The Netflix Zen Master | Hacker News Reader

The Netflix Zen Master

joedoliner.com

37 pointsjdoliner29 comments

I think Netflix wants you to be inefficient though. The longer you keep the movies, the less postage they have to pay mailing them back and forth each month, making your account that much more profitable.

Hmm, I don't think that's necessarily true. For new releases Netflix often doesn't have enough to go around and has to make people wait. I bet efficiency there is appreciated.

Netflix notoriously throttles heavy users. Their largest expense is postage. I'm sure their calculus is more complex, but if they had to pick an extreme, i'd wager that they'd pick the guy who has had the same 3 discs sitting on his table for the last month.

That would be me.

For some reason, I would rather watch Simpsons reruns than some movie I've never seen.

(I returned one disk today that has been on my coffee table for two months. I just couldn't get excited enough to watch the movie, and I was tired of looking at the disk.)

Also, Netflix doesn't have to make a customer wait, they can just send a movie from farther down in the customer's queue.

Yes, I agree, the premise that Netflix wants you to return the DVDs as quickly as possible so that they can send it to someone else is wrong. At any given time, you're going to have N DVDs out, and Netflix doesn't have any reason to particularly care whether they're the same N DVDs each day or N different DVDs.

When I return two DVDs to Netflix on the same day, I usually send them in one envelope in the hopes that the mailing costs will be slightly lower. (I figure that if their costs are lower that helps keep the subscription price down.) I've wondered why Netflix doesn't try to combine the discs that they send, but perhaps the cost savings aren't enough to be worth the extra handling that would be required on their end.

Interesting... I noticed a couple years ago that if I put the DVD in the return envelope backwards (and the bar code couldn't be seen thru the little window) it took longer to mark those movies as returned (I'd get the email at 3, 4, 5 PM instead of 7 or 8 AM) and it often led to an extra day of waiting. I now take care to always have them in the right.

You haven't noticed any extra delay by doubling them up?

Did you read the article about the Netflix processing center? There isn't any automation on the envelope side, rather there are teams of people opening them up and pulling the discs and the sleeves.

I think the barcode window is entirely for outgoing routing.

I did read the article, but I didn't see where it said that there was no automation on the receiving end. Maybe I missed it, it was a long article.

When I noticed this for myself, 2007 sometime, I had a common problem where every Nth disc would take an extra day to be received, and that would really throw off my pattern, which mostly was just to have a couple movies for the weekend.

So soon hypothesized that it'd happen on days the barcode was not visible. So to test, I put 1 of them wrong intentionally, mailed all 3 at the same time, and the 1 that was wrong did indeed take an extra day to be marked as returned.

So I didn't have any real facts, just an observation that seemed plausible to me.

No, I have not noticed an extra delay by doubling up two discs in one envelope.

Usually the mail delivery between the local Netflix center and my address is overnight both ways, but occasionally it takes two days for an envelope I return to be processed. I've attributed that delay to the post office, however, and not to having two DVDs in the same envelope.

True, but the contest idea builds a community and hopefully increases the number of subscribers. It certainly builds loyalty with existing subscribers. I think it's a good idea.

This is the kind of guy I hope to be in my middle age. Given his antics probably won't actually result in a quicker turnaround, but I love the idea of sending the DVDs back on the same truck they came on just for the hell of it.

I also like the idea of the contest the author proposes, although I'm sure Netflix wouldn't want to publicly encourage piracy.

Great article, made me smile.

Absolutely. There is a real beauty in quirkiness.

Netflix uses an algorithm to slow down people like this.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_422313.html

The only thing about that is that I really don't see the value of Netflix in getting new movies fast, I personally like the back catalog aspect. Like, I've been going through all the Miyazaki films, and there's a lot of independent movies, and cornball sci-fi movies. Heck, the watch instantly feature is awesome for that too.

I love Netflix.

Is this not a form of piracy?

I don't see why. He's not distributing them, he's not getting any money, and he's not showing them in public.

It is illegal in the US, both because it "circumvents" the copy protection, and because he's making a copy of a movie he doesn't own. So it's copyright infringement, but not piracy.

It's obvious he's doing this as a hobby. Legal? I'm sure it's on the threshold. This is where an inflexible legal system shows it's age.

He isn't hurting anybody, he's obviously having a great time. Netflix is making money/building loyalty from him. (They are building loyalty with all of us when we read this story.) The movie companies aren't suffering. It's a triple win.

But in a court of law, it's likely that he would be slapped.

I wonder what his stats and graphs will look like on the site I started: http://feedfliks.com

You actually get a plug in the article itself. Cool site by the way. IIRC, it was made in one of those quick-sprint exercises, no?

No, not exactly quick-sprint :-)

My apologies, I had this confused with Qflip.net, from the Rails Rumble 08 competition, not even close to the same idea. I guess my memory is not as sharp as I would hope.

Well since you asked, let's see if can't get this for you :). Also I found your site through Netflix itself which I take to mean that they don't wholly disapprove of such a venture. Did you have to get your app concept cleared with them at all?

Not at all. As far as I can tell, Netflix is very supportive of FeedFliks. They did want me to change the name from FeedFlix to FeedFliks.

And yeah - if you can get the ZenMaster to post what his stats look like on FeedFliks, that would be great too!

If I decide to quit FeedFliks can I make it delete all my data?

Yes, absolutely

Knowing that I can makes me more likely not to, actually. How do I do it if I want to? (Please don't say "Just contact us"!)

Sorry, but for now this is not 100% self-service. Once you're logged in, just submit the feedback text field with something like 'please delete my account' and I'll be sure and know exactly which a/c to delete. It should be deleted in a few hours at most.

Noooooooooooooooo :-)

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