I may be the only one who is disappointed by this. My impression (based on the analysis of someone smarter than me) was that Netflix was having trouble beefing up their on-demand selection b/c the studios were trying to put the screws to them based on their total revenues (not just streaming revenues). I was hopeful that with this switch, they'd finally be able to make progress on growing their on-demand catalog again...
Netflix kills Qwikster
21–30 of 165 posts
Re: Netflix kills Qwikster
#22OK. Netflix really doesn't know what it's doing.
Near-universal consensus has it that they didn't know what they were doing when they decided to split off Qwikster.
Better to admit now that they didn't know what they were doing, than to keep doing something wrong for fear of admitting to a past mistake.
If the split was a mistake, then any embarrassment about correcting it now will be orders of magnitude less expensive to them than failing to correct it.
Re: Netflix kills Qwikster
#23While this rights the ship, Netflix made the colossal mistake of rocking the recurring-billing boat. Smart businesses know that when you've got a customer setup for recurring monthly billing, there's a certain percentage of these customers who will continue to pay even though they're not actively using the service. Part of it is laziness of figuring out how to cancel. Another part is the thought that they may someday…
And if Netflix is smart, they'll figure out how to leverage their pervasive device-integration to offer one-off non-subscription-based rentals. Price it aggressively enough to compete with Amazon and Apple ... and after re-earning the trust of these customers, make the case to convert them to subscribers by showing them the financials. Simple emails with messages like: "For $2 more than you spent last month, you could have access to X million more movies" or "If you were a subscriber you could have saved $6 last month?".
Re: Netflix kills Qwikster
#24If they really wanted to hang onto their customers they would bring down the cost of the one segment of their content they DO control--DVD by mail. As others have noted this is their saving grace to plug holes in their streaming lineup, they need to capitalize on it. Hell, give it to streaming customers at cost if they have to.
Re: Netflix kills Qwikster
#25What's going on at Netflix? If you ask employees, they'll tell you that the culture - often praised for its high performance standards - is a culture of fear. It's a product management-driven organization where PMs aren't afraid to use the poor performance card to remove subordinates who don't go along with their ideas. The emperor has no clothes. In Netflix's case, the emperor is any product manager. It's no wonder there was little pushback internally on Qwikster - the name or the concept. Who has the guts to say no?
A company with a culture of fear is a company that is on a death spiral. Hopefully Mr. Hastings has the self-awareness to recognize this problem and the gumption to act on it.
Re: Netflix kills Qwikster
#26At my friends today I checked the Netflix streaming catalog on her Roku. I was wondering if they were offering any better content, but nope it's still the same B grade level junk I canceled the service two months ago for. I know their content problem is not completely their fault, though if they offered higher priced plans I'm sure their content selection would improve. Different price points should be offered from $…
What do you mean not completely their fault? It's not their fault at all. What shows up on Netflix Instant is whatever they can get from the content providers. If the content you wish to see is not on Netflix then blame the creators of the content, not Netflix. I would bet that Netflix would be happy to have every commercially-created video content ever made available on their service.
In much the same way their billing is greatly influenced by the decisions of the content creators. If the creators demand more money for content, well, for Netflix to maintain profitability then the charge for service must go up.
Also, I guess what you want to see and what I want to see vary greatly as they just recently added about six new shows (of several seasons each) to their lineup that makes me happy and have gotten new seasons on others.
But hey, to each their own I suppose.
Re: Netflix kills Qwikster
#27While this rights the ship, Netflix made the colossal mistake of rocking the recurring-billing boat. Smart businesses know that when you've got a customer setup for recurring monthly billing, there's a certain percentage of these customers who will continue to pay even though they're not actively using the service. Part of it is laziness of figuring out how to cancel. Another part is the thought that they may someday…
We switched to the streaming-only plan before our billing cycle and have been happy ... We weren't good at quickly watching the DVDs and returning them anyway plus we saved a buck a month. How did other HNers respond to the price hike? I would expect this group to be dominated by streamers anyway.
Having a couple discs rotting on the shelf for a month or so before watching seemed a good indicator to cancel, but having gone thru the trouble of setting up two queues with 300+ titles I wasn't keen on losing that list and the eternal hope of someday getting to those movies. For a couple bucks more a month I'd retain the lists and, someday, watch the movies.
Then the split came. Quadrupling the price of "someday..." wasn't worth it. Copied the lists to a text file, and cancelled. Insofar as Netflix streaming doesn't have everything, iTunes (yay AppleTV!) has most everything else available on a whim for a mere $2-5/rental. With kids streaming their shows on demand (no scratches! no fingerprints! no oatmeal in the DVD player!) from a vast instant library, and me not watching much at all (but when I do, a few bucks for "this, now" works fine), one slick box fusing a few streaming video services (yay AppleTV!) works well.
I'm not sure how Netflix intends to attract back the million or so who cancelled. We've adapted; why return?
Re: Netflix kills Qwikster
#28While this rights the ship, Netflix made the colossal mistake of rocking the recurring-billing boat. Smart businesses know that when you've got a customer setup for recurring monthly billing, there's a certain percentage of these customers who will continue to pay even though they're not actively using the service. Part of it is laziness of figuring out how to cancel. Another part is the thought that they may someday…
And if Netflix is smart, they'll figure out how to leverage their pervasive device-integration to offer one-off non-subscription-based rentals. Price it aggressively enough to compete with Amazon and Apple ... and after re-earning the trust of these customers, make the case to convert them to subscribers by showing them the financials. Simple emails with messages like: "For $2 more than you spent last month, you coul…
I'd rather they keep the one price for everything plan. Once you start having tiered prices for different levels of service you are well on your way to the current cable TV situation we have now.
Re: Netflix kills Qwikster
#29Wouldn't market questionnaire testing of just 100 people saved them this expensive juggling act? Anyway, I fear streaming price increases next year for sure as all the media outlets start to gouge netflix and they pass it on. Best thing netflix can do is make sure consumers know which distributors are purposely giving them horrible contracts and that it's not netflix's fault.
I wonder about the potential blowback of hounding problem distributors publicly, though.
It's possible it could work a few times; get consumers to go after them. But I think some would have negative reactions. Kids gloves may well be the best bet.
Re: Netflix kills Qwikster
#30While this rights the ship, Netflix made the colossal mistake of rocking the recurring-billing boat. Smart businesses know that when you've got a customer setup for recurring monthly billing, there's a certain percentage of these customers who will continue to pay even though they're not actively using the service. Part of it is laziness of figuring out how to cancel. Another part is the thought that they may someday…
We switched to the streaming-only plan before our billing cycle and have been happy ... We weren't good at quickly watching the DVDs and returning them anyway plus we saved a buck a month. How did other HNers respond to the price hike? I would expect this group to be dominated by streamers anyway.
We weren't good at quickly watching the DVDs and returning them anyway plus we saved a buck a month.
We were not either, so I would usually rip the DVDs when I got them and then watch it when we had time (also my only dvd player is a 360 and it's so loud...much better to stream over the ATV). After watching I would delete them...honest, I rarely watch a movie twice. Recently that became harder though because of increased copy protections.
How did other HNers respond to the price hike?
Canceled the DVD service the day the price hike was announced.