Analysis of Netflix's DVD Allocation System

Mark Frauenfelder 3:17 pm Tue May 6, 2003

Study concludes that if you want to get a high-demand/low-supply DVD from NetFlix, then don't rent out very many DVDs.

Put it another way, if customer X and Y are both in the 5 disc out plan and X rented 14 discs vs. Y's 11 discs in the previous month, Y would have priority over X when they are both competing for the same movie. A side effect of this is that trial and new customers will have far fewer problems getting movies, especially new releases,
versus the majority of established customers. Essentially these new and low cost customers can "cut in line" ahead of other customers.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Eric!)

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