Interesting to think of this in terms of 37 Signals feature-minimalism and "say no" philosophies. Once added, this feature became a weight netflix had to carry through it's designs and keep working. Netflix chose to listen to the minority of customers and keep it--to not "say no." Would 37 signals have listened or just "said no", I wonder?
I think keeping the feature was a good move--the profiles feature previously stopped me from canceling my account under a barrage of my wife's chick flicks that kept "accidentally" topping the queue. :-)
The threat of losing profiles made my household seriously consider how useful Netflix was for us. Since I'm paring down expenses anyway because of shifting from consultant to startup founder, we decided it wasn't worth it. Cancelled yesterday. I briefly considered re-activating today, but we'll be OK with iTunes.
Netflix's motivation to retain the feature was no doubt out of fear of losing customers rather than any type of benevolence. It would've been a huge gaff for them to lose customers over it; especially considering the strong competition from Apple, Hulu, and the television studios adding to the existing competition from Blockbuster, the cable and satellite providers.
It's interesting that this feature turned out to be important enough to customers that Netflix ultimately decided it was better to keep it, but apparently Netflix wasn't able to see that in its usage.
I think keeping the feature was a good move--the profiles feature previously stopped me from canceling my account under a barrage of my wife's chick flicks that kept "accidentally" topping the queue. :-)