Netflix spins off its DVD-by-mail service as Qwikster - Page 2

Imagine that.... content providers jack up the wholesale price, and the retailer (Netflix) is forced to increase the selling price to consumers! Oh lordy, what has this warld come toooo.!

But we will blame Netflix, because we don't know any better and because they have the logo, the catchy name, etc.

We will scream foul when the CEO says hes splitting the company into two distinct entities, not because we ourselves have any knowledge of business (ie the fact that all other Countries besides the US have streaming only and will benefit from said separation).

We, the ignorant manifesties, feverishly looking for the next corporation to attack with our pitch forks and flaming torches.

I say Netflix is just the tip of the iceberg. Lets stick it to the real villains! Like jewelers who tell me I have to pay more for engagement rings because the price of gold, platinum and diamonds has increased! How about the evil grocery stores who increase the price of my most favourtist tasty cheeses when the price of dairy increases!

Let them allllllll buuuurrrrn!

A.K.A. Trixster

I'm sure their thinking was that if they split the brands, then charging for each separately will look better to consumers: "Look, we're not doubling your charge, we're splitting it into two separate charges."


The selection seems to change almost daily, but I generally find plenty of choices. You don't really expect a huge selection of newly released films for what they charge, do you?


AOL was fine until it grew too big for itself and before Internet access became commonplace. Borders had a better magazine selection and had a much better music department with some great listening booths. I discovered a lot of new music their back in the day.

1. Don't be a dick. 2. If unsure, see rule 1.

(Sarcasm = being a dick)

Absolutely - I didn't understand the huge backlash. Most of us have been getting away with effectively paying $2/month for unlimited streaming of content - far less than that service's value, and now people bitch because the cost is going up to what we probably should have been paying in the first place.

If you're so pissed off, dump Netflix, pay for Amazon Prime (which I was happy to do before they offered unlimited streaming as part of the service), and use that instead. The selection is far more limited, but hey, it's a lot cheaper...

Mr. Read. Nice try but you have failed. This has never been a problem of the announcement. There was a value in the combined services, having a single login, having a single search to see what is available on DVD, streaming, or both. I liked when a movie on my DVD list became available for streaming I could clearly see it and remove it from the DVD list.

I didn't see this post as 'being a dick' - I saw it as pointing out why those who have been bitching about the cost of goods going up as being dicks.

Netflix started as DVD rental by mail service, then they added free streaming. Seems more like DVD was subsidizing streaming if anything. And people who want physical media isn't asked to pay more, just pay what they were paying originally before streaming came along and was free.

LOL so just because you have 2 different products, you need 2 different companies? Good god man.

Quitster indeed!

Does Reed Hastings have some sort of substance abuse or bipolar problem we're not aware of? This move - totally severing whatever synergy there was between the delivery and streaming businesses - seems insane.

Telling those of us who made great use of both the delivery and streaming services that our queues, recommendations, ratings and history are now unlinked is like inviting us to go elsewhere.

With this move Netflix has effectively leveled the playing field and brought themselves DOWN to the level of the competition in their individual businesses.

#FAIL.

LOL...talking about "parroting".

Bandwidth caps are coming, in many cases they are already here. Streaming quality doesn't come close to what is available on disc. HD streaming content has even a more limited selection then the pathetic choices of "standard" quality streaming.

I think this announcement is a huge win for Blockbuster. Netflix and their spin off company will be dead in under 3 years.

-kpluck

I'd like to point out two things.

1. This whole thread is riddled with misconception, a lack of education on the subject matter, whining, ignorance and gloating. All actions, deserving an equal and opposite reaction, I have provided a response that is equal (ie poorly written and arrogant sounding) and opposite (full of reason, logic, knowledge of the material at hand).

2. If me using sarcasm constitutes me being a dick, then you sarcastically mocking my sarcastic posts makes you a double dick, or some unnamed organ or appendage that is twice as insulting to use.

Umm, streaming quality DOES come close. Maybe your connection is just too slow. An HD stream looks about as good as HD from my television provider.

The quality alone doesn't justify separating the two things anyways.

Also, where did you hear about a cap on landlines data? I'll lose my shit if Comcast tells me I can't go over a certain amount. Streaming movies and downloading games from Steam alone uses a ton of data :/

Quickster = New Coke = massive fail

"Goodbye Netflix and goodbye Qwikster". Was a great quote earlier in the thread. Oh, lookie here.... I mis-spelled their new company name in my first sentence even after seeing it 30+ times.

What they fail to understand is that I as a customer do NOT want:
Two queues,
Two logins
Two websites,
Two places to update for address, credit card...

I was barely OK with the 60% price hike because I expected Netflix to go out and buy new & better streaming content.

Way to utterly destroy your brand.

Not so sure about that. Netflix can see where their business is going to be in the future and they're doing something other companies don't always do: they're trying to adapt and prepare for the future before a competitor (like Apple) comes in and messes up the party. I can understand the logic behind their move and making changes to stay ahead of this is the right thing to do. I suppose some people may not see this, but the technical aspect of keeping both elements of the company merged would be a significant impediment against the agility and speed which they may require in the future.

As a Netflix customer, though, I'm a bit sour about how they've handled it. I don't like that I'm now paying more money for less features and a less inconvenient product. It makes me a little more eager to ditch them. And Qwikster? Who the hell came up with that? They should be fired and they should correct that mistake before it hurts even more to do so. I think Gruber hit the nail on the head there. What about something like Mailflix? Something which takes on a sense of immediate familiarity with users—something which is only a partial atrocity against the English language.

There is no data cap. Comcast calls it "Excessive Use" and they say it presents no issues for 99 percent of their uses.

Right now I am looking at going amazon and getting rid of Netflix does anyone out there have any suggestions for a Netflix replacement.
Thanks for any help

I think fired might be a little drastic. Maybe demoted to one of the guys that handles licking the envelopes and sending the DVD's out :-)

Who cares? I mean really. I am not upset about this split at ALL. Seriously. Just a bunch of whiners IMHO. Personally, i dropped the DVD service awhile ago. Unlimted streaming of movies for $8 a month is the best deal in town. Having said that, Netflix DOES need to improve it's catalouge of older titles. Especially if streaming is the future. My favorite genre is foreign movies, and their selection is getting pretty slim. I mean they have 6 badly dubbed cheesy Italian Hercules movies, and like ONE Fellini film! Thats insane. Something is wrong with that. Lol. Seriously. Less Hercules Vs The Ninjas, and more Fellini, Truffaut, Kurosawa etc.

Do that, and you have a loyal subscriber.

When i need a new new title....i either go to the Red DVD Kiosk at the supermarket across the stree, or stream it from itunes for $4.99 in a pinch.

Perhaps Netflix will start offering this option in the future.

Personally, if Apple ends up pulling a Netflix and offering reasonable monthly streaming subscriptions...i will jump ship for sure. But until then, Netflix streaming is still a GREAT deal.

DVDs are on their way out. I think when Apple finally releases their optical driveless macbook pros this January...it will be official. :-)

I think those complaining that Netflix is seperating their businesses, are just clinging to the past. Get over it. :-)

how does the disc by mail as a separate business enable you to add games etc?

as press releases go "Netflix Now Offers XBox and PS3 Games by Mail" would be much more effective.

if the two businesses have such different cost structures etc just run them as two wholly owned subsidiaries or something.

hmm, if this trend catches on we'll soon be buying Apple iPhones, Orange iPads, and Banana Notebooks.

I think you have the wrong metaphor. Try this one
"Hi, I'm the largest buggy whip maker in the world. I'm going to stop making buggy whips and focus on the new fangled automobile because they are the future."

Other than for a very short period of time, DVD rentals by mail never made very much business sense. I'm sure Netflix wants to get out of it as quickly as they can.

I do agree that their exit plan has not been excuted at all well.

People have been talking about "bandwidth caps" for many years. There are no such caps where I am, and I really doubt that they're coming any time soon. It would never fly here.

As for the quality issue, Blu-ray is of course great, but DVD is not that great and newer things that get added to Netflix streaming are often in HD, so more and more content will be in HD. A good example of what I mean is when I mentioned that Breaking Bad just got added recently. That's in HD and the quality is vastly superior to DVD. As long as somebody has a decent connection, then the quality of Netflix streaming is pretty darn good.

As for Blockbuster, it'll all depend on their content, and we'll see what they have when it comes out and is available to all. I read that it's only available to Direct TV subscribers to start, so that kind of limits the amount of people that will be getting it right away. If it's better than Netflix, then I'd check it out for sure, we shall see. I see that Blockbuster is getting Starz content, and that right there sounds like a big turnoff for me, especially if they're going to keep the same crappy quality that they had on Netflix.

Agreed. I find little of interest.

And the TV selection is strange - They have some seasons of the series, but not others. It is almost as if they are intentionally telling you that they are not a complete solution.

Yep. When Apple dumped the floppy drive and came out with the Cd-Rom only iMac, I'm sure there were a few people still living in the past, crying about their floppies. Time marches on, and people can either get with it, or be left behind.

That will have to take second place to the HP way of destroying a company.

Not sure what you mean? Netflix has been doing DVD rental by mail for over 10 years and made lots of money doing it. It seems like good business senses.

I do agree that the name Quikster is a lame name. When you think about it, streaming movies is "quicker". Lol.

Who really cares? DVDs are going the way of the dinosaur, and ANY name they come up with, no matter how cool OR goofy, is going to fade into memory anyway.

And whoever suggested "MailFlix"....it sounds like a gay movie company. Lol.

Personally? I would just call it NetflixDVD and leave it at that. Keep it associated with the netflix name, but just let it die a slow death. Heck, even the US post office may go out of business. At the very least go to a 5 day mail delivery week. Bottom line, is that snail mail is a thing of the past. Time to let it go....along with the mock anger towards Netflix of trying to grow with the technological flow.

Again, the only current big Netflix needs to address is increasing the catalouge of older films available to stream. If streaming is the future...and it is....they need to focus on improving that.

I am sure down the road, they will have different streaming packages. But for now, if all they got is one option....they need to make it better by adding more classic titles.

This isn't actually Reed Hastings' fault. It's this guy's fault: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziOpcodkupw

A non-tech person, buys a dvd player and notices Netflix installed. They then go to the website to sign up and realized for an additional fee, they can get the dvd's mailed too. Netflix doubles their income say 50% of the time at sign up?

They are giving this up?

Makes no sense what so ever.

I have to wonder if their long term plan is to kill the DVD part completely (hoping that most customers just switch to streaming), and this is their sneaky way of working up to that?

If they were to just kill it, there would be a big backlash and they'd lose a lot of customers, probably including some who would be amenable to being on a streaming only plan.

Maybe something like this:
1 Raise DVD prices
2 Split DVD to separate company
3 DVD "company" isn't doing well any more, oops we went out of business.



Funny, with the DVD plan you do get a huge selection for that price. And I'd be happy to pay a bit more on the streaming side for a big improvement in selection.

But right now it's nowhere close to a "huge" selection, it's an absolutely pitiful one. Here's a fun test - sit and make a list of 100 movies you'd like to watch on your TV. Most likely, if you check on streaming, you'll be lucky to find 5 of those available. And that's not even listing all new releases, if you look for new stuff it's even less.

The current streaming selection is indefensibly bad. Sure, there's stuff to watch but you have to dig through their skimpy list of what's available - coming from the DVD side where they had almost anything, it pretty much rules out the possibility of thinking of a movie you want to see and being able to get it.


Actually that's not true, the $8 is for one disk at a time. The original plan was 3 and was around $16, now to get that it costs $24, so it has gone up quite a bit.



And your TV provider probably sends a pretty bad HD signal, so he's right that it comes nowhere close to the same content on disc.

Ok, it has gone up quite a bit. But not too much complaining about that though. Sounds to me like DVD was really subsidizing streaming and the complainers are the streaming folks. I understand why they complain though because streaming has always been associated with free.

Probably because you don't know anything about running a business nor have any information as to how much money Netflix made off their physical distribution anymore.

Actually, the more i think about it, the people who seem to be upset about the name change and service split, are most likely investors in Netflix stock, which has taken a beating because of this. Makes sense I guess.

As a customer tho, it doesn't affect me at all.

Netflix the company sees the writing on the wall. Streaming is the future, and it's happening fast.

It's only a matter of time before Apple comes out with their own subscription based service for movies, and Netflix is trying to switch gears thats all.

Perhaps they've done it in a clumsy way...but again, i am not an investor of Netflix stock, so i am not angry. As a customer of their streaming service tho, i am very happy. More movies need to be added IMHO....but $8 for unlimited streaming of movies is the best deal in town.

Enjoy it while you can, because i am sure between data caps and providers charging Netflix more for their content in the future....prices will go up for streaming subscriptions eventually.

The really good movies are protected pretty well. Handbrake fails on the copy protected ones. Of course for Windows guys you probably have AnyDVD which always seems to work.

Great way to kill off a company: rename it to something illogical and forgettable.

A great time for Apple to release a streaming video service with Great Content......

??? Which ones are those? Never had a single disc unrippable with HandBrake.

Irrelevant sidenote: handbrake replaced their own decryption with VLC libraries almost 3 years ago. I don't think it was ever the best mac decrypter. It was handy for converting a disc or two; I'm happy the Devs are focused on improving what handbrake does best.

Sorry I don't recall exactly but ones like Batman, X-men etc that appeal to the young hacker set are usually well protected. There are different levels like extra bogus directories which is pretty easy to spot but the hard ones require more advanced cracking tools.


Edit: I rip them because 1.) Netflix has nothing but crap on the live streaming side and 2.) I mostly watch movies when traveling in a foreign country, in a hotel or on the plane just to pass the time where there is no DVD. I rarely watch DVDs at home. I am not distributing them. I only watch a movie once and then delete it.

There was a window of opportunity but it was closing as early as 2009 as by then their revenue per subscriber was steadily declining. With the switch to streaming they could reduce their per subscriber cost negating the impact of reduced per subscriber revenue. Most of their growth in the last couple of years has been through increased subscription driven by the streaming opton. That doesn't go on forever. They had to choose which business was sustatinable. IMHO I think they made the correct choice just executed it very very badly.