He’s right. We are.

My mind flashed back to earlier this morning when I was reading comments on Hacker News about a supposed fork to a popular programming language. The language author identified several flaws in a popular language, then set about to fix them. It’s arrogant to assume that his new product is better (there was some disagreement on this at HN), or that there would be enough adoption to make the project even partially as viable as its ancestor. Only time will tell whether he was right or not.

It’s arrogant to roll our own code rather than adopt existing libraries, but it happens all of the time.

It’s arrogant to think our code is as useful to others as it is to ourselves.

It’s arrogant to stress over the details of products we release, to insist on refining the corners and polish the surfaces only other coders see.

But without arrogance, nothing new would be built.

Arrogance challenges the status quo. It feeds the courage to try for a better way (even when we fail at it). The arrogance of builders, designers, and innovators gives us new things.

It’s our greatest weakness, and our greatest blessing.

It’s not me it’s you.

I cancelled my account just before the 60% price increase kicked in. I took the exit survey because I wanted to let you know why. You didn’t give me that chance.

The closest item to my answer was “I want to cut costs.” While that’s somewhat true, it’s not the whole story.

You offended me with a 60% price hike. I immediately decided to cancel as soon as my current pricing ended.

Splitting the product prices cemented my decision. I purchase products because they provide value to me. If the value doesn’t match the price, I don’t buy. I’m not cutting costs, I no longer see the value of your separated services. It’s not me, it’s you.

First, you’re paying too much for your content; when you pass those costs on to me, I’m not interested. Yes, studios have a great deal of bargaining power in this assymetrical relationship, but not buying at their inflated prices is an option you should consider. It’s not worth what they’re charging. My pricing sensibilities are a product of the 99-cent-ificiation of media. Digital distribution should be cheap. Digital content at your scale should be too.

Second, Neflix offered the unique proposition of both discs by mail and streaming, together in one package. I don’t get that from RedBox. I’ve carried an Amazon Prime membership for years simultaneous to my Netflix subscription, and while Prime videos are a newer offering—and a perk of a service I was already paying for—they don’t offer the same value as your combined package at a low price. But now that I have to evaluate your products separately, I see that I’ll spend less each month getting movies from RedBox, and still get most of the “free” streaming content (excepting Starz, which you’re apparanly having problems with) through Amazon. For new releases, there’s a RedBox a block away a the grocery store. For me, the switiching cost is negligible. Your rivals are increasing, but you just commoditized your product. You’re no longer different.

With a combined plan you had a differentiated offering. Consistent customer service (even if it was sans-human), an iPhone app and quick turn-around times were a great selling point, but they’re not enough on their own. (I’m apparently lucky enough to live close to a Netflix distrubtion center, so I’d get a new disc a mere day-and-a-half after putting my old one in the mail.) I already have access to the same content at a lower price. I was paying you anyway, because the way you did it offered me value. No longer.

I made this decision before you announced you’re splitting into two companies, and I’m glad I did. It validates this break-up.

Please don’t write. I won’t be sitting by the phone waiting for you to call. Getting a lame “apology” via email a week later just confirms you don’t get it. I’m moving on.

Sincerely,

 
 
Tom Q. Customer

P.S.: Did you see the comics by Joy of Tech and Oatmeal? (h/t Gruber) I think they’ve got you down.

P.P.S: Maybe you’ll lose enough subscribers to come to your senses. Maybe not. The only sensible reason I can see for the company split is to sell either the spin-off or the whole company. Is a studio buying you? It would be a great match for them as you’ve got the distribution network and (flagging) subscriber pool in place. The DVD-by-mail business might be a great acquisition for GameFly—but they already charge much more than you do.

P.P.P.S: You have your own hashtag: #DearNetflix

Gregory, T. A. (2011). Transactional Cost Economics and Directions for Relational Governance Research. Paper presented at the 14th Southern Association for Information Systems Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
http://sais.aisnet.org/2011/Gregory.pdf

SAIS isn’t the most prestigious conference, but it’s a start.

(This is not my first published article—I’m part of a team that published at HICSS in 2010.)

A quick Google showed a history of COM Exceptions and EndNote. The most helpful was an old blog post comment suggesting I delete ~/Library/Preferences/com.ThompsonEndnote.plist.

I closed both applications, deleted the file, and voilà, no more problems.

For the record, I don’t like EndNote. I get to use it because that’s what our advisor wants. Before this paper, I’d been using Sente, a Mac-only app that is actually usable and intuitive.

I booked on Priceline.com. I needed to be in Atlanta for a day, so flew in late last night via Frontier Airlines.

On the first leg of the trip (with Frontier partner, United), the flight left 20 minutes late because a computer failure required all baggage to be processed manually. Fortunately, the pilot was able to make up the time (and then some) on the way to Denver.

On the second leg of the trip (Denver to Atlanta, on Frontier), the flight was delayed more than an hour for “weather reasons,” although no other flight into Atlanta, both from the same airline and from any other airline was delayed out of Denver. When questioned, Atlanta locals admitted there was some light rain that morning, but nothing that should have caused delays. After boarding, we sat on the tarmac for another hour waiting to take off while the pilot got clearance from the tower. We got in about two-and-a-half hours late.

Frontier Airlines cancelled my return flight, and didn’t tell me until I arrived at the airport. The agent at the counter said it was due to mechanical reasons. They claimed to have contacted the hotel I was staying at, but I had checked out in the morning—I was staying only the single night, after all. Although I had provided my contact information to Priceline.com, the airline was only given my hotel number. Frontier had no later flights, and they refused to provide a ticket on another airline that was leaving a couple of hours later. I was not offered any compensation for likely hotel charges caused by their inability to properly run an airline.

Checking with Delta (the other carrier who did have a flight running), a one-way ticket would have cost me in excess of $750, due to exorbitant walk-up prices (+ taxes; no love from Delta either). No wonder airlines are never profitable. The marginal cost to get me on that flight would have been negligible, but it seems they would rather do without the extra money than actually provide airline service.

The Frontier Airlines representative gave me the phone number to the airline’s “customer service center.” She neglected to mention they’d closed already. (5:00 pm Mountain. Really?) I had the option of leaving a voicemail to tell them what I think of them, and how I would very much like them to give me money back for not providing the service I paid for. I hung up without leaving a message rather than break into uncontrolled swearing.

I figured maybe Priceline.com might be willing to help out. Nope. After entering my eleven-digit confirmation number and home phone number, the answering agent asked for it all again. (I despise when companies do this—and many companies are guilty. If you require information be keyed in, provide it to the answering agent and stop wasting my time!)

I explained my problem to the agent, who put me on hold for 10 minutes while he “logged the details of my problem into the computer.” Uh-huh. He then came back on the line and told me the hotel fee was non-refundable. WTF? That had nothing to do with my problem. I explained again I was stuck in Atlanta because the airline was clueless, and would like them to find me a way home. More waiting. I finally got a warm hand-off (at least he got that part right) to a guy who told me the entire thing was non-refundable (even when it was the fault of the airline—federal consumer protection laws be damned), and that they would do nothing for me, not even check to see how much a flight on the other airline would cost me (it might be less than the walk-up rate). At no time did the fact that I paid for a service they were unable to provide factor in to his thinking.

The trouble with this story is that it could have easily been prevented or solved by either company.

Priceline.com: (1) Forward my contact phone number to the airline. The say they tried calling me. They could have only gotten my hotel’s phone number from you–go ahead and give them my actual contact information. It would have been easier. I would have have to cut my meetings short by a few hours, but at least then I might have had some options. It would have prevented the entire snafu. (2) Implement a useful automated answer program. The last thing you want to do is make a frustrated customer irate, and that’s all your system seems to do from my end. (3) Take care of your customer. The airline’s cancellation was beyond my control. Bend over backward to get me out of Atlanta, and not only am I your customer for life, you get a heartwarming story told to everyone about how cool you are. A permanent customer, and some free word-of-mouth publicity for a couple hundred dollars. Instead you get this. I hope it costs more.

Fronteir Airlines: (1) Again, would it really have been that difficult to have put me on another airline? This was your fault, after all. The customer desk agent was polite, and surprisingly helpful, although she maintained a somewhat condescending attitude. Again, is the cost of losing a customer and bad publicity worth the little bit extra it would have cost you to put me on a different airline? You already have my money, after all. (1b) As a second, half-baked make-up attempt to win me back, you can refund my money for the second flight (or provide some other consideration for the inconvenience), but I won’t hold out hope. I have no expectation you will respond with any sort of integrity; you are in the airline business, after all. (2) You may want to consider waiting until after all of your domestic flights have left (or, even better, arrived!) before closing your customer service center. Really.

UPDATE: Frontier cancelled another of my flights on the way home (no explanation), keeping me in Denver for several extra hours, and forcing me to (again) reschedule my transportation home from the airport. It was in Denver that I saw the first smiling Frontier employee of the trip too.

In July and August I was able to finish up work with the startup I’d been developing for, helping them see their first profitable quarter. The long hours hunched over a computer quickly transitioned to long hours studying, as I quit work to go back to grad school full-time.

During these past few months, I’ve been wanting to blog about several things, including:

• Draft legislation [pdf] (as yet unnumbered), as discussed by the Joint Education Interim Committee on 14 Nov, which proposes to make the State Board of Education partisan, and increase its elected membership from 15 to 29 (a bad idea)
• Rubber ducking (aka “Talk to the duck”)
• Prototype, script.aculo.us, and Christophe Porteneuve’s excellent book, which I was privileged to review
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick M. Lencioni, particularly the part about how effective teams encourage controversy

Life threw another curve-ball last week: we learned our three-year-old son, Tobin, has cancer. The response from family, friends, colleagues, and even strangers has been overwhelming. Despite this new trial, I feel truly blessed.

I’ve avoided delving much into personal matters thus far, but I’m gong to break my own rule, and chronicle Tobin’s treatment in future posts. (Subscribe to the Tobin-specific RSS feed .)

I was driving home from a family reunion over the Christmas holiday when someone ran out in front of my car, waving for me to stop. It was dark. I was on the freeway. I swerved, missed him and pulled over immediately. Someone came running up to my car yelling for a phone. It was then that I saw the car off the side of the road, pointing the wrong direction.

Knowing I would be a bit calmer on the phone than the hysterical person screaming for help, I called for an ambulance as I ran over to the car. A young girl, a high school student, was laying face down in the frozen mud. The car had rolled several times, and she had been ejected out of the rear window.

I provided what little help I could, and assisted with CPR as the paramedics arrived. I left that night not knowing whether she would make it. It was only when I returned home the following day that I discovered she had passed away.

The experience messed me up emotionally for the next several days. I didn’t even know the girl; I only later learned her name from news reports. It’s been several weeks since this happened, and I still brood over it. I don’t know that it’s something I’ll ever be completely over.

A primary seat belt law

The accident occurred in a state with a primary seat belt law. Buckling up would have saved her life. The other (buckled) passengers escaped with only minor injuries.

Nearby states with primary safety belt laws have done studies of safety belt usage, and found a significant increase in compliance under a primary enforcement law combined with extensive public awareness campaigns.

I hope the legislature will pass SB36, which would make Utah a primary seat belt state. Some legislators reportedly want more research to be done on whether it would be effective. Other states have already done the work, why should we repeat it? A primary law successfully increases compliance. It saves lives.

Improve public safety campaigns

I have sometimes been negligent about buckling myself in the rear seat, thinking the back seat is inherently safer. No more. I urge those responsible for public safety campaigns will include information about the importance of buckling rear seat passengers.

I can’t begin to comprehend the pain her family is going through. Even as detached as I was, I can’t help but experience depression, wondering what could have been done differently, and why it had to happen to someone so young. I can’t imagine the horror the driver must still feel.

Please, pass a primary seat belt law.

Being without electricity for a short time isn’t a big deal, but the power company estimates it will take about four days to get our neighborhood back on line. The lines weren’t just knocked down, a row of utility poles snapped in half. These pictures were taken here about a block from my house, which was thankfully undamaged. There is similar damage a couple blocks East of me as well.

Pictures were cropped/thumbnailed/rounded with EasyCrop and EasyFrame for OS X.