Daniel Jacobson, Netflix's director of engineering, posted a notice on the Netflix blog that they will be removing DVD-related features from the Netflix open API.
We’re making some changes to the Open API program to support the Netflix focus on international streaming. Later this year, we will discontinue support for DVD-related features, degrading them through redirects or other means gracefully whenever possible. These changes will only affect the Open APIs, so your DVDs will continue to ship!
This change clears the path for us to add new features to the API to support international catalogs and languages. Eventually, we plan to expand our public developer community to other regions, allowing developers from around the world to build even more amazing apps and sites powered by the Netflix API.
This means that third-party Netflix applications will no longer be able to manage DVDs and Blu-ray discs.
Netflix appears to be waging war against me and the features that kept me a Netflix subscriber all these years. I can actually now see the day where I cancel my account.
The removal of user rating and reviews likely is the hump that broke the camels back as far as I'm concerned.
Posted by: Warren Jones | June 21, 2011 at 07:31 AM
They didn't remove user ratings or reviews. They removed the nicknames though.
Posted by: None | June 21, 2011 at 10:03 AM
Disgusting. Oh Blockbuster, I'm coming home.
Posted by: Emory LaserWolf | June 21, 2011 at 10:15 AM
I'm just a bit confused. The first sentence says removing from the open API. But the last sentence says allowing developers [snip] to build even more amazing apps with the netflix API. It sounds like there are two APIs here and the open API is being phased out so that the netflix API can take over. Otherwise it is idiotic to remove users abilities to manage their queue outside of the netflix site. We aren't always able to access the site with ease thus queue apps are important.
Posted by: Jason | June 21, 2011 at 01:49 PM
Another Netflix failure as the bills start to come due on all the content they have deferred payment on. ENRON
Posted by: Johnson1965Tony | June 21, 2011 at 01:53 PM
The real backlash will be when various websites and phone apps stop working.
NF should split the websites between streaming and DVD/BD. DVD will have a long tail but wont need much maintenance. Dedicate specific resources to delivery with minimal updates. Just keep the existing customer base happy. No need to push them to streaming.
Posted by: Complication | June 21, 2011 at 02:40 PM
@Jason: There is only one API. See the more detailed post on Netflix's Developer's Blog.
http://developer.netflix.com/blog/read/Upcoming_Changes_to_the_Open_API_Program
Posted by: ErinsMatthew | June 21, 2011 at 09:05 PM
Maybe I'm out of the mainstream, but I don't think I have any third party apps that try to manage the DVD queue. The Roku doesn't; it just deals with streaming titles. The closest I can think of for this is my Wii, which shows titles that are available DVD-only, in read-only format. (I'm guessing these API changes would not affect the iPad app if it's being maintained by Netflix and not Apple, and thus can probably access non-public API's.)
The writing's on the wall for physical media. (And as far as I'm concerned, good riddance.) Once there's fiber going out to end-users, the digital pipe should be fat enough to deal with true-HD, eliminating the need for BD. This won't happen for some years, but you can tell that it's coming.
Posted by: James Heartney | June 21, 2011 at 11:48 PM
All the bills for the overspending on content are starting to come due and subscribers are slowing down because of market saturation. Something has to give either decrease quality or increase subscription costs.
Posted by: Johnson1965Tony | June 22, 2011 at 12:38 PM
Good riddance to physical media?
We have entire communities with nothing more than dial-up or satellite all over the us much less enough fiber to households to make it a fifth of the population. This doesn't even begin to address the blatant money-grab of bandwidth capping. All this puts greater control in the hands of corporate giants and allows for even fewer consumer freedoms.
Bite your tongue because as the old adage says, "be careful what you wish for".
Posted by: Smy Lee | June 22, 2011 at 04:12 PM
I don't use any of the apps to manage my queue (I think I did a long time ago, but IIRC there was a while years ago when they all broke for a while, and I didn't bother getting a new one).. but I do think this is a bad thing.
and even though I *am* using streaming slightly more (heck, I was viewing a few minutes of a show on my iPhone waiting for a presentation to start), I still far prefer DVDs, and now manually use a bookmark to get to the browse DVD page rather than typing in netflix.com.
I want DVDs because (1) they usually have the extras (e.g. commentaries), (2) they have subtitles, and (3) for things like documentaries (and extras) I watch faster-than-realtime, which I can't do with streaming.
Posted by: me.yahoo.com/a/PQxFSsE0itt4Wuoe2fcIw7UVLJw- | June 22, 2011 at 07:16 PM
So this is going to kill Feedfliks and DVDLater, I guess? This is terrible; the anti-customer decisions just keep piling up.
They're making their own site worse and at the same time killing the handful of sites that actually improved the Netflix experience.
Unbelievable.
Posted by: UltimateOutsider | June 22, 2011 at 07:26 PM
Smy Lee
As I noted, physical media isn't anywhere close to being gone at this point. All I'm saying is that we can see its eventual fate.
Not sure why having content on corporate-manufactured physical media is more "free" than having it on cloud-based servers. As I see it, media companies main interest is money, so their incentive is to make content as widely available as possible.
Anyway, a world in which consumers can access a huge universe of content electronically means any specific release faces massive competition for customer attention. The end of physical media puts consumers in the driver's seat, not media companies.
Posted by: James Heartney | June 23, 2011 at 03:57 AM
As long as DVD quality looks better than that of most streaming choices, I will still get discs by mail. Sometimes I watch something just for the eye candy and I didn't just get an HDTV to watch something bigger; I got it for the clarity. Plus, I know I'm in the minority by being someone who likes to watch extra features and listen to commentaries.
I just don't really care about people's reviews or opinions of movies, "commoners" or critics. I may browse through them, but never use them to decide if I want to watch a movie.
Posted by: Gobotron | June 25, 2011 at 04:39 PM