What's with the green Netflix envelopes? Hacking Netflix thinks it's because of the Shrek 2 promotion, but it's not just Shrek Green, it's Bright Neon Green.
In related news, they have been hideously slow receiving and shipping movies in their Santa Ana distribution center lately. Movies are taking 2-3 days to be received there and ~2 days to get here where it used to be 1-2 days for them to receive it and 1 day for us to get it.
If you're on the west coast, you really should consider Greencine. I'm in NYC, but the selection of indie and foreign films is so much better I switched.
http://www.greencine.com/
The delays are what caused me to quit Netflix after being a charter subsciber. I still had a 4-movie subscription for 15 bucks a month, but it took so long for the movies to go back and forth (up to a week) that I rarely got to see more than about 6 movies a month.
I signed up for NetFlix about 3 weeks ago and it took about 1-2 days each way for the first couple weeks. I am in Los Angeles. Now that I am outside my free trial window, I have noticed that it is taking a bit longer. I had assumed that it was because they only treat new customers well, but if this is a change for old customers, too, then my theory may be broken.
I am in Los Angeles as well and not only have I noticed the Santa Ana center returning and receiving slower - my last 8 movies, returned over three different days, were "lost" in the mail after I returned them. They put my account on hold for 9 DAYS after i reported them lost, and only took me off once I called them three times. The conspiracy theorist in me wonders what's up since this all occurred just a week after I changed my plan from 8 at a time to 3 at a time. I wasn't receiving them fast enough to warrent the extra cost of the 8 plan. Netflix is looking fishier and fishier.
I, too was thrown by the green envelopes. I'm a GreenCine subscriber (they've always had green envelopes) and my roomies are still with Netflix. I'd already started a support thread with GreenCine on why they sent me a copy of Old School instead of the original DVD of Hero before I figured out I'd opened my roomies' flick by accident.
I think it's a conspiracy against GreenCine!
I've been a Netflix subscriber since September, 2003, very happy with it. I care about having a large selection, especially of intelligent or weird films, but I'm not overly obsessed with turnaround time. Currently my turnaround (I live in Boston, an hour from their nearest distribution center in suburban Worcester, MA) is four days. That is, I mail back a DVD on Monday, by Tuesday they've received it, by Wednesday they ship the next one, and by Thursday, I receive it. I believe sometime during 2004 they shifted from shipping DVDs the same day they received them back (Tuesday in my example) to shipping them the next day (Wednesday in my example). Since I'm more concerned about quality than monitoring which day exactly do I get my film, I'm still happy with Netflix. And the recent price drop to $17.99/month has been nice, too! I reason that as long as the selection is deep and the website streamlined and film-focused, a four-day turnaround is not bad. Maybe even it's a good thing in that it encourages me to do more things with my evenings than watch DVDs!