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I am sure whatever capacity or technical problems they're experiencing are being exacerbated by millions and millions of emails from angry assholes wondering wh
by mattdeboard 16y ago
I am sure whatever capacity or technical problems they're experiencing are being exacerbated by millions and millions of emails from angry assholes wondering why the hell their $8 a month isn't buying them immediate and perpetual access to a catalog of human creativity and knowledge that would have brought even the most advanced intellectual from 1980 to his knees, weeping tears of joy at the wond'rous advances man has made.
"Surely," he would say between sobs, "surely if man can accomplish this with something as relatively trivial as movies, a hundred years hence will see us spreading our race to the stars."
Unfortunately all most people know or give a damn about is that they shove $8 into the magic box on their desk and it shits American Pie movies. Pan-galactic empire will have to wait, I guess. TV's busted!
- alecco 16y agoSure, but on the other hand they have been terrible communicating what is going on. Not really a good example for a service with millions of users. Most people are usually forgiving when you give them some reasons.
- brown9-2 16y agoSorry, what? You don't think customers have a right to be annoyed when the service they pay for is unavailable? I'm sure there are a lot of Netflix customers that fall somewhere between the range of not caring right now and the huge extreme you describe. Not sure what your point here is.
- mattdeboard 16y agoI am saying that I am sure the level of vitriol being directed at Netflix right now via email or other anonymous/private communications channels is disproportionate relative to the otherwise high value that is derived from an $8/mo luxury purchase. With tongue firmly in cheek I am urging calm in this moment of national crisis. In other words, it was a joke.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- ghshephard 16y ago"Not everyone uses twitter." Anybody interested in tracking an outage in 2011 needs to know that twitter is accepted standard for communicating with your userbase. It has the advantages of: A) Not being your own infrastructure - You do not want to use your own infrastructure to communicate a problem with your own infrastructure. B) Is inherently many-many. C) Maintains an archive of all messages. D) Has both a Web and Thick Client access - making it accessible to everyone. With that said - Netflix could be doing a better job of giving people ETAs, and updates as to when service is, or is not, expected to be back up. Transparency, in the face of adversity, is respected. Even something as simple as "We're triaging, and will have an update in 60 minutes" would be sufficient.
- MartinCron 16y agoI recently had to do a short scheduled downtime of my startup's site and cut the web server over to a "we'll be back soon" page with a simple embedded twitter stream widget on the page where I posted updates every few minutes. I can no longer imagine doing it any other way.
- iamdave 16y agoBrevity is the soul of wit.
- mattdeboard 16y agoA bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
- Nelson69 16y agoThat's TV. The whole viewing world has been conditioned that way. I briefly worked on a set-top box for a major media distributor and you'd be shocked by the support calls, when TV stops working, people freak the ef out. TV stops working and it's within a couple days of a major cultural type event (final episode of some show, the start or end of dancing with the stars or whatever is hot at the moment, the superbowl, etc...) and they really freak out. Grandmas using profanity, issuing threats, etc.. I quit watching TV after seeing that stuff.
- mattdeboard 16y agoI am glad at least one person understood the point I was making. I think the average HNer overestimates the rationality of the average consumer.