM
Micah said...: I haven't seen a single positive comment about profiles going away.

Please leave them alone.; June 19, 2008 9:44 AM
Robin said...: I have recommended Netflix enthusiastically and persistently to friends and family for years. At least 5 families have signed up for the service because of my persuasion, including one who signed up last week.

I've talked my husband out of switching us to Blockbuster or just using Amazon Unbox many times. Profiles was the main reason we had for sticking with Netflix.

Without any way to keep our son's movies (96 in his queue) separate from ours (a nearly full queue), and to keep his ratings separate from ours, Netflix' functionality would be severely lessened. Netflix' recommendations feature will become completely useless, as it will start suggesting things based on our son's high rating of things like Garfield: The Movie.

We've also been moneymakers for Netflix, often keeping movies for long periods. It's been worth it to us because of the ease of having profiles and the long history of ratings and reviews that I would hate to have to re-establish somewhere else.

Now Netflix has downgraded its service without offering customers anything in return other than vague mentions of improvements in the future. When Netflix is competing heavily with Blockbuster and losing customers to Amazon Unbox, why would it make such a terrible decision? Why tell customers that they're going to lose an important feature that differentiates Netflix from the competition?

And why, why, why would Netflix tell customers that their only option is to print out and manually re-enter their additional profile information? Who would want to bother doing that? You've just pushed us into the arms of another service.

I'm furious, and we are now seriously investigating Blockbuster, GreenCine, Amazon Unbox, Intelliflix, and the holdings of our library DVD collection. Netflix will lose not only us but all the people we continually refer to Netflix, as we will no longer do that.; June 19, 2008 9:45 AM
Anonymous said...: This is the only way my wife and I can keep our movies straight. If we can't have this feature, there is no point in me getting movies, and we will be downgrading our plan.

I'm a big fan of netflix, but this is an awful decision.; June 19, 2008 9:46 AM
Anonymous said...: this is bad business, I will see what company out there is willing to make me and my kids happy. They are 7 and 9 and easily use the profile feature!
I feel so upset about this and am on hold to netflix right now to tell them !; June 19, 2008 9:48 AM
Tri said...: This is a bad move. I don't personally use multi-profiles, but I know some people that do.

Listen to your customers. Find a way to make it easier to have multiple profiles, don't just take them away.; June 19, 2008 9:48 AM
Jeremy said...: I have the 3 DVD subscription and I use it to watch three different TV series. I use a different profile for each series so that when I send a disc back, I get another one from that series. It is very time consuming to reorganize the queue everytime I add a series. The only reason to get rid of a feature is if no one uses it, or if you have found a better replacement. I don't see any evidence of either here.; June 19, 2008 9:53 AM
Anonymous said...: If the profile feature isn't returned or replaced I will cancel my membership. Managing a queue that combines two distinctly different tastes in movies eliminates the ease of use that made Netflix so appealing.; June 19, 2008 9:54 AM
C.G.Senthilkumar said...: All said, I can see through your plans of trying to make this a premium feature or forcing people to open separate accounts. And it makes me cringe for you. You guys are mean.

You are trying to remove a great feature without adequate customer research. The way I'm given a notice instead being asked for feedback or ideas offends me. I wanna quit just for this attitude of yours.

Do you have real data? How many people who gave it the due diligence found it difficult to use?

I don't see anything confusing or difficult-to-use about this feature. My wife, who is computer illiterate used this feature without any instructions. Your stated reasons -- providing better service, keeping things simple, etc., -- simply is not reasonable. If it is difficult or confusing for someone to use, you should look at providing better instructions or making the feature more intuitive for them. Also, those people have the choice of not using the feature. I can expect you to say that those people will not want to pay for something they don't use. But that is an untenable argument too.

In the current age of IT revolution, if someone can't understand this simple feature, we might as well dismiss those morons and keep moving.

My family signed up for Netflix because of this feature amongst other reasons. Now, I have to rethink.

With so many people opposing this move, any self-respecting business will gather more real data to support their arguments or simply drop the move.; June 19, 2008 9:55 AM
Sixagon said...: Please don't do this. My wife and I have spent the last few years rating hundreds of movies on each of our accounts. Now all of that time and energy has been wasted. Isn't there any way to split the accounts?; June 19, 2008 9:59 AM
Anonymous said...: It's Netflix right? as in "the internet" movie service. I wonder if the retards that greenlit this move considered that their computer savvy users (the one's intelligent enough to use profiles) would figure out a way to express their anger. HHmmmmm, maybe something to do with a massive show of outrage on the interwebs. It's like picking a fight with a green beret, these people have the capacity to do you severe damage. You know they can use their computers for what you consider to be a "difficult" task, what made you think they wouldn't use the same skills to give you the worst PR blackeye since the class action settlement?

A truly startling and dissapointing failure by the management of this company.; June 19, 2008 9:59 AM
Alex said...: This is nonsense, making the site more "simple" should not involve stripping away an incredibly useful feature that many members use. It is your job as a web developer to make this feature easy to use/understand. Even hiding it out of plain sight for these members who find it difficult to use would be sufficient.

That being said, I do not understand what is so difficult for people to understand about the feature. If they find it so confusing, they don't have to use it. It's that simple.

If plans continue to eliminate the feature, I will probably end up leaving Netflix.; June 19, 2008 10:03 AM
Shawn said...: I'm very upset about this announcement. It seems to me there could be better solutions to solve the perceived problem than shutting down the service. I rely on this feature and am for the first time since signing up for Netflix, am considering leaving. Please re-consider this.; June 19, 2008 10:04 AM
Bill said...: This does nothing but guarantee I will never subscribe to a plan higher than one-at-a-time. I've been thinking about canceling cable and hitting up the highest available Netflix plan, but without a full fledged profile management system, that's not going to happen.

Horrible, horrible decision on Netflix' part.; June 19, 2008 10:06 AM
Matthew said...: I just have to say that I am horribly disappointed with your decision to discontinue the profiles option. My wife and I share an account and we have drastically different tastes in movies. Losing this option greatly reduces the value of your service to me. I will be examining options offered by your competitors. It pains me to do this, I have been a firm advocate of your service.; June 19, 2008 10:13 AM
Cary said...: So this is the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

I am a single person and have used this feature since it was introduced, I originally left NetFlix because there was no way to handle different movie types, so when this was introduced I came back to NetFlix.

This feature is INCREDIBLY useful. It allows me to have a HUGE queue of DVD I want to see, but may contain multiple episodes (TV seasons and Anime) but I only want one home at a time and may take a week to watch. And then a queue of things I can watch in one evening and get it back to NetFlix in one or two days.

I will be canceling my NetFlix account if the profiles feature is not retained.; June 19, 2008 10:24 AM
Ryan said...: This is really unfortunate. My wife and I shared an account but obviously used different profiles. I thought it was a rather neat, simplistic feature. The reasoning for removing it seems a bit far-fetched, if people were being confused by it, they could have simply stopped using it....; June 19, 2008 10:25 AM
Anonymous said...: Yes, why can't the 1% of us users that have taken advantage of this feature keep it? My husband and I have completely different tastes in movies, and i like watching TV seasons... I don't need 2 disk of Big Love and nothing for him to enjoy.; June 19, 2008 10:25 AM
Joshua said...: stop the stupidity, join the facebook group:

People annoyed that Netflix is eliminating profiles; June 19, 2008 10:27 AM
Anonymous said...: Are you kidding me? You're getting rid of one of the most useful features on the site, messing up the recommendations for my entire family, erasing years of work adding hundreds of movies to different queues, and telling me I have to print out my list to add it to the original queue without any feature assisting in the migration?!? Count me in as one of the unhappy customers who will be cancelling Netflix soon. We're getting more options for movie watching all the time - you're no longer as essential as you used to be.; June 19, 2008 10:28 AM
Aaron said...: I for one will be canceling my account because of this.; June 19, 2008 10:30 AM
David said...: This is a terrible decision. Do not eliminate a function that many value because some find it difficult to use. It is really stupid to eliminate the function without a replacement.

This decision decreases the current value of a netflix membership and seriously impacts the long term customer base (now children will not learn to use a queue and start their own memberships as they move out of the house).

This is both a user and shareholder unfriendly decision. Please reconsider.; June 19, 2008 10:30 AM
HitnRunTony said...: I don't see how this will

"improve the Netflix website for all our customers."

Very stupid move.; June 19, 2008 10:31 AM
Anonymous said...: How many people use their ridiculous, jump-on-the-bandwagon social networking crap? I don't see them getting rid of that? Forget Netflix - I'm cancelling my account if they go through with this!; June 19, 2008 10:31 AM
bathilda said...: I do sympathize with the customers who were confused by the profile feature and the companies' need simplify its system.

But I am shocked that Netflix is eliminating one of its best functions outright. I am disappointed that the email only warns us that we should consolidate our queues or lose them. It also gives a vague promise of something better in the future, which I find insulting.

Even if such a thing had to be done, it could have been handled better.; June 19, 2008 10:32 AM
Paul Logasa Bogen II said...: "Please know that the motivation is solely driven by keeping our service as simple and as easy to use as possible. Too many members found the feature difficult to understand and cumbersome, having to consistently log in and out of the website."

What can I say, but B.S. If you don't want profiles you don't ever have them. So a couple of people were not intelligent enough to use them or other were annoyed by relogging to the site, thhis was a critical feature. I'm also tired of the run around. Customer Service told me that it was because the programmers couldn't figure out how to fix bugs in upcoming "new features" without removing profiles. You say it was because people complained, others have been told it was the a disk storage issue. This kills all loyalty I had to NetFlix and makes me seriously consider switching to Blockbuster.; June 19, 2008 10:34 AM
Steve said...: Tom

Every Netflix user I know uses profiles. There is nothing confusing about them to anyone of these folks. This is a major feature that distinguishes your service from Blockbuster.

Frankly, this looks like an arrogant move on your part, "assuming" that the people that use this feature don't really value it. If you DON'T replace this before September 1, I will be canceling my subscription August 31.

Seriously, what the heck are you thinking? You never pull an existing service without replacing it with something better, unless you really just don't care about your customers. If you want to keep your market share over Blockbuster, this is the wrong way to go about it.; June 19, 2008 10:35 AM
Uriah said...: Add me to the list of disappointed users. Removing one of the most useful features is not an improvement. If you created a feature that is difficult for some people to use, then make it easier to use! Don't eliminate it!

Like many others, I think this (sadly) appears to be a ploy to get people to sign up for multiple accounts, thus making you more money. Judging by the responses I've seen, it looks like this will cost you more accounts that it will gain you.; June 19, 2008 10:36 AM
Anonymous said...: I do not think Netflix realizes how important this feature is to many households. Households that will soon be reducing or cancelling their commitment to your company. This change is not in the best interests of the customer but in the interests of Netflix. Please do not insult us with your P.R. spin. If you had our interests in mind you would make it easier to merge customer ques or you would reduce the subscription rates for customers who now have to make the arduous changes within your system. This is a BAD decison and you will suffer financially for it. I hope your competitors are paying attention because they will reap the benefits of your mistakes.
If this plan goes through you will be losing many customers come September 1st. While you conjure up a sweet Public relation response please look into the definition of CUSTOMER SERVICE and CUSTOMER RETENTION. You obviously have no idea what those concepts mean.; June 19, 2008 10:37 AM
Anonymous said...: It is truly sad that Netflix's failure to promote the feature, finally caused them to decide that not enough of their Customers used it for it to be useful for them to have to spend a half an hour every few week thinking about how profiles fit into new feature #645397.

Sad that I will have to recreate 4 queues, as one, and then maintain that new single queue, it's going to cost your customers more time and effort to extract a good experience for your site. Until Sept 1 its easy, after than it will be a much more arduous task.

sad sad sad sad sad; June 19, 2008 10:41 AM
Anonymous said...: This is a horrible idea!

How is it possible that removing this feature "improves Netflix for all our customers"?

I'm very disappointed in your "improvement".; June 19, 2008 10:41 AM
Anonymous said...: Very very disappointing.

Not quite enough to get me to leave, but it doesn't give you much room left to disappoint further.

I see no reason why you can't just hide the functionality from those who can't seem to get it.

I wonder if more then a few minutes of thought was actually given to this.; June 19, 2008 10:44 AM
Anonymous said...: When the confused consumers found the manual transmission difficult and cumbersome to use in their car, the auto industry came up with the automatic transmission.

They just did not remove the transmission from the car altogether.

(I'm fully aware this is not how it's happened, though, for comparison, it makes a valid point)

Why don't you just improve the feature to make it less cumbersome? Or better, turn it off for the people who complain about it, and let the ones who can count to 10 without using fingers be happy with it?; June 19, 2008 10:45 AM
Anonymous said...: Where can I find a tutorial to deactivate my account?; June 19, 2008 10:45 AM
Chris Christensen's Blogs said...: We have two college students who have very different tastes. They are sometimes at home when we assign DVDs to their queue and sometimes at college so we assign no movies to their queue. This is a really bad idea.; June 19, 2008 10:46 AM
Dani said...: This is ridiculous...it can only be for Netflix benefit and not for the customers benefit. I use this feature and have never had a problem with it. I have also never had a question on how to use it. This is going to anger way more people than anything else...way to piss off your customers NETSUCKS! Yes, that is what I like to call Netflix whenever I get annoyed, so thank you, you are again Netsucks.
Is it worth it to waste money in todays economy on rented movies? Maybe not, you just took away the convenience of the system from my household.
Who needs this? It would be just as easy to take the family to Blockbuster, where everyone is guaranteed to get their movie in hand, that night. Boo netflix!!!; June 19, 2008 10:48 AM
Jennifer Campbell said...: For me and my husband, the profiles feature kept us happy - I have 14 movies in my queue, he has over 300. Having profiles allows us to watch our own movies at our own speed. Before you added the profiles feature, I had lost interest in renting movies through you because it was just too hard to manage manually, and if it took eight weeks for one of my movies to pop up, oh, the hell with it, you know? So if the profiles feature is going away, I have no interest in using Netflix anymore. It's not like most companies care what individual consumers think, but I used to recommend Netflix to other people, and now it seems like Blockbuster would be easier for me. When you run a movie rental place and people say things like "now it seems like Blockbuster would be easier for me," you know you've done a bad thing.

On top of everything, you guys won't automatically move my movies over to my husband's queue? You're not adding in any functionality to replace what's lost? You're not reducing my monthly fee given the loss of value in your service? Well, I'm not terribly impressed with any of that.; June 19, 2008 10:49 AM
Anonymous said...: Adding to a long list of unhappy customers... a household of three roommates, we only started our membership two months ago and it works beautifully for us because of our separate queues. This is incredibly disappointing!

The thought of consolidating our massively different queues (with no help from netflix...) as well as CONSTANTLY making sure of the order is mind boggling to say the least, and probably not worth our effort or our money to continue our membership.

Netflix, please reconsider or offer us something of equal convenience!; June 19, 2008 10:54 AM
Anonymous said...: I really have to tell you that this isn't making us very happy in our household. We have two ques active in our account, one for adults to watch our movies (2 at a time), and one for our teenaged daughter to rent her french language movies (one at a time, she's trying to learn french) . Just swapping time timing each movie comes is a real hassle, as we keep movies for different lengths of time.

We probably won't leave netflix, but will most likely reduce to a two movie at a time service when the change happens, then purchase used french DVD's for the daughter via Ebay or other means.

I just wish you could provide a real explanation why this change would be "better" in the future.; June 19, 2008 10:55 AM
Chris Ferguson said...: As a software engineer, I can understand taking out a little used feature. But for goodness sake, I think the frustration of people loosing the Profiles feature will outweigh the frustration of those confused by it. Besides, you can easily operate a netflix account without using the feature.

Stupid netflix management.; June 19, 2008 10:56 AM
MissM said...: This is NOT improving the service! The ones who use this need it. And having to rearrange based on me keeping track of it stinks! My kids LUV getting mail addressed to them ESP. when its a movie!; June 19, 2008 10:56 AM
Anonymous said...: Removing this functionality without being able to move a profile to a new account guarantees I’ll cancel my service. I understand how profiles could complicate the technical underpinnings of the site, but just removing the feature will upset the affluent individuals who use it.; June 19, 2008 11:05 AM
Jack said...: You guys have GOT to be kidding me with this change? I've been a subscriber for several YEARS now, have given Netflix more than $1000, and I LOVE this feature of Netflix.

It's a primary reason I try to pitch to my friends to buy the service. You can get a big plan and just set up different profiles for your family/roommates/etc.

If this feature goes away, you can be sure I'll be moving my DVD's down to 2-a-month, if not canceling altogether. It's not like I'm watching a dozen movies a week here...

This is a bad mistake. Mark my words.; June 19, 2008 11:05 AM
Anonymous said...: Where does logging and logging out come in to play? I'm the main account holder and I just use the little drop down box at the top to switch users. Netflix employee Todd, do you not know how Netflix works?; June 19, 2008 11:07 AM
Anonymous said...: Why take away the feature without first building and offering an alternative? Or at least grandfathering the people currently using it?

Terrible. Unacceptable. Goodbye Netflix.; June 19, 2008 11:12 AM
Scott Parker said...: I understand that it may make software maintenance challenging to keep this feature, so why not instead offer reduced-rate second accounts at the same address?

Otherwise, what you're essentially doing is charging me extra per month as well as forcing me to do the manual labor of transferring my queue, re-rating films, etc. etc. etc.

Regardless of the technological reasons, you guys have dropped the ball on customer service and satisfaction in this announcement.; June 19, 2008 11:15 AM
Mark said...: I know I'm very upset about losing the profiles feature. If you're really improving the site, you'd be adding functionality, not removing it.

How dumb can your management be?

First I can't use the "Watch Now" feature because I run Linux, now my wife and I are losing the "Profiles" feature.

Obviously you want to simplify your business by losing a lot of subscribers. If you don't change your minds about this, that's exactly what's going to happen.; June 19, 2008 11:15 AM
doug said...: I just do not understand this. If it was confusing to most people, you should _fix it,_ not get rid of it. Plus, your recommendations system is going to be screwed now, as my selections in my profile are VERY different from the selections in my young children's profile.

Seriously, what are you guys thinking? Are people leaving Netflix because the profiles thing confuses them? Is this taking up so much time, with you guys having to help what must be fairly inept people understand profiles that it's costing you THAT much in customer service? Wouldn't it be easier to hire someone to make the interface better, rather than scrapping a really good system?

Sheesh.; June 19, 2008 11:16 AM
Jesse Wilson said...: So hundreds suffer because of the ignorant masses?

I fail to see how it wouldn't just be easier to provide a better explanation of how Profiles work or make some slight modifications that make it easier to work with for those users who apparently are missing enough brain cells that they are confused by it. Which must be the problem because I'm at loss as to how anything about creating profiles, assigning x-number of DVDs to each profile, and switching between those profiles is confusing.

Seriously, my 10-year-old son is perfectly able to use it.

The very fact that Netflix is doing f*-all nothing to make the removal of this feature easier for its customers is quite possibly a telling sign of what sort of company Netflix is becoming. No, an email list of the DVDs in the non-primary queues is not good enough.

The very fact that Netflix does not have a suitable replacement for this feature a potential indication of incompetence. Nevermind the arrogant, dismissive email that was sent to customers.

I doubt I'll leave Netflix over this bumbling maneuver, especially as I just invested in the dandy Roku Netflix Player; however, I will certainly not think of Netflix as a company I trust to do the right thing.; June 19, 2008 11:17 AM
Tom said...: I'm very disappointed about this announcement. I have been a member since 2002 and this feature has always been a huge benefit in keeping my new releases, older movies, and TV DVDs separated. I really hope Netflix reconsiders or else they've lost a longtime subscriber.; June 19, 2008 11:23 AM
Eric said...: This is just incredibly stupid beyond words. The profiles is the MOST useful feature on the Netflix site. Yes more useful than the recommendations and the watch instantly features combined. Not to mention that keeping the family members recommendations separate is the only thing that makes the recommendation system work. In September I'll be forced to combine my 8 year old son's ratings with my 7 year old daughters ratings with my ratings and my wifes ratings. The recommendations system will be completely useless at that point. I've been a happy Netflix customer and shareholder for years and I'm going to need to think long and hard about whether I want to continue in either capacity if you actually go through with this. How can I trust a management team that would make such a colossal mistake such as this. Treating its customers in such a blockbuster-like fashion. Please don't do this and fire whoever suggested it.; June 19, 2008 11:24 AM
Peter Davis said...: This is a horrible decision.

I hope you'll notice the customer backlash and hundreds of negative comments all over the web. I hope you'll reconsider. Or, I hope you'll announce something better that will be available September 1st as well.

I use queues for my roommates and TV shows and, like so many others here, it was a major distinguishing feature in the market. Without it -- and worse, without an easy way to migrate my old queues and ratings -- there's no longer any reason why I won't consider other services.; June 19, 2008 11:24 AM
USMC tanker said...: One of the main reasons I signed up with Netflix is the profile feature. After only two months membership they kill this valuable feature. Time to reconsider my membership and shop for another service. One that shows loyalty to it's membership.

Kurt I...; June 19, 2008 11:27 AM
Troy from Las Vegas said...: It has been said many times already and I will say it again- This is a terrible decision.

"Too many members found the feature difficult to understand and cumbersome" Really? It couldn't be easier- click on your name at the top of the page and add a movie to your queue. Now my family maemebers are going to have to scroll thru all the movies to find their own and constantly be moving movies around the queue to assure theyeir choice doesn't get bumped by someone else's choice.

On the site it says "Consider moving all titles in your profile to your main queue. click here" which takes us to the 'Assign dvds to members profile page" and of course a link to upgrade the accounts but no place to combine dvd queues.

Nor do I see a way to ask for help via email. Only phone calls with the average wait time 5 minutes.

Very annoying. And very disappointing.

I don't anyone from Customer Service will read this anyway...; June 19, 2008 11:27 AM
dave said...: I hope you don't actually go through with this. If you do, I will—at minimum—drop from a four at a time plan to a three at a time plan. Like many people, profiles helped my wife and I to manage our separate tastes, which led to quite disparate recommendations, etc. But I don't rent enough movies to bother with this.

As others have said, you seem to be mistreating your power users, who are likely also your highest-margin users. I'm guessing you think that this will lead them to convert to even-higher-margin users because they'll wind up signing up for a second account altogether. But (a) many of us will refuse to do so out of a feeling of having been mistreated, and (b) this creates ill will and terrible word of mouth from your greatest evangelists (soon to be greatest critics).; June 19, 2008 11:29 AM
Marcie said...: I haven't had the opportunity to use the multiple profiles feature, but I have told many folks about it in trying to lure them over the Netflix. The ability to have multiple queues within a family is awesome, especially when you can invoke parental controls on some of them to protect children in the family. Netflix, PLEASE find a way to bring this feature back. Don't care how it's done, just bring it back.; June 19, 2008 11:29 AM
Brendan Edwards said...: I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. First the profiles will go away "for our own good". Later the users who didn't find profiles terribly confusing will be able to add profiles to their account for an additional 4.95 per month.

Thanks; June 19, 2008 11:30 AM
Austin Mills said...: This decision, the means in which it will be implemented, and the way in which it was communicated are horrendous, and strongly give the impression that Netflix doesn't care about its most passionate users. I've been a customer since Jan 2000, and this is the reason I will switch to Blockbuster.; June 19, 2008 11:31 AM
Peter said...: Another Netflix customer of several years who will probably be cancelling service in September unless you provide some sort of migration feature or equivalent functionality before then.; June 19, 2008 11:33 AM
Kevin said...: Speaking as a software developer, it is a huge mistake to remove a feature. You can add functionality, and you can refine existing functionality, but you should never EVER remove functionality. No matter how insignificant the feature may seem, there are raving fans who can't live without it. And those fans will jump ship to find it elsewhere. Let me tell you, it sucks being one of those fans right now.; June 19, 2008 11:33 AM
Morgan said...: I will be canceling my account on August 31, and I no longer even use multiple profiles - but have in the past and would like to continue using the service. This is absurd.; June 19, 2008 11:35 AM
Wes Bolton said...: Echoing the other folks. I wonder what the "passionate few" really accounts for. Although the lack of ability to transfer ratings and movies between profiles is rediculous, cutting off the feature fully is smiting the face. My family uses and needs this feature and we will be shopping for a different service in September if Netflix stops improving their service and starts taking away important features.

Now, if this is to truly provide a better interface, learn proper Software Release Change Management principals and tell us what we're getting. And how you're going to help us migrate this. Manually remapping all my Queue of 100's is not the answer, sorry. Hire a developer to come in and write a queue & ratings transfer program. The lost revenue from sheer inconvenience and attrition will definitely make up for this preventative cost.

I hope Netflix chooses to do this the right way or they'll not only be losing my family as a customer, but the 30 other families I've got signed up too.; June 19, 2008 11:39 AM
Eric said...: I can't believe that you would eliminate the profile feature without have a viable alternative ready. I can truthfully say if there is not an alternative by September 1 that I will be forced to cancel my membership.; June 19, 2008 11:42 AM
frank said...: This is a disaster. My wife and I used this all the time...the amount of time I am going to spend managing my queue now means netflix is $X a month + my time. I should get a discount just to make up for the hours a month it will take to not get a pile or horror movies my wife won't watch or a pile of romantic comedies I have no interest in.

I am strongly considering dumping Netflix after 4 years.; June 19, 2008 11:44 AM
Sportzfan49 said...: This is extremely disappointing and upsetting! It was one of the reasons we went with Netflix over spending it on additional cable channels. Each member of my family has their own queue and use it frequently. We will most likely drop our account and go a different direction.; June 19, 2008 11:51 AM
Neil said...: I am willing to pay more to have a separate profile, but my Wife and I require separate profiles or else we'll have to cancel our subscription of 4 years!; June 19, 2008 11:59 AM
JustKristin said...: Let those who are confused by it NOT USE IT. Taking away an optional feature because the whole world doesn't get it is a sorry business plan, and will upset more customers than it satisfies. You'll be losing this one, for sure.

Kristin; June 19, 2008 12:00 PM
David Phillips said...: This is the killer feature over Blockbuster as it lets me share an account with my wife. With Blockbuster, I rarely got my items because my wife watches more, but when I finally received a TV season, she wouldnt get any movies for weeks while waiting for me to finish my discs.

My wife wants to switch back to Blockbuster due to their free in store rentals. If profiles go away, we will go back to Blockbuster and Redbox.; June 19, 2008 12:02 PM
Awesome Mom said...: This sucks!!! I am seriously annoyed about this. Just because some people can't figure out how to use a simple feature on the website when most people with half a brain have figured out how to use it is no reason to get rid of it. Maybe you should have it set up so that those that can use it can keep it and those that are too dumb to figure it out can have it removed. The removal of this feature is going to make it so much tougher for my husband and I to use Netflix. We may just look into alternate companies.; June 19, 2008 12:05 PM
Ben said...: I'm pretty upset by this too. By eliminating this feature and not providing any help in transitioning to the new way of doing things, Netflix is pretty much saying "Screw You!" to those of us who use this feature.

Thanks Netflix. I'm very close to saying "Screw You!" too by taking my dollars somewhere else.; June 19, 2008 12:08 PM
John Kusters said...: Add me to the (rapidly growing) list of people very disappointed by this move. My partner and I depend on the feature to keep domestic harmony. We don't have the same taste in movies, though there is considerable overlap. Using profiles allowed each of us to get movies we liked, and sometimes watched together. It also allowed us to watch movies at our own pace (he loves listening to commentaries and watching extra features, I just want to watch the movie and get the next one). Maintaining a single queue is going to be a nightmare.

I don't think I watch movies enough to want to put up with that nightmare. Maybe I'll just start hitting the "previously viewed" tables at BlockBuster.; June 19, 2008 12:08 PM
Bob said...: The appeal of multiple profiles was the reason my family bumbed our DVD count up to 3 at a time. There is a separate profile for me, my wife, and our 3 year old. We literally spent hours tweaking each profile with ratings and adding more than 100 dvd's to each queue.

Now not only do you plan to reduce the functionality that caused me to sign up in the first place, but all the time we spent tweaking the service to fit our needs has been made worthless and we're expected to spend even more time integrating each others' queues. Print them out? Gee, what a helpful suggestion.

Integrating our profiles will play havoc with suggestions and ratings because we all have different tastes.

If people are confused by the profile system, improve your interface. Please don't take away such essential functionality.

If Netflix moves forward with this plan, I will cancel my service before September 1st and take my money elsewhere because it just won't work for my family's needs anymore.; June 19, 2008 12:11 PM
Nick said...: This is a horrible excuse. This simply seems like a money hungry way to violate its customers. If this happens I will unsubscribe. I dont need netflix and will find other ways to get my movies.; June 19, 2008 12:12 PM
Shawn said...: I also have a Roku, but as of today, my account is suspended. If this is not resolved by Sept 1, I am canceling altogether.

The only way they will change their minds is if they feel it. I recommend you do the same.; June 19, 2008 12:12 PM
Caped Avenger said...: This is ridiculous. If people can't figure out how to use it properly then you don't get rid of it, YOU MAKE IT MORE USER FRIENDLY! Profiles are a great idea, especially for families and I think it's definitely a major disservice to take this feature away.
Personally, I think the real reason they're taking this away is because people would split one Netflix account with their friends and give each friend their own queue. Now if those friends want to have their own queues, they'll have to pay for their own separate accounts, thus making Netflix more money.; June 19, 2008 12:13 PM
Vesperi said...: I have the impression from all the official responses and anonymous posts from Neflix staff on the various blogs that this function was already out of the new code branch for the website that will roll to live on Sept 1.

Even if you are going to kill the function, I am shocked that you are not taking a little time to work up a conversion tool. You already have all the information to convert a profile into it's own main account. While profiles with a master account controlling ratings was useful for allowing children to have a queue, at least offering a conversion function would preserve the recommendations data for those of us who used profiles to segregate our information from our spouses. I had enough of the 'Tivo thinks your gay' crap with their recommendation system implementation.; June 19, 2008 12:16 PM
Zerbet said...: Haven't read the other comments, mostly because I KNOW what the vast majority will say - this is quite possibly the dumbest decision to which I've ever been subjected.

If it hasn't been said above, here's a thought: leave what you have in place UNTIL YOU FIND THE ALTERNATIVE/"BETTER" METHOD YOU CLAIM YOU DESIRE!

Fools are usually subjected to the results of their own folly; we can only hope it happens really, really soon for you.; June 19, 2008 12:17 PM
Anonymous said...: Between this and the lies you tell Mac users about why you "can't" give them Watch Now Access, I'm pretty annoyed with your corporate double-speak.

I've never even used profiles, but I recognize a terrible, short-sighted decision when I see one.

I'm not impressed. And I'm looking at Greencine for the first time.; June 19, 2008 12:17 PM
Anonymous said...: "Too many members found the feature difficult to understand and cumbersome, having to consistently log in and out of the website."

There are over 300 comments on this blog. And many more on others I've read. Many of us DO use profiles and are not too stupid too figure it out.

You really will end up losing money.

My son pays $3 a month of his own money for us to have a 3-a-month subscription instead of just my 2. He loves having his own queue. He will not want to pay that to have his movies tagged onto my queue; if one of his shows gets passed over he will be stuck with one of my documentaries.

He will likely go back to free movies from the library. Smaller selection, yes, but FREE.

It will be interesting to see how many other $3 per month upgrades you will be losing without this feature. That $3 per family will add up...; June 19, 2008 12:20 PM
Michael said...: This is ridiculous. How about fixing your website rather than taking away a feature that people use constantly. We will probably drop down to one movie at a time or quit altogether if a alternative feature is not provided.; June 19, 2008 12:22 PM
Big Mike said...: Add me as another customer that is ticked off. My wife and I use the queues to our mutual satisfaction, and now I don't see how we'll accomplish the same job without having to create multiple accounts. We won't have multiple accounts, and will terminate our membership if this comes to pass.; June 19, 2008 12:23 PM
Earl said...: It doesn't make sense to me to remove a feature and not have something better to replace it. If only 1% of the susbcribers use profiles, I would think that is still a substantial number.; June 19, 2008 12:24 PM
Cheating DEvices said...: I'm not happy for two reasons...One is that I didn't even know the feature was available and two is that I'm mad it's going away. How do you get to the feature?; June 19, 2008 12:26 PM
Michael said...: I think it is a shame that you are eliminating profiles in September. This has been a very useful tool for families, and households including mine. I hope you aren't doing this in order to boost your subscriber "numbers" (as those people without own profile may sign up individually), though I expect you are. I don't buy the excuse it's because people couldn't figure it out. When there are so many choices out there, it pains me to see you removing a tool that separated your service from others (Blockbuster).; June 19, 2008 12:27 PM
Glen Davis said...: I am very disappointed with your decision for two reasons:

1) The email I received was offensive because of the last paragraph "this change will help us continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers". If you hadn't included that line I wouldn't be half as angry as I am now. It reeks of disingenuous spin.

2) There is no provision for automatically transferring a profile to a new account. That seems like a relatively straightforward technical challenge. A simple export/import feature would handle it. If you don't want to let users have direct access to the data, do an internal export/import and give users a special hashcode or something to enter to import the data from your server. Merging all the queues and ratings into one will destroy the usefulness of the review engine for me.

I hope you reverse your decision until you have a workable replacement feature in place.; June 19, 2008 12:28 PM
Amy said...: Your reasoning here is silly. Those who find it confusing simply won't use it. How does it hurt them to simply not use it? I don't believe this is the real reason.

Meanwhile, this is the key feature that makes you MUCH better than your competitors. Take this away, and I'm going to Blockbuster because I can switch movies out down the street without waiting for replacements. The profiles were what kept me with Netflix.; June 19, 2008 12:29 PM
Anonymous said...: Many commercial web sites have "unsupported" features. I'm not sure why this can't remain as an unsupported feature while you work on a proper replacement.; June 19, 2008 12:30 PM
Anonymous said...: You are messing with the wrong 1%!!!; June 19, 2008 12:30 PM
AcuZod said...: Not only will this make it harder for me and my family to use Netflix, but it will make it harder for Netflix to offer suggestions for movies each of us would like individually.

I'll make it much simpler for you, Netflix. You can get rid of all my profiles, including the main one that contains the credit card. I guess it's time to give Blockbuster a try.; June 19, 2008 12:31 PM
Anonymous said...: Just another poster on the bandwagon here. We use the profiles for precisely the reason YOU created them, convenience for multiple members of the household to manage the movies they receive. If there isn't a comparable system in place when the change-over happens, you've lost this account, too. Also, please consider the number of negative posts you've received on this topic just on this site. If all of us have the gumption to post, we are probably the type of people who freely share our opinions with family and friends (and sometimes to whomever we can get to listen.) If we dump Netflix, I am going to tell everyone exactly what I think of your customer service at every opportunity I get.

I have to sign off now. I'm going to go try to enroll my 6-yr-old in college. She can log on to her Netflix account (she has to look up the password, but she can do it by herself), find her movies and add them to her queue. By Netflix's reasoning, she must be a genius!; June 19, 2008 12:31 PM
Kendall Gelner said...: There may be a small percentage of people that use this service, but we are your most loyal customers. We are the people who helped build the customer base by reccomending Netflix to friends or family.

Well if you just make the service the same as anyone else, why should I bother to ever reccomend Netflix again? In fact why should I even stay with the service, when it offers no unique features - Profiles has kept me from ever looking at other services that may have been cheaper, but I guess going forward price is my only consideration since unique features don't seem to be a concern of Netflix anymore.

I feel betrayed and abandoned by Netflix, a company I once admired as a beacon of good customer service. I think I may rather go without rentals entirely then continuing to reward behavior like this.; June 19, 2008 12:37 PM
jkirsch said...: Since the online service is now basically the same as Blockbuster's, and since there is a Blockbuster store within walking distance from home, and another on the way to work...

Well, I guess Netflix has tipped the balance in favor of their competitor for us.; June 19, 2008 12:37 PM
mjzitek said...: I'm going to have to agree with everyone who thinks this is a bad idea. Unless you are planning on replacing the profile feature with something even better, I too will probably cancel my account. Thank you.; June 19, 2008 12:37 PM
Anonymous said...: We will be cancelling our account and going to Blockbuster if this feature is removed without a replacement feature that is on par. My wife, myself and our kids each have a 1 movie queue. This feature worked great for us and is what brought us BACK to NefFlix after we left ages ago. Take it away and we go. Given the number of complaints this seems to be getting ti seems like you guys just lost 2% of your subscriber base. Or more if you aren't being honest about the amount of use this feature gets which seems much more likely. Good luck with you SEC filing for the period after you remove this feature, it's going to show a sharp subscriber drop off.; June 19, 2008 12:40 PM
Jennifer (Avivah) said...: I just wanted to let you know that I have already started to import my queue -

to Blockbuster.

I get 8 movies at a time with two queues for the last 3 years (that $1800 I paid you people) and my partner had his own account with two queues for the last two, and we found out that we can have several account (3, to be exact) at Blockbuster and SAVE money.

Oh, and did I mention that I pay for my parents to have their own Netflix account? I'll be taking that over to Blockbuster too.

If I have to actually take the time to import the queues manually MYSELF I don't see why I should have to actually pay you money.

Todd, you blew it. I hope Netflix goes the way of Woolworths. Oh wait - you already are - they didn't pay attention to their customers either!; June 19, 2008 12:40 PM
Jojo said...: Absolutely ridiculous decision...UNLESS it's replaced by something else before Sept. 1. Hope you've got something like profiles ready to go by then. Maybe an announcement about what you plan as a replacement to the current system is due? That might stop the stream of comments for a while.; June 19, 2008 12:41 PM
Joseph K. said...: Todd, I know you are probably towing the company line, but Netflix needs to understand that lying to their customers is not good business sense.

Last night, customer service was originally saying that "only 1%" of Netflix users use the feature. A couple of hours after emails went out and huge numbers of people were complaining, you started saying that "only 2%" used the feature. (The feature can't be added now, so the number couldn't actually have changed.) LIE 1.

The original justification given was that the feature caused difficulties on the backend, and getting rid of the feature would make it easier to maintain and add new features.

And now you're telling us that the justification is actually that lots of people find it too confusing to use?

LIE 2.

Get your story straight and quit lying to your customers.; June 19, 2008 12:43 PM
Anonymous said...: I love Netflix. This news are horrible... Specially they it's been handled, with NO explanation.

I guess Netflix won't miss the 1% of users cancelling their services then... I'm looking for alternate options... There's a Blockbuster a block from my house... I'm very sad.; June 19, 2008 12:51 PM
John said...: Nearly every decision like this comes down to money. Netflix thinks they can make more money by getting rid of this feature.

If they are right that this feature is confusing, then they would save money due to fewer support calls.

If the only alternative to a shared account with separate profiles is to create two separate accounts, then they may make more money due to new accounts being created so that users may continue to maintain separate queues.

By forcing multiple people to share a single queue, they will reduce the number of movies received per month since the queue will stall more often due to one user not having any of his or her movies available to watch. This will save Netflix money as well.

However, they are taking a gamble that the money saved will offset the money lost due to people downgrading or canceling service due to dissatisfaction with this change.

I plan to downgrade to a cheaper plan or cancel service. Not because I make extensive use of the Profiles feature, but because I find it stupid for them to remove a useful feature without having a reasonable alternative in place.

If too many people find it confusing, Netflix easily could solve the problem by hiding a configuration option to enable/disable the feature in an advanced setup options page that "easily confused" users would never even find.

If "having to consistently log in and out of the web site" was the main issue, one solution is to use two different computers to access netflix (one computer for each profile). If the household has only one computer, then use two separate browsers (Firefox and Internet Explorer for example) which each would use separate cookies for cached identification (and easy login).

Another (less desirable) solution would be to allow switching back and forth between linked profiles (within a single account) without requiring the password to be typed. Yes, this reduces privacy but it is better than not having the Profiles feature at all.; June 19, 2008 12:53 PM
Letty said...: I posted my advice in the suggestions area of the website. There is a link in one of the earlier posts to it. Before finding this blog, I spent 30 minutes saying all the things said in the posts here (albeit in a nicer, gentler way) to the CSR who was clearly using a script to answer the call. Deep questions like why was this decision made, and who made, and what will replace it, and why wasn't the replacement ready first, evaded him. I told him I understood his script did not allow for such detail and that was a dumb move on corporate's part as well. The thing is, he made me feel like I was the only one calling to complain about this. Since finding this blog I know it ain't so. I was feeling sorry because my 3 queues have about 80 each. After reading these posts I can see my lists are small in comparison. I also noticed most are vowing to cancel effective 9/1, but did not understand why. Now I see that we are all hoping this dumb idea will be reversed, or at the very least replaced with something comparable. I was waiting so that our 3 users could still finish up at least some of their series. WE are new user, alas it does not look like it will make it to the 6 month mark. Like alot of posters here my vid store is closer and cheaper. The profiles made all the difference for my family. I refuse to pay for 3 separate accounts, or go to streaming. I recommended the bonehead who decided this read these comments, hope he or she does.; June 19, 2008 12:54 PM
Anonymous said...: I absolutely loathe this decision by Netflix. It takes a service that I love, and makes it harder to use. Now, instead of letting technology do the work for me--making sure everyone in the household receives a balanced number of movies--I'll have to manually manage my account, checking to be sure the movies in the queue alternate among those I want to see, and those someone else wants to see.

Netflix was one of those services that was so great, I didn't have to think about it. Now, when I think about Netflix, it feels like it will take more of my time, and be a big hassle.

Decisions like this make it feel like Netflix is losing touch with their loyal customers. Without Profiles, it's a lot easier for me to think about checking out another service. (Apple TV, anyone?); June 19, 2008 12:54 PM
Brian Phelps said...: Leslie Kilgore - VP Marketing : lkilgore@netflix.com
Reed Hastings - President: rhastings@netflix.com
publicrelations@netflix.com

I sincerely deplore your company's decision to eliminate profiles. I have four children each with their own queue. Managing everyone's likes and dislikes using a single queue will be a royal pain in the rear. I don't allow my children to rent anything other than PG movies without my permission and password. So along with removing profiles, you've eliminated my ability to control what they add to their queue. This means that I will not allow them to choose the movies they want to see, requiring me to spend more time managing the queue.

Your email communication about this change "will help us continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers" is a bungled mess. To rip this very valuable, key differentiating service feature from customers' accounts is in no way an improvement for ANY customer. While Netflix could easily allow customers to consolidate all of the profile's queues into one queue, each profile's queue will be eliminated. All of the social rankings and recomendations for each of the profiles will be destroyed. It is beyond my comprehension how Netflix can call this change an improvement.

You completely failed to adequately explain the reason for your decision. For example, if patent challenges were the source of this decision, people might understand. If it's a feature used by a very small percentage of customers and thus is not cost-effective to maintain, I might not agree with it, but I might understand. But to simply pass this change off as an improvement for all customers is insulting. Furthermore, Netflix is offering a $1 million prize to someone who can improve your recommendations engine by 10%, and on the other hand they can't afford to maintain profiles that improve recommendations for account holders. This "improvement" is going to do one thing: drive down rental volume. If that's your goal, congratulations.

In the end, if you implement this decision, I will close my account.

Brian Phelps
Customer ID 592 552; June 19, 2008 12:54 PM
bob said...: This is a bad, bad decision.

The movie rating feature of the profiles I can do without. There are plenty of places to get information about movies I want to rent on the Internet and off. But the separate queue feature is a *HUGE* advantage. If there are some users who find it difficult to use you should address that issue and improve the UI not take it away from satisfied customers who have already figured it out and find it extremely useful. At least not until you have an alternative available.

If you go through with this I will have to consider taking my business elsewhere.; June 19, 2008 12:55 PM
Anonymous said...: Unless some other profile-like alternative is introduced by the Sept. 1 deadline, I will be cancelling my service. All incentive to keep Netflix so my girlfriend and I can have peaceful movie watching has been eliminated.; June 19, 2008 12:59 PM
Scott said...: Everything I have wanted to say has been said, except that I too will be canceling or reducing my subscription is Profiles are removed.; June 19, 2008 12:59 PM
drunkenkatori said...: you need to explain how the transition is going to work. I have three profiles and so three queues. Will the queues get merged? If not everyone in the house will be angry.; June 19, 2008 1:00 PM
Anonymous said...: Not happy about this change. I totally see it as a way to get people that share an account to sign up for more than one. Please tell us how this benefits those of us who use it and understand how it works. I'm really ticked and am going to look into Blockbuster. I'm so disapointed in Netflix. I refered tons of people because I thought this was a great company... NOT HAPPY.; June 19, 2008 1:01 PM
Anonymous said...: Please add me to the list of Netflix subscribers that are NOT HAPPY with this change. My reasons overlap many already posted, so I won't repeat 'em.

I will add that Netflix can restore my faith in them by changing their mind about this stupid and self-defeating feature removal.; June 19, 2008 1:03 PM
Anonymous said...: Someone needs to be fired for this decision. So, I am firing you. I just reduced my wife's and my account from 5 to 3 per month and turned off my queue. She will continue for now, but I will look elsewhere. Good luck with this decision.; June 19, 2008 1:03 PM
Shannon said...: Todd,
Please talk to the powers that be. This is a terrible idea. I am sure you have a good reason for it but it will most assuredly cost you reputation that you have worked so hard for. I have seen Netflix as a different kind of company. One that is progressive and customer minded.
There must be another way to accomplish your business objective without sacrificing one of what I consider your best features.; June 19, 2008 1:03 PM
ArsenicJulep said...: The best thing about Netflix is the way it allows viewers to create and maintain a definitive list or lists of movies and shows they want to see. No more racking your brain for the name of that movie starring that guy that showed at Cannes a coupla years ago, that Ebert really loved. Some people may call me crazy, but I always have 500 movies in my primary profile queue, and right now I have 440 listed under my second profile. I use the second queue mostly for classics and documentaries, and as an overflow list for unavailable titles that I don't want taking up valuable space on my first queue. There's a third profile that I'd like to delete, but haven't been given the option.

I would really like to see more room on the primary queue in any event, since I don't like having to go back and forth to see if an item is in one of my lists. And I certainly am not keen on retyping the names of 440 movies into the computer, not that there's any room for them now anyway. If Netflix is saving all this space/time/money by having queues consolidated, couldn't they at least make the primary queue large enough to accommodate the giant DVD appetites of us die-hard movie buffs?

Please give us a way to migrate our lists electronically or at least save them as .csv or Excel spreadsheets, not .xml files with all the funky tags. I think people who have multiple queues that are too big to be consolidated into one should get extra space in their queues and an easy way to transfer the info. Customer service, are you listening?; June 19, 2008 1:03 PM
ounceofreason said...: I'd like to join the chorus of disappointed members. Many others have already said it better than I can, but the more volume the better.

This is a really terrible idea - you don't "improve" a site by removing functionality, and if you have something to replace it in the works, you should announce that NOW, before your negative word-of-mouth press gets even more out of control.

If the only way to improve your website is by compromising your service, it is not the website that needs improving! If multiple logins are a problem, then make logging in optional! Whatever the problem is, there is a better way to solve it than this. Otherwise, come september, I can either cancel my account, which I really don't want to do, or I can purchase multiple accounts.. which would of course require a lot more logging in/out, as well as rewarding your bad decisions with extra cash.

Terrible, terrible idea. Fix it.; June 19, 2008 1:04 PM
Falls said...: Yes, this is a bummer for the 1% of us who depend on this feature. I was surprised to learn that so few of us manage without this feature. We have 5 profiles for our two person household, totaling 625 movies. This will be one long single list of movies to sort through. I'm hoping that Netflix will consider adding some list and sorting tools for a single profile, like save-lists for online shopping, or amazon's wish lists, but with more fields to configure than just priority.

Anyway, I was disappointed too at first, but after I settled down a spell, I thought of just how excellent the Netflix service, website, and its human customer service has been. Netflix has become our home's complete answer for what we watch on our TV set. After the decline of the cable TV experience, with the invasion of the lower third moving promo keys, station ID bugs, and "how low can you go" programming, we canceled our cable two years ago. And thanks to Netflix, we have never regretted it, and now we can never go back. Netflix is all we use, and we have been extremely pleased with the service and the value.

So please, let's not beat up on them too much. Yeah, this is a take-away, but they have been good to us, and I still hold gratitude and appreciation for what they have created. Hang in there Netflix people; don't feel like your not appreciated. People just need to air this out a while; you are still the diamond in the ruff for which we are very thankful. :^)

Falls & Co.

p.s. If you haven’t gone public (stock wise), please don’t!; June 19, 2008 1:05 PM
Paul Stone said...: I'm disappointed that this feature is going away. I like to rent movies which are not interesting to my girlfriend ("Blade", "300", "Hellboy"), and profiles helped me to do that, and still have a couple of movies around that she would be interested in, without micro-managing my queue. Micro-managing my queue is a real pain. I have to stagger her movies and my movies manually.

This is a feature which made my life easier, and I can only assume that Netflix is removing it in order to get me to pay for a second account. I won't pay for a second account, and I don't think many customers who use profiles the way I do can afford to add a second account either.

Therefore, I don't think Netflix will see any additional revenue by removing this feature.

Are profiles making it difficult for Netflix to forecast how many of each title needs to be in stock? I would think you could pretty accurately estimate the turnover for each queue and use that to formulate the future demand for each title. So, that shouldn't be a problem.

I don't think that profiles cost Netflix any money, since the software is written already.

So, it seems to me that Netflix is removing a feature which is extremely popular among users who have discovered it, and Netflix is getting nothing appreciable in return. As a business decision, this truly perplexes me.

It would be nice if Netflix were more transparent about the real motivation for removing this feature.; June 19, 2008 1:05 PM
Anonymous said...: As someone who has talked up Netflix for years, including the customer service, I am shocked to see this change as well as how it is being handled. I am not buying that this is being done to improve service. If so, you would have provided a functionality to merge queues rather than just eliminating. Or replace the usefulness with a seamless alternative. But the bald announcement of simply discontinuing this feature says it all.

Count me among those that finds Profiles an essential part of what distinguishes Netflix.

Waaaaay bummed with this, and will for the first time compare alternatives.; June 19, 2008 1:05 PM
Bobby said...: Add me to the list of pilers-on. I'll use the next few weeks to look for alternatives to Netflix. I hope Netflix uses them to reconsider this decision.

Like other posters here, I get really irked when companies offer transparently false justifications for screwing their customers. You're going to charge us the same amount for less -- and then lie about why, letting us know you think we're stupid, to boot? That's not necessary.; June 19, 2008 1:06 PM
Anonymous said...: It's plain and simple for me.... if I have to share a queue with my kids, I may as well go to Blockbuster instead. I will not risk not getting a movie for dh and myself because mine wasn't available, and the next in the ONLY allowed queue is my son's anime. If there is not an option of two lists, with one dvd from our two at a time plan coming from each, I will cancel my account come Sept. 1st. Netflix will no longer be worth it. With as many people complaining, more than a few use it!!!; June 19, 2008 1:07 PM
BrokenBones said...: I will cancel my acount and change to blockbuster if this goes through with no way of keeping my and my wifes ques seperate.; June 19, 2008 1:09 PM
John said...: This is almost unbelievable. It takes Netflix from being a family friendly service that we've highly recommended to others to being practically worthless. I guess we'll need to downgrade the account for only the kids' movies and my wife and I will stop watching DVDs. Unless you'll be providing instance access to all of your movies via TiVo by then, you've made a big strategic mistake.; June 19, 2008 1:11 PM
rwx said...: Profiles is the best feature of Netflix. I'm not surprised that some people just don't get it or want it, but for so many of us, it was the feature that made us happy customers (and happy families). Not having a replacement solution just alienates your most loyal fans. I am stunned that Netflix would make such a backwards move after consistently demonstrating technical innovation and excellent customer service.; June 19, 2008 1:12 PM
chan said...: I'm bewildered by this decision. I can't buy that it's for UI reasons, as there are alternatives that do not involve removing this functionality & deleting a customer's history/presence. Blaming it on database architecture doesn't pass the smoke test either.

Profiles allowed my wife & I to find harmony in our differing movie preferences. Mixing our selections will cause a fair number of hassles - both initial and ongoing.

Netflix seems like a smart company. My hope is that they have something BIG planned (beefed up instant view selections with a set-top box promo?) that mitigates this decision. Even so, I can't really understand how profile functionality would have interfered with anything like that.

This seems like a bad decision coupled with terrible execution & communication.; June 19, 2008 1:15 PM
Jennifer said...: I want to echo the comments of some other subscribers here. This is extremely disappointing news. You are taking away one of your best features.

What sets you apart from Blockbuster now?; June 19, 2008 1:16 PM
G. said...: This is ridiculous, Netflix.

HOW does this improve service?

You just want me to pay for another account, and think I'm too dumb to notice.

Forget about my business.; June 19, 2008 1:16 PM
Anonymous said...: Horrible. I just downgraded my plan because of this. I will think of canceling my membership if this happens and move to blockbuster.; June 19, 2008 1:19 PM
Anonymous said...: This is utterly insane. How are they improving the customer experience by removing such a beneficial program? When they remove the que system from the website they will lose my business.; June 19, 2008 1:19 PM
Marie Beryl said...: Hey Netflix - when my husband and I got married we had to decide whether to keep his Blockbuster account or my Netflix account. We chose Netflix because of the Profiles feature. We'll probably go with Blockbuster now because whoever returns a movie can go to the store an pick out a new one instead of trying to interleave our queues.; June 19, 2008 1:20 PM
Dustin L. said...: I would like to add my voice to the growing number of people upset by the loss of the profiles feature. My family members have invested a lot of time building their personalized queues and rating movies on your site. It is disappointing that this will all be lost without even the possibility of migrating the data to a new account.

Please reconsider keeping the profiles system or at the very least providing a migration option for those of us who may want to create new accounts to keep individual queues for individual household members.; June 19, 2008 1:20 PM
Daniel said...: At the very least, I expect Netflix to be honest with me. Obviously the confusion of logging on and off is not the reason for you to eliminate the Profiles feature—that confusion could easily be eliminated by better site design.

I suspect this change is done with the hopes that current profile users will get their own accounts, paying more for the exact same service. Frankly, if you really need more money why not charge for the Profiles feature? At least that would be an honest approach.

As it is, I will probably cancel my Netflix subscription entirely in favor of Blockbuster. I just don't want to send my money to a company that is so unconcerned for its customers.; June 19, 2008 1:21 PM
minimalist said...: Eliminating the profiles feature is a horrible move on Netflix's part.

I think Netflix is about to find out the hard way that this small minority they think is so disposable might just turn into a very loud very vocal PR problem.; June 19, 2008 1:21 PM
Anonymous said...: 374 comments and counting, all of them negative. This is fun...; June 19, 2008 1:22 PM
Brian said...: Ok, let's see now.... even if only 1% of your approx. 8 mil. suscribers use multiple profiles, that's still 80,000 accounts. And allowing an average of 3 queues per primary account (average US family size 3.13), that's just under 1/4 million customers that you're adversely impacting with a casually dismissive wave of the hand. What a truly bizarre piece of customer relations!

And hey, I occasionally get confused as to what gear I'm in when I'm riding my bike. Solution? Toss it and get me a nice, unconfusing one speeder, right??!!; June 19, 2008 1:24 PM
Hawkinstone said...: This post has been removed by the author.; June 19, 2008 1:23 PM
Anonymous said...: This is probably the result of a new Manager trying to show some "work":

"Let's eliminate Profiles and make Joe and Jane open separate accounts for $15 each instead of one for $24... Instant profit!!"

The 1% (now 2%) is also a joke... Any household with at least a couple (and half a brain) probably uses profiles to manage their movies.

Netflix dropped the ball pretty bad with this move.

They should have made Profiles an extra feature and charge extra for it.; June 19, 2008 1:24 PM
Lance Brown said...: Todd,

I am very disappointed that Netflix is taking a step backwards in their customer support. Profiles have been very useful to me to separate the movies I want to watch from the ones my girlfriend wants. We each get our share of the booty every week and it just works.

If Profiles are too hard for the average user to use, than fix THAT. Don't penalize the rest of your customers be removing an extremely useful feature.

I am seriously considering cancelling my NetFlix account on August 31st unless this decision is changed.

Sincerely,
Lance Brown
4-year Netflix member; June 19, 2008 1:26 PM
Dan said...: Just want to echo most the sentiments posted thus far. If Netflix goes through with this decision without a viable alternative in place, we'll be canceling our subscription.; June 19, 2008 1:26 PM
David said...: I will be canceling my family's account if this decision is not reversed. This feature is the only reason we chose Netflix over competitors.; June 19, 2008 1:26 PM
Ron James said...: Sorry Netflix, this is complete GARBAGE and your handling of it SUCKS.

I'd rather go get three accounts with your competitor than deal with you anymore, just on principal alone.

My 7 movie a month membership will be gone at the end of this current month.; June 19, 2008 1:29 PM
wyngo said...: I can't believe they say that profiles "distracts us from the mission of presenting to all our members the easiest way to find the best titles for them". If I were designing their automatic recommendations systems I would be begging for the data that the profiles supply. I would thank the 1% of customers that's helping me improve the algorithm for the other 99%. Then I'd think about how to make it simpler so more customers will use it.; June 19, 2008 1:34 PM
Trey said...: I'm very disappointed by this change in service. Like many here, my wife and I have very different interests and thus have different queues. I agree a few things could have been better with the current offerings, but it worked quite well overall. And if you're going to cancel a feature like this, please, please, provide a way for people to move their secondary ratings and queues over to the primary user's account (probably with the primary user's rating trumping the secondary).

Hopefully there is something else coming out that will replace this. Maybe? Very, very frustrating from a service that has been so good for so long.; June 19, 2008 1:35 PM
Eric said...: This is really disappointing news! Like alot of the previous posters here, I use separate queues to manage mine and my wifes account and a separate queue for my kids. I was thinking of upping our plan to an additional movie recently for the kids queue, now I'm considering looking for another service after hearing this news. I strongly encourage you to rethink this decision!; June 19, 2008 1:37 PM
Andy N said...: Bad move. Have to say this really decreases the value to our family. By muddling my and my kids movies together you not only inconvenience me, you will surely confuse your expensive and essential recommendation engine. Oh well, maybe On Demand is a better option now anyway.; June 19, 2008 1:39 PM
C.I. said...: All I can do is repeat what's been said over and over: this is not an improvement. This is a reduction in service. This is making customers who used the function angry while making no improvement for those who did not use it. On top of having their additional profiles removed, users are further penalized by having to re-enter all of the movies in those profiles.

If Netflix thinks customers are going to roll over and say, "Sure! I'll pay you for a second account!" they need to think again. The economy is such that people are looking for ways to save money, not spend more. And they are likely to give their money to competitors who will treat them better.

Way to shoot your self in the foot, guys.; June 19, 2008 1:39 PM
Anonymous said...: I have been a loyal Netflix user since almost day 1, and I didn't even know this was possible. Now of course I want it.; June 19, 2008 1:41 PM
jay said...: Dear Netflex Management:
I am extremely disappointed by this decision. And, your "EXCUSE" for the decision is ridiculous. The two items are totally unrelated. It is an insult to your users.
It's totally a $$$ decision. BE HONEST and admit it.
Meanwhile, we will definitely reconsider our options. I hope that you will reconsider your decision. To me, there is an obvious solution.
J.; June 19, 2008 1:43 PM
Nick K said...: Upon receiving your recent notification that the Profiles feature was to
be discontinued, I was dismayed. This feature has made it extremely
easy and convenient for myself and my significant other to maintain our
own separate profiles with our own queues of movies, and our own
separate ratings of movies. Separate queues is necessary as we have
differing tastes in movies, and while one of us may keep a movie for a
few days, the other may watch one immediately and send it back. Without
the ability to keep separate queues, we would have to micro-manage one
queue constantly so that each of us would get the correct movie after
returning one. Having separate ratings means we each have movies
suggested appropriate to our own tastes. I even set up a third queue
for TV shows only, and in fact upgraded to the 4-at-a-time plan from the
3-at-a-time plan because it was so easy to manage what we wanted to
watch. If this feature goes away, then the major selling point of your
service, convenience, ceases to be a factor. Losing the ability to
maintain separate queues means renting and watching movies no longer
becomes an easy task which we don't have to think about, but a chore.
This will force us to re-evaluate and most likely cancel our service which we have had for over 3 and a half years.

The FAQ statement about this issue states that "this change will help us
to continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers." I fail
to see how removing a feature that is essential for many of your users is
considered to be improving customer service.

I have also called in and expressed my concern about this, but I wanted to
write as well to detail the reasons why this service is important, and how
it has even resulted in a subscription upsell in my case. I urge you to
re-evaluate.; June 19, 2008 1:46 PM
Dan MacDonald said...: Todd>

I hope you guys are quickly realizing that without separate queues of some sort, NetFlix is useless to a good many of us.

My suggestion would be if some users find the multiple queue system too cumbersome, they can always not use it. (For the record, I have found the interface cumbersome at times, but that is a problem of the web application that could pretty easily be fixed with better session tracking, not the queues themselves.)

I look forward to what will be made available as a replacement. Without a similar feature however, Netflix will cease to be useful to us, and we will certainly not pay for multiple memberships to maintain separate queues. (I sincerely hope this is not your true goal in doing this.); June 19, 2008 1:48 PM
Anonymous said...: I would have paid an extra $10/mo for my 6 movie plan. Not anymore.

Blockbuster doesn't have a profile system, but their 3 Movie Mail-Only account is only $16 a month.

I'll be getting two accounts there now. Later assholes.; June 19, 2008 1:48 PM
Paul said...: This feature has been a long lasting reason for us staying with Netflix. While, we will not be leaving over this it is tempting.

What would cause us to leave however is if this feature becomes a charge feature later on OR someone from Netflix points out that you can just get 2-3 different Netflix subscriptions.

I am sad to see this feature go away, and it will be tempting now to look into alternatives, but as far as I have found no one else does this either.

Guess this is a step backwards.; June 19, 2008 1:49 PM
Michael Johnson said...: I haven't read all the comments posted here, but I am glad to see I am not the only one who thinks this is a bad idea.

My household actually maintains a high plan just to give each person a queue. We will probably reduce our plan as a result of this.

It's not clear how this improves my experience NetFlix. Big mistake in my mind!; June 19, 2008 1:50 PM
Anonymous said...: Netflix is getting more and more frustrating, to the point where I no longer feel like keeping my account. You keep getting rid of the good features. If people don't know how to use it, JUST DON'T USE IT, and leave the option to the rest of us that do! I am extremely disappointed, yet again, at netflix's stupidity and lack of customer service. I will be looking elsewhere for movie rentals. It seems netflix just wants to get rid of their customers. Done and done.; June 19, 2008 1:53 PM
Anonymous said...: “Too many members found the feature difficult to understand and cumbersome, having to consistently log in and out of the website.”
The only specific issue I’ve seen referenced is logging in and out of the site to access the different profiles.
Why have separate profile logins? Each profile is technically part of the same account. Unless you are assuming that I don’t trust the members of my own family not to mess with each other’s queue and ratings there is no value to me as a user to have separate logins.
From reading the complaints listed here profiles offer two valued features, multiple queues and separate ratings for each queue.
I would recommend the following:
1. Get rid of the multiple logins.
2. Give each account the option of adding multiple queue Tabs. The default configuration would be one queue. This way nothing changes for those who do not wish to use multiple queues.
3. Let the users personalize the queue name, instead of “Your Queue” I would not have “John’s Queue”, “Mary’s Queue” or “TV Series Queue”, then track everything you currently track under profiles on a per queue basis.; June 19, 2008 2:01 PM
Anonymous said...: i am so glad to have caught this news on cnet.com before i re-joined! my wife and i had netflix and used different profiles. we moved and canceled our subscription. we were about to rejoin when i saw this. it is either appleTV or blockbuster for us now.

i watch four times as many movies as my wife does and neither of us have time to sit and strategize over our que. moreover, i'm not about to join the sucker-of-the-month club and pay for two accounts or a larger package than we need.

my only regret is that i didn't join before i heard this news so i could cancel my service when they deleted my que.; June 19, 2008 2:04 PM
Anonymous said...: Anyone have experience with Greencine? Love the eclectic library, but wondering how their turn time is. Their vow not to throttle is nice, AND Saturday processing to boot. So as long as their turn time is good, looks nifty.

Now that profiles is gone, pushing me to look at other choices. I figured it was just Netflix and Blockbuster, but any other good recommendations?; June 19, 2008 2:05 PM
Kat said...: I will be cancelling our account unless a comparable option is available BEFORE September 1st. I am NOT willing to re order both of our queues to try and find an easy way to ensure that we can alternate the movies we receive. I am VERY disappointed.; June 19, 2008 2:06 PM
Anonymous said...: "Too many members found the feature difficult to understand and cumbersome, having to consistently log in and out of the website."

So, I'm losing this feature because other users are too stupid to figure it out? What the hell is there to figure out? You log in for each Profile. Deal with it!; June 19, 2008 2:07 PM
Anonymous said...: Hey,

Wow, 395 comments in just a few hours of this announcement.

2% of Netflix uses Profiles, huh?

*sniff*

What's that smell? Yeah, BS.

Just be open and honest with us:

Dear Customer,

We hired a bunch of incompetent programmers that can't seem to make multiple Profiles work in our new website that goes live Sept. 1st.

That means Profiles gotta go!

See? That's not so hard.

Whatever the website "improvements" are, they can no way replace having Profiles for my wife and I.

To gut essential functionality on your site in this day and age is financial suicide.; June 19, 2008 2:07 PM

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Thursday, June 19, 2008

Profiles feature going away

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