After streaming outage, Netflix wants to give you 23 cents

Of course, you have to be a subscriber. On Tuesday night, Netflix's instant-streaming service was down for a short amount of time, meaning users across the country had to endure a sad, lonely night devoid of Prince of Persia, Practical Magic, and the second season of The Secret Life of the American Teenager. (I have watched all of those on Netflix.) And, in a somewhat surprising move, Netflix is offering all of its users a 3% credit on their next bill, which would work out to about 23 cents per person. Here's what the company said:

Dear User,

Recently you may have had trouble instantly watching TV episodes or movies due to technical issues.

We are sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused. If you attempted and were unable to instantly watch TV episodes or movies yesterday, click on this account specific link in the next 7 days to apply your 3% credit to your next billing statement for your Watch Instantly Unlimited plan. Credit can only be applied once.

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Ready to start watching again? Check out our latest selection.

Again, we apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding. If you need further assistance, please call us at 1-866-923-0898.

-The Netflix Team

Now, 23 cents might not seem like much, but it could cost the company millions. I'll admit that Tuesday night I may have called Netflix "a shitty fucking motherfucker of a service that can suck my balls" because I couldn't watch Veronica Mars and I needed to know who killed Lily Kane. But I'd also had a whole bottle of red wine at that point.

What I'm trying to say is: were people really so upset about this outage that Netflix needs to make amends in such a way? Doesn't shit like this just happen sometimes? Or maybe the company is just trying to come off as the friendliest streaming service around.