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Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

blog.netflix.com

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Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#101

Post by 18pfsmt »

wmf wrote: post #90
18pfsmt wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noted this elsewhere, but I believe it has to do with Netlfix relationships and negotiations with the content creators, and how it differs from the Qwikster model of buying discs. Qwikster requires zero relationships and negotiations with the content creators. I can't really understand why people get so upset about these changes because I can't find the catalog size/ low cost anywhere else. If anyone knows of a bet…

Qwikster requires zero relationships and negotiations with the content creators. This isn't quite true BTW. Remember the 28-day window.

Prior to Netflix offering any streaming, there was no 28-day window. The window came out of negotiations for streaming rights. So, not only is it true, the streaming piece of the business impacted the DVD-by-mail business.

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#102

Post by elq »

18pfsmt wrote: post #101
wmf wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qwikster requires zero relationships and negotiations with the content creators. This isn't quite true BTW. Remember the 28-day window.

Prior to Netflix offering any streaming, there was no 28-day window. The window came out of negotiations for streaming rights. So, not only is it true, the streaming piece of the business impacted the DVD-by-mail business.

correlation != causation.

the 28-day window was solely a way to lower the cost of buying dvd's. Those savings went into buying more streaming licenses.

And the the grandparent - the dvd company isn't _required_ to work with the content creators, but it would probably be dumb for them not to.

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#103

Post by Stratoscope »

nl wrote: post #73
Stratoscope wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I saw, he's only replying to comments praising the decision, and not engaging at all with any of the vast majority who criticize or question it. This does not impress me quite so much.

The first two comments he replied to (when I saw) were very critical.

Thanks for the correction. I had a different impression when I first read some of the comments, but now I see I was mistaken.

I still have the impression that Reed isn't "getting" the two biggest complaints:

1) Customers who use both services are unhappy about losing the integration between them.

2) Quikster is a monumentally bad name

(Yes I know it's misspelled. I would look up the correct spelling, but that's exactly the point. How do you spell it without looking it up? And how exactly did they come up with the name with nobody on the team saying, "Hey, my Amway friends tell me it's not Amway any more, it's Quixtar." :-)

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#105

Post by r00fus »

BenSS wrote: post #97
Hostile wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam doesn't rent games, which is what I believe qwikster intends to do. It's gamefly they would be competing with. If I were gamefly, I'd be very worried right now.

Steam has massive discounts on games quite frequently, so it will often be cheaper to buy as long as it's not a super-recent release.

Steam works on consoles? this was news to me. IIRC, it looks like Qwikster's gaming strategy is more focused on consoles than PC.

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#106

Post by mturmon »

isleyaardvark wrote: post #98
mturmon wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a customer here. I'm disappointed by the remarks in this thread that don't give the Netflix team credit for understanding their customer base. The CEO gives a credible rationale for the split: two different kinds of business. DVDs for the long tail, streaming for convenience. Given their machine learning and rating expertise, I bet their analytics gave them a good understanding of just how different the two medi…

> I'll bet people's streaming preferences are rather different than their DVD preferences. I'll bet they're virtually identical. Think of all their customers that have both streaming and DVD plans. What movies are going to be on their DVD queues? The ones that aren't available for streaming. Nobody puts a movie into their DVD queue because they want to wait two days before they watch it.

You're right, there is a constraint for most rational customers:

  X is in streaming => X is not in DVD queue
The thing is, the set of stuff available for streaming is not very large compared to the set of stuff on DVD. So the applicability of the constraint is small.

And, I think all the constraint tells you is, don't suggest titles that are available on streaming for someone's DVD queue. I think affirmative suggestions are much more interesting.

To me, your idea that people's streaming preferences are "virtually identical" to their DVD preferences seems like you didn't mean it seriously. Hyperbole?

My own streaming habits are totally different from my DVD habits, not only due to limited availability of streaming titles, but also due to ingrained expectations. It's kind of like TV versus movies.

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#107

Post by phamilton »

jonknee wrote: post #86
0x12 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can guarantee you a sizeable chunk of people who were just happy with the dual plan will end up picking one or the other. But the upside for netflix is those people that end up picking both. The time to analyze this is 6 months from now when the figures are in. My personal best guess about what they're about to do is sell off the DVD division.

> But the upside for netflix is those people that end up picking both. How's that an upside considering that's what they currently have? Instead of one charge on your credit card there will be two that add up to the same thing. At best (for Netflix). This will not raise revenues.

Picking both results in a 40% price hike. I think the OP was referring to the whole situation, not just the name change.

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#108

Post by powertower »

sriramk wrote: post #65
DevX101 wrote: post #37

Netflix should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. There are a lot of successful companies that are much more diversified than Netflix is right now. This honestly strikes me as a panic driven move in response to the customer rage and their precipitous drop off in stock prices. I'm trying hard but can't see the upside to this move. And I think this will cause a big hemmorhaging in profit for the short/mediu…

If you think something of this scale was put together in a month, you don't understand how large companies work. This has to be in the works for atleast 4-5 months. The press likes to construct these action->reaction narratives (Foo launches Bar in response to company X doing Y yesterday) but in reality, these things take time and are rarely direct responses to events.

IMO, it's was more like 4-5 years.

DVDs-by-mail is a business with a very specific half-life. Was started in 1999, peaked in 20xx, will end in 10 years.

http://www.devside.net/blog/netflix-sinister-plot-called-qwi...

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#109

Post by vijayr »

DevX101 wrote: post #37

Netflix should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. There are a lot of successful companies that are much more diversified than Netflix is right now. This honestly strikes me as a panic driven move in response to the customer rage and their precipitous drop off in stock prices. I'm trying hard but can't see the upside to this move. And I think this will cause a big hemmorhaging in profit for the short/mediu…

May be they could've locked the old price for existing customers (or given a steep discount on the new price), and only apply the increased price for new customers? That could stop the hemorrhage in the short/medium term.

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#110

Post by CamperBob »

elq wrote: post #28
pyrmont wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, Apple runs businesses (eg. Macs) that operate in some jurisdictions that their other businesses (eg. iTunes) do not. You don't need a structural separation to 'innovate', you need a structural separation to ease a sale of a business.

I honestly don't care how Apple runs it's business. I don't work for apple, I do, on the other hand, work for netflix, and not having to worry about DVDs will be a nice relief.

Your customers beg to disagree.
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