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.
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.
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.
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.)
