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Netflix kills Qwikster

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Re: Netflix kills Qwikster

#131

Post by lien »

uptown wrote: post #5

While 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…

netflix users, you guys can thank me! looks like the email i sent to reed hastings positive effects now that they're backpedaling on the decision!

wow, when netflix first came out with the decision I thought it was a brilliant plan for a future business school case study of gross mismanagement of a formerly successful company.

Raising rates by 60% in a poor economy and making it hard for your customers to manage their movies? (not to mention throwing away brand equity of netflix in exchange for qwikster?) i wonder if the ceo has been on crack.

Re: Netflix kills Qwikster

#132

Post by sukuriant »

dpark wrote: post #34
talmand wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think Netflix needs to add tiered pricing for streaming anyway. They need pay-per-view, or something similar, and they'll probably add it at some point. It's the only way they'll get new releases. Once they build that infrastructure, there's no reason not to sell their standard catalog as pay-per-view to people who don't want to pay the subscription fee, so long as they don't price it to cannibalize their subscript…

I would be uncomfortable paying extra for something on Netflix when I already pay a flat rate to get everything. Pay-per-view services would be a slippery slope that I wouldn't be pleased with. I hope they keep pay-per-view to some other company/service-by-another-name-that-isn't-advertised-on-Netflix.com.

Re: Netflix kills Qwikster

#133

Post by pilsetnieks »

jmathes wrote: post #109
ja27 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've been without cable TV for years. Any time I talk to people about cutting their cable TV the only objection is live sports.

I went off cable a year ago. The only thing I miss is ads for upcoming movies. Weird, right? Everything else I want I can get online, but I had come to depend on ads to tell me when a good movie was coming.

http://apple.com/trailers/

Re: Netflix kills Qwikster

#134

Post by code_duck »

redthrowaway wrote: post #101
ck2 wrote: post #13

Wouldn'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.

>Wouldn't market questionnaire testing of just 100 people saved them this expensive juggling act? Probably would've killed the ipad, too.

The iPad was not revolutionary... it is a giant iPhone with no phone. I would have said I wanted one beforehand, and believe probably 80% of the people who have bought one would have thought it looked awesome. So no, I disagree.

Re: Netflix kills Qwikster

#135

Post by code_duck »

ck2 wrote: post #13

Wouldn'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.

One certainly is led to question just how out of touch the decision makers must be when a company makes a move like this and retracts it so soon.

Re: Netflix kills Qwikster

#136

Post by sukuriant »

daimyoyo wrote: post #115
ck2 wrote: post #13

Wouldn'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.

100 customers is not remotely close to a large enough sample size to glean anything worth the hassle to do the test. 100,000 would be better, but then you're spending a huge amount of money for results that might add nothing to your research. The whole "faster horse" theory applies here.

http://www.publicagenda.org/pages/best-estimates-guide-sampl...

100,000 is overkill. 1,000 is reasonably sufficient.

Re: Netflix kills Qwikster

#137

Post by elq »

macrael wrote: post #112
fryguy wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they were paying a flat amount for an up to X million subscribers, not a per subscriber fee. Then they got close to the cap and needed to remove the people from the cap that weren't really using it, but the contract counted everyone that had access. It's pretty much the same thing though.

Where does that information come from? Is that a common way for such deals to be made?

He pulled that information out of thin air. It is not true.

Re: Netflix kills Qwikster

#138

Post by BrandonM »

pilsetnieks wrote: post #133
jmathes wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went off cable a year ago. The only thing I miss is ads for upcoming movies. Weird, right? Everything else I want I can get online, but I had come to depend on ads to tell me when a good movie was coming.

http://apple.com/trailers/

My girlfriend always seems to know the plot of every movie. For a while I was wondering when she was finding time to sneak off to the theater, and why she was doing it without me. Her secret was just that she watched just about every movie trailer at apple.com.

Re: Netflix kills Qwikster

#139

Post by chadgeidel »

jmathes wrote: post #109
ja27 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've been without cable TV for years. Any time I talk to people about cutting their cable TV the only objection is live sports.

I went off cable a year ago. The only thing I miss is ads for upcoming movies. Weird, right? Everything else I want I can get online, but I had come to depend on ads to tell me when a good movie was coming.

There are several sites to (text) preview movies, here are my favorites: http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/ (action) http://twitchfilm.com/ (thriller/horror/asian) http://io9.com/ (science fiction)

For watching the trailers I prefer Apple's site: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/

Re: Netflix kills Qwikster

#140

Post by [deleted] »

kbutler wrote: post #67
smoyer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 looked at the value: not-deep-enough streaming catalog plus deep DVD catalog was a great service and a good value. Either one alone? Incomplete service. Both? Not enough value at the 2X price. We kept our subscription open until the day the price hike would hit us (How does Netflix get away with "the moment you cancel, your subscription ends, no refunds for partial months"?!?), then canceled completely. I tried to…

[deleted]
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