The Netflix API feels like a ghetto. I'm surprised people are still developing apps for it. When you read through comments on its various pages, there isn't a lot of activity.
It's a problem that services like Netflix and Last.fm never consider could happen and when it does they are scrambling everywhere and don't know how to deal with the flames properly, stuff just looks broken. What I have been doing the past year is creating basic html pages for every service I release as an emergency landing page that I easily put up at the press of a button.
Streaming Netflix still works from MAC/PC, but personalized recommendations are absent from the front page.<p>So I think this is a win in terms of decoupled services and degraded mode functionality.<p>I expect they probably pushed out some code too hastily due to the recent licensing hoo-hah with the media companies (and can't just roll back because of said hoo-hah).
Yesterday, a friend called me and wanted my help. Apparently NetFlix wasn't working on his 360, and it kept rejected his password on the PC, even right after he set it. He was in a panic and refused to listen to me that their service was probably having problems.<p>I wonder how long he spent messing with it instead of contacting them, or just listening to me. :D
Success is the intersection of luck and opportunity. Unfortunately, in this case, luck was not on your side. That being said, genius is merely persistence in disguise. Your app very well may recover, but if it doesn't, keep at it and start the next one.