Be Kind and Rewind – or Pay Up
LOS GATOS, Calif. – Netflix announced on Monday that they will soon begin charging users a $1 fee if they fail to rewind a video after watching it. This fee applies not just to streaming services, but DVD and Blu-Ray rentals as well.
“Our call centers have been overrun with complaints from customers who’ve attempted to view movies from the beginning, only to find videos starting midway through,” said public relations manager Stephanie Meriwether. “We didn’t think this was possible, but we had our movie scientists look into it, and they confirmed the problem is caused by users failing to rewind videos, thereby leaving the movie at some random point when the next user goes to watch it.”
“We had to hire a team dedicated specifically to rewinding DVDs and streaming videos,” Meriwether continued. “This $1 penalty will help recoup that cost without further raising monthly fees for our more responsible customers.”
Netflix is already rolling out a $1 increase in monthly fees for its most popular plan, and insists the two increases aren’t related.
When asked about this penalty, many Netflix customers were baffled.
“Is this an April Fool’s joke?” asked one user. “Or some lame attempt at humor that you’ll find on some unknown chick’s quote unquote ‘satire’ blog?”
Another was determined to step up her BE KIND, REWIND game.
“I remember my mom telling me once about machines that did nothing but rewind videos,” said Dakota Masters, 20. “I guess I’ll look into getting one of those, because I really don’t want to wear out the rewind button on my remote.”