Amazon.com question...

[Farganger]

I disagree. It was pretty clear to me last time I ordered that free shipping took longer, and I made my decision accordingly. I certainly think it's more ethical than Netflix's sleazy throttling tactics, which really annoy me.

Interesting. I should look for a separate Netflix "throttling" thread perhaps, but what's this relate to?

I assume it's just the lowered priority with respect to "hot new titles" referred to somewhere above. The no-longer and/or never hot titles I seem to gravitate towards have been available enough.

I'd have to check my history, but I think there have been months that I've averaged almost a movie a day, in my vain attempt to beef up my "filmic" knowledge while my wife is 3000 miles away in film school.

 

[CarlZog]

You're probably not a heavy user then.

But basically, if you are like me, and don't watch TV much, but do watch a movie or two a day, you can generally watch the movie the same day you get it and then mail it back the next day.

In theory, if all goes well with the post office, you can pretty much get 6 movies a week (if you are on the 3 out at a time plan).

However, Netflix presumably doesn't make much money off people like that. (since figure .40 cents for shipping each way). So they "throttle" it, by delaying shipping movies. Like they get a movie, then they won't send you the next one for another couple of days.

Hmmm, that's really interesting. A while back we switched from three at a time to one at a time, and it seemed to me that it was taking longer to recycle them, but I just wrote it off to the mail system.

But then over the summer my wife was away on business and I re-upgraded the subscription for a couple months to catch up on the movies I knew she didnt' want to watch. I hadn't thought about it 'til now, but they did come faster then.....

grrr....