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rowynSeriously, why are they doing this to themselves?
Lut and I use both the DVD and streaming services for Netflix. The de-bundling and accompanying price hike annoyed me, but it's still cheaper than cable or buying/renting DVDs (which is generally more expensive for a much worse selection everywhere else.
So I'd resigned myself to continuing to pay for both.
... and now they want to make the service harder to use.
Right now, let's say I want to watch "Castle". I go to Netflix's site, log in, search for Castle, and see that seasons 1&2 aren't available on Instant Watch, so I add them to my DVD queue. Then I search for "Sons of Anarchy", see that it's available for both, and add it to my instant queue and watch an episode.
Under the new 'let's make them into totally different services' plan, I go to Netflix, login, search for Castle, see it's not there, go to Qwikster, login, search for Castle, add it to the queue, go back to Netflix, search for the next thing, etc.
Browsing will also be more annoying -- DVD selection has always been larger than Instant Watch, so I'm supposed to go to Qwikster to browse, then back to Netflix to search for whatever I found on Qwikster and see if it's on Netflix? Except that IIRC, Netflix is planning for Instant Watch to have its own exclusive content, so it'll be more like 'browse both sites but 95% of content on Netflix will be identical to Qwikster.'
Granted, it's not walking uphill both ways in the snow, but as far as I can tell Netflix is spending a fortune rebranding Qwikster and separating the websites, for the privilege of making the customer experience identical or worse in every respect.
Why would they do this? I read the whole letter and I do not understand. The only way this would make sense is if they'd decided they couldn't make money on the DVD business at any price point, but that they're too scared of the backlash to shut it down outright. Are they hoping that the Qwikster service will die and they can use its death as leverage to get more content for Netflix/Instant Watch? I just can't figure out why anyone would go to so much trouble and expense to deliver an inferior version of their existing service. x.x
Edit: I was reading the WSJ's comments section, and several people speculated that Netflix plans to sell their DVD unit to some other company. So spinning off Qwikster would be prepatory to that. Which does make some sense from a business perspective, and I guess having it as a separate company would make it easier to market? It still seems like they're driving customers away at a time when they'd want to make the business look attractive to a corporate buyer, though. Maybe Blockbuster or whomever won't touch it while it's still integrated, feeling that they need to see the hit a segregated site takes first.
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-19 07:15 pm (UTC)The double browsing will be annoying, definitely.
Happy Birthday! ;-)
Date: 2011-09-19 07:23 pm (UTC)Even when I tried Instant Watch it was annoying because it would hang and die so much.
Oh well.
Write him back. Be sure to address him by first name. Maybe we'll get another lovely personally addressed personally written apology.
Another WTF? moment - who announces such a major change with an apology? When marketing makes these branding decisions aren't they supposed to be trying to get everyone all excited and happy, not reminding their customers what fuck-ups they are? Bizarre.
I can't care too much because I watch so little TV/movies in any case.
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Date: 2011-09-19 07:24 pm (UTC)I am considering ditching 'Qwikster' and going through Amazon's instant watch pay-per-view service for stuff that isn't available on Netflix Instant Watch. I am not sure I get even $8 a month worth from DVDs, most months.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-19 08:57 pm (UTC)Me, I don't like the quality of streamed movies. I also don't like the piss poor selection. So if it comes to it, my business stays with Qwikster. And when they get sold off, I'll not be giving Netflix any more money at all.
In exactly what sense is it a sound business decision to take a company that's making profits and flush it down the toilet because there's a newer gizmo that's sexier?
Re: Happy Birthday! ;-)
Date: 2011-09-19 10:30 pm (UTC)Lut and I will probably go streaming-only at some point, but we'll see. Our bandwidth is sufficient that we've rarely had trouble with streaming: my only hesitation is that Instant Watch's selection has often been sadly limited. We don't watch tons of movies/TV shows (maybe 5 hours a week?), but we don't have a working TV so Netflix is our only access to films or TV shows. $16 a month for on-demand is still way better than cable, though. :)
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Date: 2011-09-19 10:49 pm (UTC)But they do seem to be jumping the gun by several years by pronouncing the death of DVD-by-mail. Although with the state of the post office, maybe not. D:
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Date: 2011-09-20 12:35 am (UTC)We get dvds in the mail, though, and then never make time to watch them. :/ I need to watch the one we have and return it.
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Date: 2011-09-20 12:53 am (UTC)Edit: Forgot the rest....
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Date: 2011-09-20 01:49 am (UTC)Several things in the letter struck me as odd. First, the tone was "I did nothing wrong, I just didn't explain myself properly." That strikes me as a misfire, but it permeates the letter.
This line: "and now that DVD by mail has its own team..."
I wonder who the "DVD by mail" people have been working for all these years. It was made to sound as though this was an afterthought since Netflix's inception, but now they're going to get serious about DVDs by mail.
Instead, they appear to be planning on ultimately abandoning it or selling it, as you suggested. Certainly no new benefits were suggested, only drawbacks. It did not appear to be happy news for any subscriber.
But there IS happy news today:
Happy Birthday, Lady Rowyn!
===|==============/ Level Head
no subject
Date: 2011-09-20 02:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-20 06:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-20 12:30 pm (UTC)Yes, it was bizarre to see him produce this news as if it would somehow *make up* for the price increase. "We're sorry you don't like the price increase, but it's the necessary first step to making your user experience worse! See, so that's okay, right?" O.o
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Date: 2011-09-20 01:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-20 01:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-20 01:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-20 02:21 pm (UTC)We use Netflix something like 0-3 times per week. It's worth even the new price at 3 times a week, but not at 1 and it's marginal at 2. Season 3 of Castle is available next month by DVD, so we'll probably get more regular use of it then. Anyway, I'm going to track how much use we get out of it so I can decide if we should cancel one or the other of the services, or if it's not worth it.
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Date: 2011-10-10 03:56 pm (UTC)http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2011/10/10/netflix-keeps-dvd-service-under-netflix-brand/