Miscellaney, and books

[neadods]

If I'd known I'd be blocked out of email this morning, I'd've checked my mail last night...

Netflix
Netflix members have all received an email saying that they are entitled to a one-month free upgrade, pursuant to a class-action suit. (They're being punished for having only 50,000 movies instead of infinite ones, and for not getting the post office to deliver within 24 hours at all times.) As you can guess, I have little sympathy for the problems of the plaintiff. Netflix has been fine to me and to everyone else I know who uses it - neither superhuman nor all-powerful, but responsive and generally well-run.

Turns out that the lawyers in the case are getting $2.5 million for their part in this frivolous lawsuit.

You can stop the settlement (and the payment of those whopping legal fees, which will show up in your rental prices) by opting out of the settlement, using the instructions here.

Collector's Library
I'm continuing to collect the Collector's Library books; like potato chips, you can't have just one! Turns out that although they're branded as a Barnes and Noble publishing venture, they're made in England and sold on Amazon.co.uk... although oddly, a quick check of a.c.u shows that the British have an edition of Great Gatsby that doesn't show up in Barnes and Noble. Why do the Brits have exclusive access to an edition of an American author? (That's one of the questions I'm going to be asking when my email comes back up - along with some suggestions for titles that I'd really love to see them do - Little Princess and The Custom of the Country to name two.)

PS - Dear LJ. I have pattern memory and tend to like things to stay in the same place. Your new menubar, while nifty, has screwed up my brain and I've already clicked "My LJ" half a dozen times when I'm trying to click the menu that *used* to be there.

Comments

[fandance.livejournal.com]

thanks for posting that link about Netflix. I got the settlement email and seriously wondered if it was a new sophisticated SPAM.

I have no complaint with Netflix and I agree, this was a stupid stunt of a lawsuit.

[stratfordbabe.livejournal.com]

And see, if I hadn't gone over a month without receiving a movie from them because they didn't have any on my 40+ list of requested movies, I might be inclined to agree with you. Unfortunately, after four weeks of getting continual e-mails of "please add more films to your queue so that we might find something that we actually have and send it to you," I left the service. I suspect that most of those who had the same problem did the same thing.

And I'd suspect that this lawsuit grew out of that ... back when Netflix couldn't deliver what they promised. Not that I agree with such a lawsuit, but I do think I should have been credited with the month that they didn't have a single movie I wanted.

This is, unfortunately, what happens when you sign on to a service like that in their early stages -- sounds cool, but has major bugs.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

When was that? Recently?

[stratfordbabe.livejournal.com]

As I said, this was when Netflix was in its early stages. 2000, maybe? And given how long this kind of class action lawsuit takes to move through the courts, I'm almost betting that's what it stems from. Of course, what's sad is that someone like me, who actually deserves a few bucks from that, will get NOTHING, but people who have signed up since it got big and have never had a problem, etc., will get even more than I asked for (I think my monthly charge was $7.99). Instead of giving me (and a few others) their $7.99, they're now going to give how many people how much?

*sigh*

Wish I'd been contacted for that lawsuit. I wonder if former subscribers are going to get a notice in the mail about it?