If you weren't sure that NetFlix wants out of the DVD business...
You haven't read the CEO's own article about the DVD/Streaming split. I mean, you have a company with a household name - Netflix is basically a verb now, it's still best known for breaking through on by-mail DVD rental - and what you'll do is, see, you split the original business you don't want (shipping DVDs) off from the new business (streaming), and then you rename the original service that made your company a household brand... "Qwikster"? I mean, you're renaming your non-internet model something that sounds like a random-buzzword generator's one-off mishmash of Napster and Twitter?
And then, of course, you register the new name as a domain, and make people use that for the old service, to completely split the two businesses. Which are currently nicely integrated in a strong synergy. Such that when I look up a title, if I can't stream it, I know I can still rent it. And if I have it in my queue for shipping, and they later get the rights to stream it (Breaking Bad, I'm looking at you), I can take it off my shipping queue and watch it from my streaming queue. And if I find that I'd rather get the DVD, see if it has the special features, a commentary, etc, etc... I just click. In other words, they're going to take a symbiotic dynamic that serves the customer remarkably well, and cut away at it. Whee? How clever?
Seriously, fine, guys, you don't want to ship DVDs any more. I understand that. But until you can offer A) the same range of content streaming, and B) at least vaguely similar options for viewing (subbed vs dubbed foreign films, anyone?), your model is problematic for the people paying your bills.
This blog post originally uploaded at Dreamwidth. I would quite appreciate it if you would comment there, either with your own DW account, or OpenID.
others already have.
And then, of course, you register the new name as a domain, and make people use that for the old service, to completely split the two businesses. Which are currently nicely integrated in a strong synergy. Such that when I look up a title, if I can't stream it, I know I can still rent it. And if I have it in my queue for shipping, and they later get the rights to stream it (Breaking Bad, I'm looking at you), I can take it off my shipping queue and watch it from my streaming queue. And if I find that I'd rather get the DVD, see if it has the special features, a commentary, etc, etc... I just click. In other words, they're going to take a symbiotic dynamic that serves the customer remarkably well, and cut away at it. Whee? How clever?
Seriously, fine, guys, you don't want to ship DVDs any more. I understand that. But until you can offer A) the same range of content streaming, and B) at least vaguely similar options for viewing (subbed vs dubbed foreign films, anyone?), your model is problematic for the people paying your bills.
This blog post originally uploaded at Dreamwidth. I would quite appreciate it if you would comment there, either with your own DW account, or OpenID.
others already have.