Netflix: Just Kiddin’ About No Queues

Netflix had decided to keep its popular-in-spirit-but-not-in-numbers profiles feature after all. The DVD rental company had announced on June 18th that it would ditch the multiple-queues-under-one-account service as of Sept. 1st. Evidently this didn’t sit well with current users, who formed an online petition and Facebook protest groups. The company ate its humble pie today through a corporate blog post:

For users of Profiles, I have good news to report: we will keep the feature with no plans to discontinue it.

And in a nice bit of folksy corporate candor, the company copped to the idea that the feature may not be that popular, but maybe popularity isn’t everything:

Because of an ongoing desire to make our website easier to use, we believed taking a feature away that is only used by a very small minority would help us improve the site for everyone. Listening to our members, we realized that users of this feature often describe it as an essential part of their Netflix experience. Simplicity is only one virtue and it can certainly be outweighed by utility.

Hat tip to Wired’s Epicenter blog.