Netflix Removes Friends and List Functionality, Then Deletes User Comments

On March 4th Netflix announced via their blog that they are rolling out a newly designed Movie Details Page. This page, which I had seen a couple of times in my regular usage of Netflix, has a very nice and appealing look to it. Most of the information has been reorganized in an attempt to provide users with what they want to see.

However, Netflix has made a serious mistake with this page, unintentional or not. They have removed both the Friends and Top 10 List functionality. That’s right… when you view a movie you can no longer see what your friends rated it.

I’ve been a devout Netflix user almost since the company was founded. During those years, I have managed to attract a fair amount of my friends and family onto Netflix. The main selling point of Netflix for me, aside from easy and convenient DVD and streaming access, is the capability to share movies with friends and see what your friends think of those movies. If I see a movie that my friends have rated poorly, I will trust their instincts far more than Netflix’s star recommendation engine. Likewise, if my friends all 5-star a movie I’m only partially interested in, odds are that I’ll bump that movie way up my queue. ALL of that means an increased satisfaction in the Netflix service.

Since the March 4th announcement, Netflix has garnered at least 110 comments on the blog post, almost all of which have been negative. Almost every comment cited the missing Friends and Top 10 Lists features. Most of these comments were constructive, I know mine was, in that they contained pleas to Netflix as to how important the Friends and Top 10 List functionality is.

Today however, all of those comments have been deleted. So just to recap, Netflix pulls features out of the Movie pages, lots of users comment, and Netflix deletes those comments. This is the sort of move I didn’t think a company would even think about making in this new ‘internet age’ of increased interaction and discussion between the business and its customers.

There are a couple of possible options that might have happened here:

1. Netflix intentionally removed this functionality and didn’t bother to say anything about it.
2. Netflix accidentally removed this functionality in what must be one of the biggest product blunders ever (they’ve made similar mistakes in the past).
3. Netflix listened to a very small sample of their customers that don’t represent the whole, and removed this functionality accordingly.

Regardless, Netflix should not have deleted users’ comments from the blog. That is extremely poor form. I hope that Netflix makes a comment about this situation or they are going to have a pretty big revolt on their hands. My capability to make recommendations and share things with friends, and utilize friends’ ratings, is really important to my movie going experience with Netflix. Despite that, Netflix has continued to shy away from any further increase in socially enhancing their website to allow a better experience between its users. It’s a shame.

If you are interested in a sampling of what some of the original complaints were like, you can make your way over to Hacking Netflix’s post about this.

Update:

A Netflix representative commented on the original blog post.

“Hi everyone. This is Jamie from Netflix. We’re looking into the technical issues on how to restore the lost comments. We believe in and value open communications and comments, and regret that a technical problem caused the original comments to disappear.”

Is it coincidence that all these negative comments were deleted or did they really experience a technical issue?