Hacking NetFlix : Postmaster General Features Netflix in Presentation

Here’s some follow-up to the question I asked about how much of the post office traffic is Netflix. It’s not specifically the answer I was asking for, but it’s interesting to note. The calculations in this post suggest that 0.3% of the USPS revenue is Netflix, which is certainly not super-significant. I still wonder about this if one skips commercial, perhaps even counting only plain residential post.

The number given for Netflix is 1 million DVDs mailed each day, across 3 million customers. Let’s just say that the average customer has the 3 DVD deal. That’s 9 million DVDs in homes. With 1 million shipping each day, (Is that just out, or two-way, I wonder?) that’s 1 out of 9 in the mail each day. That’s actually less than I thought.

Of course, my pattern is usually to be sending one DVD out a day on my own, but I’ve usually got a couple that I keep for several days. So, I have some high turn over on a some, but keep others longer.

I do get hit by the gap over the weekend when I’m not paying attention. Like this weekend, I may or may not have one DVD on Saturday, but if not then I won’t see it until Tuesday because of the holiday.