Manuel is a frequest contributor to Hacking Netflix, yet I only recently discovered his Web site, Manuel's Netflix Journal. Manuel documents his experience as a high-volume Netflix subscriber, and he's not pleased with the service.
I spend too much time with my kids, working a day job, and writing for this blog to be a high-volume renter, so I haven't had the same experience as he has. I watch about 9 Netflix movies a month, and another 6 or so Blockbuster movies. I've had a couple of lost and unplayable movies in the two years I've been a renter, but I had a similar experience with my local video store before I joined Netflix.
Manuel has rented 29 movies this month (he's on the 8-out plan), and I think the high-volume renters will statistically have the hardest time with the service since they have so much interaction with Netflix. 29 movies means 58 mailings, and our postal service isn't perfect. I also understand that some distribution centers don't have all of the movies, and since he rents so many movies he'll get more from a distant center, adding to the delivery time. Manuel has even created a Netflix calculator, estimating how many movies you can rent based on his theory.
Manuel has had 15 broken DVD's and 4 wrong movies, but I can't find out how many movies he's rented to date, so I don't know what percentage have had problems. He also complains about unplayabe movies, but I have only had a couple that wouldn't play due to scratches or cracks. My old DVD player used to be picky, but a cheap Apex player I use now will handle almost anything.
He's convinced that Netflix has a program that deliberately throttles high-volume renters, which brings up the question Netflix must answer: Are you penalizing frequent renters? This question has bounced around the blogs and chat rooms for far too long for Netflix to ignore it.
Manuel is so sure that Netflix is penalizing frequent renters that he's offer a $100 bounty for a confession from a Netflix employee.
I'm all for someone documenting his experience, but I was hoping to find more of a balance to his site. He rents almost 30 movies a month, and while he's had some bad experiences, he seems to focus on the bad and neglects to balance this with the selection, delivery time (I get movies in 1 - 2 days), etc. You would think that someone this unhappy with a company would quit, but Manuel's goal seems to be getting Netflix to fix their problems.
