Netflix Punishes Frequent Renters

First they denied it, but now Netflix admits it in their contracts: people who rent a lot of DVDs from Netflix won't get new titles as quickly as they should expect. That way, Netflix can limit the number of DVDs people rent a month and keep aggressive renters from nibbling away at their profit margins. Netflix also punishes their best customers by giving casual renters first crack at hot titles ahead of them -- that keeps new renters more likely to return and high-volume renters from hogging all the big titles. In practical terms, people who once rented 18-22 titles a month are slowed down or "throttled" back to about 13 a month.