Re: Important News Regarding Netflix Profiles

From: Russell Dicker

To: Reed Hastings, CEO Netflix

Dear Mr. Hastings:

I have been a proud Netflix customer since January 2000, so I am well aware of your track record of being a customer centric company.  This is exactly why I was both surprised and dismayed to receive the e-mail informing me of your plans to deprecate the multiple profiles feature.

At its launch, Profiles was immediately one of may favorite features and I clearly recall the "Oh my God, this is awesome" moment when I learned about it.  My discovery of the feature coincided with my girlfriend moving in with me.  The process of becoming acclimated to living together was eased by her ability to watch a seemingly endless stream of "Desperate Housewives" episodes in quick succession while I took my time with "A History of Violence" and "Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior".  We still live together and it would be only a small exaggeration to say that this feature played a small role in the fact that we will be getting married one month from today.

Perhaps you read this and think it is time that I be prepared to share everything, including my movie queue, with the future Mrs. Dicker.  You may have a point; she is the love of my life and sharing is what marriage is about.  But isn't it enough that I've offered to teach her stick shift so she can drive my BMW?  I'm taking dance lessons for the wedding.  Can't you let me hang on to this one little bit of my bachelorhood?  I love her more than words, but despite being from Texas, she just isn't a "No Country for Old Men" kind of gal.

I am not ignorant of your protestations that you must balance the needs of customers with the rigors of development.  I am a senior manager at a small e-commerce concern named after a large river.  In this position I am confronted with these kinds of challenges almost daily.  I only bring this to your attention so that you understand the weight of experience behind my advice:

You can do better.  Whatever the customer experience or technical challenges may be I am confident that you and your team can overcome them. I'd volunteer my own services, but I'm afraid it would conflict with my NCA.

Best of luck.

Yours,

(Signed)

Russell Dicker

CC:http://www.rdicker.com/home/2008/06/re-important-news-regarding-netflix-profiles.html

Comments

[jfew]

Vote with your wallet. I cancelled our account this morning after reading this post where Netflix PR characterized the decision to eliminate Profiles as "final":

http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2008/06/netflix-elimina.html

Fine, they can be that way, but they won't get my monthly fees anymore for being so absolute in their position.

[jfew]

Also, this comment on the official Netflix blog is pretty insightful:

"Why are you offering $1,000,000 to improve the recommendation system while crippling its usefulness at the same time? If you combine my wife's 5 stars and my 5 stars, you'll get a truly useless database, and your recommendations will have no validity."

[KeepNetflixProfiles]

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