jumping on the complaining bandwagon (re Netflix)
Mood: irritated
Posted on 2011-09-19 10:50:00
Tags: rant essay
Words: 243

I woke up this morning and got this email from Netflix. I rubbed my eyes and wondered if I had forgotten about April Fools Day or something.

But no - apparently Netflix is splitting the DVD by mail business into "Qwikster" (note that they don't own the twitter handle, although there is a "coming soon" page at qwikster.com), and the queues between the two services will be totally separate.

This is INSANE. What problem is this solving? The blog post goes on about how businesses are unlikely to move into new markets successfully, and splitting into two companies will help this. But Reed Hastings, the author of the blog post, is the flippin' CEO of Netflix! Is it really so impossible that he couldn't make it happen?

And besides, people were complaining because the price went up, not because you had to pay "extra" for streaming - if they had managed to keep the total price the same, I doubt many people would have complained. I understand that it's harder for them to get good deals on streaming and such, so the price increase didn't bother me that much.

But now I have to manage two different services, and it will cost the same as the new plan that people complained about, and (because I don't care enough to rate movies on both services) my ratings will suffer, and I'll have to check two different places to see if a movie's available. WHO WANTS THIS??

4 comments

Comment from kernelm:
2011-09-19T11:41:21+00:00
The speculation I've heard is that they're going to sell off the DVD side, which I guess makes some sense. Or maybe they're even eyeing having both components sold off, and having them separate makes it more palatable for potential suitors to buy one or the other?

We finally canceled our DVD account because we've had one DVD out from them for like, months. Just never got around to it and streaming is so much more convenient, even if the selection is limited.

Comment from gregstoll:
2011-09-19T15:32:52+00:00
Ooh, that's an interesting idea...hadn't thought of that.

Yeah, I'd imagine every time Netflix does something big, they lose subscribers who are prompted to re-evaluate whether they're getting their money's worth.

Comment from flamingophoenix:
2011-09-20T17:01:41+00:00
This sounds like a job for a Greasemonkey script!

Comment from omega697:
2011-09-21T23:56:24+00:00
I feel the same way. I didn't really care about the price increase, but having to rate movies twice, manage two queues, etc. It's idiotic.

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