NetFlix, Pan's Labyrinth and Morality

Have I mentioned lately how much I love NetFlix?  The idea is brilliantly simple: take something people do on a irregular basis (rent movies) and turn it into a subscription service.  And much like the much-lauded TiVo, they don't stop at selling you a product/service.  They keep the experience going and that's what's drawn people in as fans as much as paying customers.

For example, when I first started with NetFlix, I noticed that the emails I got telling me that my next movie was in the mail always got the delivery date wrong.  They said it would arrive on Wednesday and it was there on Tuesday.  A simple enough mistake--I guess my post office is a little more efficient than they thought.  And how could I honestly expect them to accurately predict how long it would take the USPTO to deliver that little red paper envelope?  But then they did something simple--they asked me when I got my movie.  They followed-up with an email asking "did you get your movie on Tuesday or Wednesday?"  After telling them a couple of times they suddenly were able to predict, with almost 100% accuracy, when my next movie would land in my box.

Simple.  Participation.  Rather than spend time and money trying to reverse-engineer the government entity that carries around letters, they asked for my help.  They got great data and a more engaged customer.

Next, I got a completely unexpected and unprecedented email.  They lowered the cost of my subscription.  I don't know why, and I don't care.  It wasn't much--something like $.50 a month.  But when was the last time you got a bill where they said they lowered your payment?

Lastly, they are on the cutting edge of content delivery over the Internet.  They've introduced "Watch Instantly" where I can--you guessed it--instantly watch movies from their catalog.  I demo'd it at the office the other day and it took 30 seconds from the time I opened my browser until I was watching a DVD-quality episode from season 2 of The Office.  Oh, and it's free.

So, the other night I was watching Pan's Labrynth on "Watch Instantly".  (and with my Media Center PC hooked-up to my TV, it was honestly a better experience and higher-quality than if I'd rented the DVD)  I don't know if it was the Negro Modelo I was drinking, but I had an idea and am wondering what everyone thinks about it.

Is morality simply a combination of love and empathy?  Are your good morals built from a lifetime of reactions to situations that happened to those you love and an extension of those situations to those around you in an empathetic fashion?

Anyway, it was a thought.  Feel free to tell me it's a not-very-well-thought-out idea or even that's it's been thought of before and as quickly dismissed.  It just seemed to fit.