Thank goodness. I'd really like to know what led to the change of mind, but in the last couple of years, Netflix has never provided a convincing explanation for ANY of their changes to their service. I do believe that splitting the services was an invitation for Blockbuster to come eat their lunch, but I doubt that's it. And we all know it has nothing to do with the comments on their blog posts... Did the stock trend finally set them straight?

I'm not sure I've ever seen a company do so much to alienate its customers in such a short time. They have been actively de-featuring the web site for the past year, and splitting their catalog into two libraries will be a rather large hassle for users like me who often go to Netflix.com, thinking, "Which movies in my DVD queue are available for instant viewing tonight?" I'll now have to do a LOT more work cross-referencing between sites. (My queue is consistently over 450 titles.) For the first time in 8 years as a Netflix subscriber, I'm seriously considering alternatives. Blockbuster can make a KILLING off jilted Netflixers if they manage to integrate all of the queue and site features that Netflix has cut.

Got it to log in and launch on the first try on my HTC Status- unfortunately, audio is terribly out of sync. You hear things at least 6 seconds after you see them. (This was on a WiFi connection.)

I've never seen a technical explanation of how Zediva works but I don't know of a way they could have streamed to customers without circumventing DVD copy protection, which is a DMCA violation. This was apparently not the reason they were shut down, so I'm curious what they were doing to get around that. Were they encoding analog DVD player output on the fly?

To the person asking about larger accounts, it means that if you want to keep streaming your account price is going up (again). From the Netflix home page, go to "Your Account & Help" and then click "See membership terms & details" and you'll see the new rates. We already cut our plan back to 3-out from 4-out. Now we may cut back to 2-out. Not like it will bother Netflix; they WANT us to switch to streaming-only, even though they have weak content compared to the pay-as-you-go services like iTunes and Amazon.

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.

Removing the avatars I can understand. But the names? A lot of people who contribute content like reviews take pride in their work, and want others who have similar tastes to be able to follow their contributions. Netflix just made this impossible, and I bet this will cut down on the number of new reviews they get. Is this their intent?

@Mike - How are they able to stream DVD content without bypassing CSS? Besides, they're violating the DVD "license agreement" which forbids rebroadcasting. The most amazing thing about Zediva is that they were able to secure any capital for something that was so sketchy from the outset. @jonkcg - LOL awesome.

You can't stream Hollywood DVDs without breaking their copy protection. If what they're saying is true (they actually stream to you from a physical DVD) they have to violate DMCA to do it. Then there's the whole thing about streaming rights being different from physical rental rights, as far as content providers are concerned. I don't see there's any way that this is a legit operation.

Several commenters agree- WTF is this about Netflix dropping the queue???

Folks, people "cutting the cord" is exactly the reason they're doing this. They're actively trying to make Netflix less attractive, so people have a reason to keep their cable. And this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Netflix got very lucky with their original streaming deals, but their days of cheap streaming content have passed.

This is such a critical issue for Netflix, and they're in a very precarious position considering that the studios would prefer to see Netflix and its competitors just go away.

I've been looking for little ways to trim costs here and there (consolidated cable and broadband, dropped all magazine subscriptions, switched to a cheaper VOIP service, etc.). I had already been thinking of cutting from 4-at-a-time to 3. Now I'm thinking of maybe just 2-at-a-time. I just went through my entire 500-title queue and pulled out a lot of stuff that's probably fine, but I'm just not in the mood for these days to ensure that every disc I do get is something I really want to watch.

For people who haven't followed the entire comment thread: No, they do not appear to be grandfathering the old prices- even for very old customers who had rates that had actually been grandfathered once before. You can confirm this for yourself by clicking "Your Account & Help" and then clicking "See membership terms & details." It will tell you the fate of your current account at the top of the screen. The only reason this move annoys me is the fact that fewer than 1/3 of my queue is available for streaming (and that 1/3 rarely represents the cream of the crop). I need the DVD plan, and always considered the streaming as a bonus.

Damn, I'm on the 4-at-a-time plan. The wording currently on the 'change membership' page, however, sounds like if I don't do anything I might be grandfathered in on the old prices? I think I'm just going to let it be for a while and see what happens.

Also, the Human Centipede was a disappointment. I felt it was pretty well put-together in a technical sense; you could see the thought and planning put into its construction and editing. However, it was way too predictable, and most of the protagonists weren't very likable. It could have been a cult classic in the hands of a more visionary director/writer.

I've watched a LOT of shock/horror films, but as far as gross-out films that I rented from Netflix, I would pick Shallow Ground (which I watched accidentally, confusing it with Danny Boyle's 'Shallow Grave') and The Last Horror Movie. They were both gross in more of a soul-crushing way than anything else, but Shallow Ground was very poorly executed as well. The worst film(s) I've ever seen period are the August Underground series, which are simulated snuff flicks, done in POV style. They are utterly disgusting. Like with the Hostel films, I felt like a bad person for having watched them.

We have two TiVo HD units and absolutely love them. The TiVo Premieres have been out a year, and if you check the "tivo community" forums, you'll see that they still pretty much suck. Slow interface. System crashes. Only partial HD support in the interface. I'd hope they'd have their act together by now, but it's sounding like the 1st generation Premieres simply aren't worth it. (Too bad, because they have much faster processors than all previous units.)

LOL @ these comments. I'm wondering if this has anything to do with the greatly increased Netflix stream load times I've seen over the past month or so? Once a stream's actually playing it's usually fine, but recently it's been taking up to 2 minutes before things will even start buffering, which is the worst I've ever seen it.

For the past three weeks maybe, I've noticed that getting the stream started (before it even starts buffering) takes much longer than usual. 30-seconds to a couple of minutes. Once the buffering and playing starts, though, everything seems fine. The delay is long enough that a couple of times I've thought the computer had hung- only to find that everything is still responsive.

I wish I could kill cable. Until recently, we've only ever had "basic" and even now we still don't have any premium channels, just an expanded "basic" lineup. Ever since Lost went off-air, I literally don't watch any television right now- not even shows I actually like (South Park and Futurama). I've switched completely to watching DVDs and Netflix/Amazon streaming offerings. My wife is a TV junkie who hardly watches any movies, and the kids watch a lot of cartoons and educational shows. Still, the rates we're paying for cable- even with our recent bundle deal, are way more than I think is worth it.

Yeah, the digital copies are not very useful at the moment. For one thing, all the ones I've gotten had expiration dates for when you could claim the copy that were set at the title's release date. For example, the DVD is printed in July and you have until September of the same year to claim your digital copy... but what if the disc sits on the shelf at Best Buy until October? Too bad, you don't get your copy. The other problem, of course, is they're all DRMed and won't necessarily work on your device or player of choice. Much easier to rip the DVD to your NAS device if you like having digital copies around.

Yep, we were paying over 170/mo for cable, internet and VOIP- all from different providers. We switched our cable from Comcast to Frontier (formerly Verizon) FIOS and will be changing our VOIP when our Vonage contract is up next month. But already we're paying about $50/month less for more channels (and better picture quality) and faster Internet.

Netflix Instant has a whole "TV Reality Programming" category with stuff from several dozen different shows. I'm not really up on TV, but I get the impression that it's mostly cable reality shows, not network stuff. I've grown more and more pleased with the online offerings. A third of my DVD queue is now available for instant viewing which is great for when I'm between DVDs. I just wish that either Netflix or one of the 3rd party sites would give me a view that ONLY shows titles in my DVD queue that are available on Instant- or at least a view that lets me sort by Instant availability. It's a pain scrolling through 500 movies looking for instant titles when I'm in the mood to watch something.

I recently started a nightly weight-loss fitness regimen, and when I work out I like to watch adrenaline-pumping fast-paced movies (to distract me from the pain). I've thus done a fair amount of queue reshuffling for now, moving all the "man movie" stuff up front. Oh thank you, 1980s- I never appreciated you until now. Anyway, I have a worksheet of movies I eventually need to see, ranked in order, corresponding to IMDB rating. The number one film on that list is (and has been for some time) Casablanca. Bogie's gonna have to wait until my skinny jeans fit.