Chris and I have used Netflix for several years. Early on, we constantly ran into the same dilemma over and over again. There are some movies only he wants to see, in which I have no interest. The thing is, it takes him forever and a day to get around to watching one of these movies when he has one. So inevitably, after a while, we would end up with three such movies sitting at home for weeks, not being watched, while we continued to pay our $17 a month... until I'd eventually put my foot down and send the movies back unwatched so that we could get something we both wanted to watch.
Then Netflix introduced the profiles feature, and the problem was solved. Profiles allow you to set up separate queues for people in your household, and assign how many of your rental slots each person could use. We moved all of those movies that I didn't want to see to a separate queue, and assigned it one rental slot, so that we could be sure we wouldn't ever have more than one of those movies at a time. He still takes forever to watch them, but now the other two slots remain free for movies we both want to see (or very occasionally, one that only I want to see).
The other day I found out, through an e-mail Netflix sent to all of its members, that they are discontinuing the profiles feature as of September 1. The only explanation they gave in the e-mail was that this was a change which would help them to improve the Netflix web site for all customers. Excuse me? So what are we? Chopped liver?
Now I find out, from their blog entry on the change, just why they think eliminating such a useful feature will benefit all customers. Because some people find profiles confusing and difficult to use. Well, here's a novel idea: if you find it confusing, don't use it! No one is forcing you to. By all means, keep your account with one single rental queue. And let those of us who need more than one queue have our profiles. And here's another clue: if a feature of your web site is so unintuitive that it confuses that many people, improve it! Don't just throw in the towel and take it away. How lazy and childish can you be?
Maybe you've forgotten, Netflix, but you have competition now. Being that some of your competitors already have an edge over you (in-store returns and exchanges at Blockbuster, anyone?), you need to make sure you have something the others don't. Profiles are that thing. If you take that away, what reason do I, or any of the others who value that feature, have to stay with you? I know I won't.
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