My Infiniti has an analog clock with two adjustment buttons, one moves it forward, the other back.
- a dishwasher with a status display
My previous dishwasher (a kitchenaid, I believe) had a light that indicated the dishes were clean. My current one (a bosch) does not. It's a downgrade that we didn't notice when purchasing.
- a garage door opener with one button
We have one of these from Chamberlain. That said, I go for the "more complex" solution of programming the buttons that are built into our daily drivers.
I have a Canon S90 and couldn't be happier with it. It had fewer megapixels than several other, cheaper cameras, but use is bearing out that the reviews were correct... they're fewer, but they're better.
The accusation was that if you were an exceptionally heavy user of the service, they'd start taking 2 or 3 days to send your next movie after you returned one.
That said, I'm not sure what the threshold was, because I was a very heavy user during that time and I never hit the problem. As such, whatever the threshold was, it was high.
1) Customer Acquisition Costs. I'd be surprised if NetFlix pays more than $20-30 per customer. Dating websites have a lot more competition and are probably closer to $50/customer.
2) Lifetime Value. Customers of dating websites are transient, there only for a matter of months. As such, their lifetime value is not particularly high (I'd guess something in the $150 neighborhood). Netflix customers have long lifetimes (I've been a customer since 2000, with no intention of quitting) which adds up to a LOT of value.
3) Customer Price Elasticity. Dating websites are catering to people who will spend many hundreds of dollars on dates in their pursuit of happiness. $30/mo is a drop in the bucket if it helps increase your odds of finding that somebody. Netflix charges between $10 and $30/mo, depending on your plan, which is comparable to the cost of a few premium channels on cable, which is a cost their customers are accustomed to paying.
4) Price as value. If Netflix is more expensive, it does nothing to help you, it just costs more. If Match.com is more expensive, then the people on the site are likely to treat it a bit more seriously, which can make it a better product for some.
It's all about trusting that other people have decent understanding of whether or not an interruption is warranted.
I don't have the sort of wife who interrupts me during work hours or whilst on business trips with trivial things, so I can trust that if she initiated such a call she believes that I'll be glad I was interrupted. The question about the dog would most certainly arrive via email.
As to your other point, I worked with a lot of people over the years, and if I trusted their judgment then I picked up their calls whilst at home. If they had a track record of calling me with non-urgent items that would've been better dealt with at a later point in time, they went to voicemail which I listened to at my convenience.
So truly, if you're offended when I answer my wife's calls, that's your problem.
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edit: real life addendum. When my wife's father died while I was on a business trip, she not only didn't call me, she tried to pretend nothing was wrong when we talked that night, because she felt it was more important that I be 100% on my game for the final day of my trip, than that she have my comfort a day early.
There are some people who are thoughtless about the impact they have on their partner's careers. My wife is not one of them.
If she called me during your utterly ridiculous hypothetical scenario, it would be because of something equally ridiculous. Perhaps she found out you're a hitman.
So again... if you're bothered by my wife calling you, that's your problem. Deal with it.
As far as I can tell, Scribd's primary business model is monetizing pirated content.
I agree completely.
The entire system appears designed to take advantage of the fact that users will upload just about anything, and the rights holders have to actively monitor the whole of the internet for each possible infraction to protect their rights.
My Infiniti has an analog clock with two adjustment buttons, one moves it forward, the other back.
- a dishwasher with a status display
My previous dishwasher (a kitchenaid, I believe) had a light that indicated the dishes were clean. My current one (a bosch) does not. It's a downgrade that we didn't notice when purchasing.
- a garage door opener with one button
We have one of these from Chamberlain. That said, I go for the "more complex" solution of programming the buttons that are built into our daily drivers.