If you weren't sure that NetFlix wants out of the DVD business...

[smarriveurr]

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

Comments

[firynze]

I absolutely adore the fact that Netflix is basically doing everything possible to take the juggernaut it's built and utterly destroy it.

Incidentally, they don't have the rights to the Qwikster Twitter handle. Oops, nice one, branding team.

[smarriveurr]

I think the idea is that they've actually got a new juggernaut in the streaming service that's would have to drag around the ever-increasing dead weight of the DVD service. So they cut the service loose and changed the name so that when the stock prices inevitably plunge, they won't affect NFLX. All of which is understandable from the CEO's point of view, and irrelevant to me as a customer paying more for two services that do less as a whole than did the old one.

Giving it a dumb name already belonging to a ludicrous stoner was just part of shooting the horse, to mix metaphors. Because unlike a horse, a DVD shipping operation requires access to many different easily-ruined discs, regardless of where they are located.

[firynze]

Oh, no, that's exactly what they're doing. They're purposefully attempting to destroy the service, and in such a way so that they can claim it's not a failure of Netflix, but rather of "this new commercial era."

Thing is? They could've done that without pissing off the customers. The Gap Group has integration across five sites, allowing you to shop from any of them with one cart. You should not have to maintain separate, unequal queues, which is the biggest complaint.

*sniggers at unlike a horse*

[smarriveurr]

Well, in a way, it's really not a failure of Netflix, it's a business reality. Managing that DVD library in DCs around the country, shipping costs, damage, etc... all you need for streaming is licenses and servers. It costs more than customers will be willing to pay in an on-demand world. And I get that. So making it more painful is their way of killing it earlier rather than later, and I think removing the integration is to put pressure on companies that won't sign off on streaming - I think I finally get it. It's so you can say "By the way, if you don't give us streaming rights, your shows do not appear for rent on Netflix.com anymore.

All in all, it seems slapdash still, and bad for the customer. But I get it.

And as soon as the lame horse comment came up, I knew I had to do a shout-out right after. Especially when it fit so perfectly...

Oh I was already sure...

[ladymockingbird]

Streaming is the wave of the future. But I really liked the convenience of having both queues right in the same place.

So, I canceled my account last night and switched to blockbuster's DVD by mail service.

Re: Oh I was already sure...

[smarriveurr]

Good luck with it - I had way more trouble with Blockbuster before I swapped than I've had with Netflix since. Discs sitting at the top of the queue for literally a year, discs arriving unplayable all the time... big part of the reason I switched.