Source: The Neflix Blog
Netflix used to be such a smart company. They’ve always been on the cutting edge. Then recently, they split their plans and increased prices. As a result, customers started to head for the hills. Their response… TAKE THE SPLIT ANOTHER STEP FURTHER?!?!
Instead of appeasing unsatisfied customers, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has announced they will completely separate the streaming service and DVD service by splitting them into two different companies with two different websites. Here’s some of the idiocy from the announcement:
…we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently. It’s hard for me to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary and best: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”.
We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name “Netflix” for streaming.
Qwikster?? You’ve gotta be kidding me Netflix. At least there’s one small silver lining on the Qwikster front:
One improvement we will make at launch is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, and now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done.
That sounds promising, but there’s still a problem with that paragraph. It’s the “upgrade option” portion. So… it’s going to cost more to get video games even though the odds are that I’ll be holding onto one for longer than a movie and it means less shipping and processing for you?? Me no likey.
The announcement then continues on with this little gem:
A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated. So if you subscribe to both services, and if you need to change your credit card or email address, you would need to do it in two places. Similarly, if you rate or review a movie on Qwikster, it doesn’t show up on Netflix, and vice-versa.
Nooooooooo!! Seriously?? You had such a great thing going. The last thing anyone wants in the digital age is MORE STEPS. It’s the opposite of efficiency.
If all of this isn’t torture enough to read, you can hear it right from the mouths of the foolish ones themselves.
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