Netflix Downtime

As I’m sure you’ve noticed from any number of sources (blogs, newspapers, word of mouth, etc.), Netflix had a 3-day shipping problem which they’ve apparently resolved today.

Their answer to a week-long situation (depending on who you are and where you live it could have been longer than the 3-day period) is to give a refund of 15% from the next billing cycle.

It’s a good idea, but I have a better one:  why not double the movie output?

If Netflix were to double the movies for each customer, on a one-time basis, I think that would cover their refund needs, as well as provide instant gratification for their userbase.  As it is, people are complaining that 15% should be closer to 25%, based on the average 4 weeks in a month, as well as wondering if it will actually happen, since there’s rumors of them not following through on other refunds/fixes previously.

So, in short, if you were a 2-at-a-time plan, they would ship the one or two you already had waiting to go out to you… but also 2 more from the top of your queue.

Before anyone decides to try and argue with me:

• yes, they would temporarily have a smaller inventory
• yes, it would cost them a little more money than the average day of shipping
• yes, it might take longer than usual for those extra movies to come back

But I still think it would have been a better choice than the future refund.

And they didn’t do this because… why?

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For some echo chamber coverage, see The Consumerist, Epicenter, BoingBoing Gadgets, NewTeeVee, Valleywag [1] [2], and The Inquisitr.

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Update (8/15/2008 6:04pm PST):  NewTeeVee tipped the hat.

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