Brad Ideas - More on Peerflix experiences - Comments

Actually

brad — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 23:46:20 -0700

Peerflix has always credited me for bad disks I received, though they were more obviously bad than "stops playing after 44 min" though the latter is actually more frustrating.

That it is just the disk and no case I think is pretty clearly laid out (especially since until recently almost all people started by putting disks in, not by buying them.) The postage is a usually a single stamp, so how can half.com be lower?

But yes, you do take the risk of a bad disk and having to file a claim, which is a pain. That you don't get the case is considered a feature, to keep mailing costs down.

Peerflix is a risky gamble

Stan — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 15:32:42 -0700

I purchased Casino Royale from Peerflex without having done much discovery such as this site. 1) I didn't get the case or art work; 2)the postage charged was 10% more than half.com or amazon.com despite less weight because of the lack of a case; 3) the discs were both all scratched up (no opportunity to determine ahead of time the quality of the purchase such as "like new" to take advantage of; and 4) the disc failed to play past 44 min. due to pixelization before coming to a complete stop; 5) Peerflix never responded to my complaints of the above and apparently do not hold themselves or their participants responsible if you get shafted. STAY AWAY FROM PEERFLIX unless you are a fool who likes to gamble.

Peerflix's real problem is...

Tysto — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 21:32:38 -0800

Peerflix's real problem is a complete inability to control supply. It's a great idea to provide a place for people to trade DVDs, but there's no way to actually enforce trading. I joined hoping to get rid of several disks I never liked much but which were pretty popular films (Pleasantville, Princess Mononoke). Requests snapped them up immediately, and I dutifully sent them off. But the movies that I want are almost all backlogged as "long wait." That makes sense: movies that are popular are good enough to keep. The person requesting Pleasantville will PROBABLY like it enough to keep it.

What I didn't count on was that even not-so-popular movies have a lopsided supply-demand ratio because even tho people only want to watch them once, NO ONE wants to actually BUY them in the first place. So one guy somewhere bought Venus in Furs and entered it on Peerflix, and now 40 other guys want to see it but have to wait one at a time.

I had hoped that I could trade, say, Help Wanted Female for ViF because the guy who entered ViF probably wants to watch HWF once and would pass it on. But that's clearly not the case. It's clear now that people merely want to trade disks they don't want for disks they do want and then keep them, meaning they are no longer in circulation but are, for the most part, still in Peerflix's inventory as available for trade. Since there's no obligation to pass disks on, Peerflix has no way to ensure their supply.

The only solution, I suppose, is to raise the value of a DVD when requests start to pile up for it. If a disk is worth 4 peerbux instead of 2, some who are holding on to it will be more tempted to put it back into circulation.

Lala.com is similar to

Anonymous — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 08:06:47 -0800

Lala.com is similar to peerflix. Instead of DVDs they trade CDs.
They have a very open community. You can even contact other members. It's great to see what others are listening to.

Bidding vs. fixed, broad currency range and open community

Gyoza — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 10:17:58 -0800

Hi Brad,

I find these posts and comments very interesting.
Reading through these posts and looking at the different sites the I had to think about the following points:
* Fixed prices vs. bidding/Public user rating- Peerflix fixed prices make it easy to list DVDs and ask for them. However, often users will experience that a pretty new title gets only 2 peerbux like an old one. Allowing people to set their own prices when they offer a DVD would create more 'realistic' prices. If your DVD is not requested you might want to lower it one point and thus be able to send it more quickly. So, I think, it would make trading more efficient. On the other hand, it would be difficult to send the request to a maximum number of people offering it. The request would get sent only to the group of people offering it for the same price. In case it is only one person and that person is for example on holidays the request might be left unanswered. On the other hand, it might be a good idea to show who is offering the DVD for what price, implement a user rating and having users choose who will send the DVD.

* Broader range of bux- When you look at DVD prices there seem to be four ranges vs. the three peerflix has. Wouldn't there be a fairer price setting for DVDs with a range of 1-4 or even 1-5 peerbux?

* Friends- This community on Peerflix is pretty limited. You cannot even email other friends. I guess the reason is to prevent trades outside of peerflix for free. Still, for a community to provide utility for members it's better to offer more information and means of communication. So, why not allow members to search for other members and have everyone join the community.

What do you think?

Not so bad as that

brad — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 00:41:52 -0800

One of peerflix's problems come from the fact that they don't easily distinguish between a movie you have but are not yet ready to send out (because you haven't watched it, or watched all the special features you want) and a movie that is ready to go at any time. So they may mark a movie as available but in fact nobody is ready to send it, and you don't get it.

I presume once you get a movie it is marked as in your collection but probably not queued up first thing (even if you watch it the night you get it.)

What a disappointment Peerflix continues to be

Mark Knecht — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 06:50:11 -0800

In my continual experimental role with Peerflix I've purposely left my account with 3 Peerbux, a credit balance of $1.98, and a single request for a movie costing 2 Peerbux and which is marked available. Should be fillable, right? After waiting now 2 1/2 months the request has not been filled.

At this point it seems clear to me that Peerflix doesn't let you use up your credits, I suppose out of fear that customers will go away when our credits are down to 0. I know I can get the $1.98 back (big deal) if I close my account, but you cannot get the Peerbux back in any form so it seemed interesting to see how the company treats you in this case.

I currently have 248 movies in their system and requests to send 105. Probably if I sent one or two movies Peerflix would send me one pretty much immediately and I'd be more in the hole. What a joke this system is. It's really just a scam to get movies out of your control. Fortunately I traded all the dogs early and am left with a pretty good collection. Out of the 105 mailing requests there are 4-5 I wouldn't mind getting rid of, but what's the point if you get nothing in return.

Scam, scam, scam....

Mark

Peerflix Alternative

Dale Smithey — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 12:26:31 -0800

There is an alternative to peerflix, it's called GatorPond. Unlike peerflix where you are only restricted to dvd's and pay per trade... at GatorPond you get UNLIMITED tradind of not only dvd's, but you can trade vhs tapes, music cd's, and video games. It's month-to-month, so no commitments or contracts. They use paypal. Visit GatorPond.com for details and use REFERRED BY: DALE SMITHEY on the sign-up page.

Thanks,
Dale Smithey
GatorPond.com

I did not mean to imply an

brad — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 21:24:10 -0800

I did not mean to imply an insurance company would be involved. You would not need or want one to insure the DVDs for the users. To be more clear, I refer to an insurance policy that tells users that they will be made good if they get a bad DVD. How much it costs to insure this (to the company, not some insurance company) depends on the fraud frequency. My judgement is that while clearly based on your report people in peerflix are sending bad DVDs, the overall percentage is low or I would be hearing a lot more about it. If it’s low, then the cost of making it right is low.

As a user, the things are want are: * Low cost * Low hassle * Wide selection of DVDs * Quick delivery of the next DVD after I’m done with one.

Now netflix offers everything but the first — low cost, and they tend to be quick on delivery, though I have seen Peerflix be faster (ie. get a DVD the very next day after turning one in.) Peerflix is low cost but more hassle, and suffers in selection. On quick delivery, they are entirely erratic. As noted, it can be one day, or it can be 8 months from the time you are done with a low-demand DVD to the time somebody takes it and gives you the peerbux to get the next one.

This is a renter’s perspective more than a trader’s. Of course, there is demand for both those perspectives.

Your system appears to offer low cost, possibly similar hassle but possibly lower, somewhat slower delivery, more complex web interface.

If I wanted to put a modestly computer savvy person into a system, it would probalby have to be netflix for now. Peerflix is really only good for people who are at their computer all the time. Your system I can’t yet judge, but I fear the bid/ask system is more than such users would want to hassle with. They just want to pick movies, watch them, send them back and get new ones, not worry about prices.

CINEXCHANGE

Chris — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 20:49:27 -0800

Dear Brad,

You obviously don't know us, otherwise you wouldn't suspect us to let peerflix users with fakes. Not only we sent 10 days later (to leave some room for peerflix follow-up) an explanation letter with the official DVD, but we added an extra free DVD to compensate. The weird part is we never received any complaint from any of these 5 users within these 10 days, directly or through Peerflix.

But let me tell you how even this idea came to my mind ... : i've been first a victim of such a fraud (within peerflix) myself 3 months ago and decided to claim, with no response from peerflix. That's what decided us to test a bit further this weakness of peerflix and see if it was an isolated case. Unfortunately not.
And we don't consider ourselves as a competitor of Peerflix, since we're not profit oriented and act on an open-source basis. Our goal is to build a reliable trading platform to benefit the most possible number of users, completely for free, wasn't that the true initial spirit of internet ?
Now, to answer about the fraud-risk, believe me, no insurance company would ever cover such a risk at a decent price. We're left with the same question : how reliable, loyal and honnest will be the traders ? It seems to become an under-estimated issue for Peerflix and we're still brainstorming and collecting ideas everywhere to find the most efficient solution.

Many thanks again, Brad, for letting us using this tribune, it's gonna help us build a better trading platform and satisfy user more accurately.

Yikes

brad — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 00:52:28 -0800

All I can say is, I hope you mailed each of those people you sent a bootleg to a real copy a few days later, along with some money. I understand testing Peerflix anti-fraud, but would not, I hope, abuse the members, nor make them get a negative view of Peerflix because you choose to act badly deliberately within your competitor.

As for senior traders, I can't see myself wanting to do something like that but perhaps some would. Whether it works depends on the volume of fraud. I've seen none in Peerflix myself. If frauds are less than 1 in 50, say, it seems more practical to just make good the frauds from an insurance fund rather than handle the cost of checking out and delaying all disks. If frauds are 1 in 10, checking is needed.

CINEXCHANGE

Chris Banach — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 19:14:11 -0800

Hi Gary,

First, many thanks for your feedback on cinexchange concept. We think your idea of building trusted relationship with users who can become 'senior traders' is great, and could help making our project better and much more efficient than Peerflix.
We could even push your idea a step further, in a slightly different direction though, in order to alleviate the verification burden from our shoulders...
How about the idea of using the 'senior traders' (ST) as ultimate third-party verifiers ? In other words, after some time of operation, we'll offer the most active and reliable traders the chance to become a 'senior trader'. Then, we could name one ST in each state to begin with, and eventually narrow that by each county and ultimately each large city (let's dream).
Each Senior Trader would have now the burden to verify a movie sent by user A to user B (with the appropriate additional stamp provided by user A). We'll select the ST living the closest to User-B's address, in order to shorten delivery time between ST and user B.
On the other hand, the ST will benefit from being able to retain each received movie (and watch it if he wants to) for 24h (for example) before shipping it forward to user B. The ST will act as a guarantor, checking that the movie sent by user A is OK, otherwise he would resend it instead back to user-A with a pre-printed note saying something like "Sorry, but this is not the movie requested by user-B" or "it's a fake, you'll be banned from cinexchange" etc ...
In this scenario, we're still facing the downside you mentioned about risking some USPS delivery issue (twice the risk of lost mail), but as long as there's a sender address, i think this is really the least of the potential risks, especially compared to the fraud issue Peerflix is already facing, or somehow encouraging by not actively fighting it.
Beleive me, we've tested Peerflix and actually sent voluntarily 5 'made-in china' illegal copies through Peerflix, just to seee what would be their reaction... : so far, nothing ! Not even a warning ! Worse : we actually could trade-in legal DVDs instead ! If we could do it, that means anyone could ! That means they're either not taking care of users complaints or closing their eyes as long as they make profit selling $0.99 trades. But i can't believe the peerflix users who received our illegal copies could all 5 not complain at all. At least one user has surely complained. And it was obvious they were illegal copies, the DVD were even with chinese titles on covers and very poor quality screeners. It's by the way very easy to purchase these copies on the net, and i wonder why google or yahoo accepts these companies to advertize through Overture !!! Just enter the keywords 'buy DVD' and you'll find at least one company offering movies with release dates due in 2 months !!!
By the way, that's also a weakness of Peerflix, or a proof of their fraud encouragment : they accept to reference movies in 'DVD i have' section, even though the release date is later than today! How can that be, hu ?!!! How can a user legally own a DVD that's not even out on the stores shelves yet ?!!! Just try to enter any coming-soon-movie in your have-list and you won't face any problem with Peerflix!!!
With Cinexchange, we don't even show up any coming soon movie in our browse list, exactly to prevent such a fraud ...
Let us know what you think about the above idea and check also updates on our cinexchange blog.
And if you're still undecided between Movie Rental and Trade DVD or Game Swap, make sure to visit www.cinexchange.com first (as early as march 2006), before signing-up with Peerflix or Netflix.
Many thanks for reading us and to Brad Templeton for this very interesting thread, helping us in serving the DVD trader community better !

Peerflix and Activation Fees

Jayson — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 16:09:03 -0800

I recently attempted to activate my Peerflix account through a PayPal virtual debit card. It said I failed, after 3 attempts, and I figured I can't do it, so I forgot about it. 3 days afterwards, I was charged 4.95 per activation, even though it failed, and I just lost 15.00 USD because of activation fees. I emailed them, and they said they had no records of them charging my Peerflix account, even though my email received 3 messages from PayPal saying I was charged 4.95, for a total of 3 times. My account balance also reflects this. I emailed Peerflix twice now since their last response, and have got no replies. Methinks they are doing the following: a) Extremely behind on replies, b) Ignoring me completely, and not going to refund me, c) Technical difficulties. I am leaning more towards b), just because I have been waiting for quite some time now.

Cinexchange

Gary — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 20:05:28 -0800

Chris, you have some nice ideas. I like the idea of paying two stamps for a dvd. The whole concept sounds great. I think as your service grows you'll probably be overwealmed by opening, testing and resending dvds. Thats very labor intensive. You may alleviate some of this by having senior members. These can be members who have earned your trust via a number of criteria you establish. You may give people the choice of using a senior member to get the dvd to them a couple days sooner or if its more important to them to go through the two stamp method.

By handling the dvds you double the ones lost in the mail (one change of being lost from the shipper to you, another chance from you to the buyer). By establishing a membership category of senior traders, you cut that in half again.

It's your system

brad — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 10:39:24 -0800

I’m just making predictions. Your cost is 78 cents per trade (two stamps) plus the downsides of advertising, theirs is $1.39. I personally don’t see a large difference, and depending on how those advertising downsides play out, I might like the Peerflix higher price better. With Peerflix I’ve gotten disks one day after asking, which you can’t do. I really think you’re overestimating the credit card fear. Do you have studies suggesting this is major barrier to adoption of netflix or other services?

Of course there are those who like to own movies and those who just want to watch them. I’m mostly in the latter camp, but my volume is low so Peerflix or cinexchange is more economical than netflix.

My point about the complexity of Netflix is not about the movie choice interface, which one can always do a little better. I could set up my computerphobe mother with Netflix if I wanted. One guided session of picking a stack of movies, and after that all she has to know is, “When you are done, stick the movie in the mailer, you don’t have to even turn the comptuer on.” That interface is hard to beat. You could do that on popular movies, if you were willing to let people mail them without confirmation of a buyer.

It would work like this. If a movie is trading briskly, such as a new release, the mailer it comes in could have a card in it saying, “If you would like to trade this movie at market price before , just stick it in the mailer and return it to us. No need to go to the computer.” Peerflix can’t do that, Cinexchange can.

I agree trading and bidding and asking can be fun, as can haggling in a market in Beijing. But eventually you realize, “it’s just a dvd” and you don’t want to spend mental engergy on it. In cinexchange, you will find yourself buying a movie high and selling low sometimes if you don’t put a lot of attention into it. A few obsessive people will make minimum wage buying low and selling high. This in effect will generate a higher cost per trade than 78 cents.

(I’m not a giant fan of the make your own envelope system peerflix has moved to. It’s just another cost to me in terms of extra time.)

I remain convinced a semi-trading system is better, where the person who introduces a dvd into the system eventually has to take it back if nobody else wants to keep it. This encourages the introduction of valuable DVDs into the system, and eliminates the problems of getting stuck with a DVD you just wanted to watch, not own. But again, for me, I mostly want to watch them, not own them. I think all users however have some DVDs they want to own, and some they want to just watch. Peerflix (and I presume cinexchange) don’t offer that choice, though with cinexchange you can be rid of it at a loss.

eBay has a very large selection of movies, far larger than Peerflix or Cinexchange. If eBay wanted to do work to streamline the “trading” of movies, they could effectively build a better cinexchange. Movies in the trading pool would have a fixed shipping price (60 cents for single disk only, more for multi-disk, and a bit more and slower — media mail — for disk with case if available.) There would be no time-wasting reserve auctions and every auction would have a buy it now with an auto-caculator to help set it based on past sales.

Such a system could outdo peerflix and cinexchange since it could use the eBay reputation to assure disk quality, a leg-up eBay has over everybody else. And here you are not trading for peerbux or cinexchange points, it’s plain old cash, whose value is well understood.

When it comes to a market system, the best way to get fair prices is to have the largest market with the most sellers and buyers. eBay is way ahead of everybody here.

More on Peerflix experiences

brad — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 11:36:04 -0700

Earlier I reported on Peerflix, which is implementing a P2P DVD sharing system with similarities to some of my own ideas. I have tried it out a bit now, and learned a bit more. I also have updated experiences with Peerflix.

The web site is marked beta and still very buggy, which is bad, but my first try on the service was first-rate. I mailed off my first DVD, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, on Wednesday to somebody in San Jose (who almost surely got it today) and got the replacement for it — by strange coincidence another memory-related movie called Memento in the mail today. That is faster than most of the services, though people like Netflix could be this fast if they decided to take the same step and trust you when you said you mailed a disk, rather than waiting for it to arrive.

All this is good, but there’s still a killer flaw in the idea of actually selling the DVDs. All DVDs will have a limited lifetime of high-demand. As demand drops below supply, somebody holding the DVD at that time will get “stuck” with it, though you can fix that by being fast on the draw in agreeing to be the one to mail any new requesters that do come along.