An open letter to NetFlix (or how to treat your customers)
About 5 years ago I finally got sick of Comcast and switched to DirecTV. Getting the channels I wanted from Comcast meant paying more and more whereas, at the time, DirecTV had 1 price for pretty much everything. I signed up and never looked back.
When my big TV arrived, I called DirecTV to get HD. To my extreme pleasure the representative noticed that I had been a good customer for 5 years, and that my current plan was no longer available so I was grandfathered into it and got HD, everything, for the same price. I was happy to pay for the HD PVR receiver and I am a very happy customer.
At first I was happy with NetFlix too. Then they decided to split DVD and streaming. I cancelled DVD since we hardly ever watched any. Getting Blu-Ray is more. Now I cant stream to all my devices. I don't know what's next in their plans, but I started looking for other options.
Now I don't expect NetFlix to treat me special but by the same token, NetFlix is no longer a service I like very much and I won't treat them special either. I do very much like DirecTV and especially how they really made me feel like a special customer that they "cared" about.
It may be that the price DirecTV charged me five years ago was enough that they could offer me HD for free. Or maybe it was worth another 60 payments (5 years * 12 payments). I guess my advice is: try to treat your customers well if you can, it goes a long way.