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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

#51

Post by foobarbazoo »

ryannielsen wrote: post #42
ctingom wrote: post #10

I bet a lot of customers evaluate Hulu and Redbox now.

Why? Current Netflix DVD+streaming customers will seamlessly have Netflix+Qwikster accounts. Those who care about just DVDs or just streaming would probably have already left or already transitioned to the appropriate Netflix account option which would leave them with a Netflix or Qwikster account in the end, no action on their part. So how would this move motivate anyone who hasn't already left to look at other serv…

No, we'll be dropping our Kwikster accounts immediately and looking for an alternate streaming provider (cough Amazon cough).

Honestly, it feels like this board is being trolled by Netflix employees or paid PR, who see "no" problem with this move. I don't know a single person in meatspace who thinks these changes are good. Not one.

And people who were putting up (but unhappy) with the 60% price hike are now actively looking to switch.

Hastings is destroying shareholder and customer value at a pace only matched by HP's CEO at this point.

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#52

Post by nl »

flyosity wrote: post #8

This is not something you see CEOs write every day. Hell, this isn't something you see CEOs write ever in their careers. It took a lot of guts to write it, and regardless of the huge controversy surrounding their pricing strategies, I hope that this split succeeds. Also, video games!

He's even replying to comments in the Facebook comments threads below. That impresses me a lot.

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#53

Post by 0x12 »

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…

> 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.

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#54

Post by elq »

foobarbazoo wrote: post #51
ryannielsen wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Current Netflix DVD+streaming customers will seamlessly have Netflix+Qwikster accounts. Those who care about just DVDs or just streaming would probably have already left or already transitioned to the appropriate Netflix account option which would leave them with a Netflix or Qwikster account in the end, no action on their part. So how would this move motivate anyone who hasn't already left to look at other serv…

No, we'll be dropping our Kwikster accounts immediately and looking for an alternate streaming provider ( cough Amazon cough ). Honestly, it feels like this board is being trolled by Netflix employees or paid PR, who see "no" problem with this move. I don't know a single person in meatspace who thinks these changes are good. Not one. And people who were putting up (but unhappy) with the 60% price hike are now activel…

I am a netflix employee.

I hold my employer to certain standards and I do not defend anything they do automatically - for instance, I thought the way the plan split/price hike was communicated was just awful. So I'm not trolling.

When I first heard this plan many months ago, my immediate reaction was to look for another job. I have, perhaps obviously, decided to stay. One of the biggest reasons I've decided to stay is that I believe Reed is one of the most honest, hungry, and intelligent CEO's around.

These changes will cause short term pain, but I honestly believe the products will be much better after the split.

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#56

Post by foobarbazoo »

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.

^^ This is why Netflix is fubar'd. Totally internally looking -- not giving a shit what it means for their customers.

Yeah, we all love paying two bills each month, having to search for content two places, having our ratings queues forked and kept out of sync. Thanks, we're all so glad to hear that it's easier for you.

We'll make it even easier: find new customers. We're gone.

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#57

Post by mturmon »

elq wrote: post #54
foobarbazoo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we'll be dropping our Kwikster accounts immediately and looking for an alternate streaming provider ( cough Amazon cough ). Honestly, it feels like this board is being trolled by Netflix employees or paid PR, who see "no" problem with this move. I don't know a single person in meatspace who thinks these changes are good. Not one. And people who were putting up (but unhappy) with the 60% price hike are now activel…

I am a netflix employee. I hold my employer to certain standards and I do not defend anything they do automatically - for instance, I thought the way the plan split/price hike was communicated was just awful. So I'm not trolling. When I first heard this plan many months ago, my immediate reaction was to look for another job. I have, perhaps obviously, decided to stay. One of the biggest reasons I've decided to stay i…

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 mediums are. I'll bet people's streaming preferences are rather different than their DVD preferences. Probably so much so that there's less predictive value across mediums than some people in this thread seem to expect.

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#58

Post by bethling »

ryannielsen wrote: post #42
ctingom wrote: post #10

I bet a lot of customers evaluate Hulu and Redbox now.

Why? Current Netflix DVD+streaming customers will seamlessly have Netflix+Qwikster accounts. Those who care about just DVDs or just streaming would probably have already left or already transitioned to the appropriate Netflix account option which would leave them with a Netflix or Qwikster account in the end, no action on their part. So how would this move motivate anyone who hasn't already left to look at other serv…

Because by splitting the accounts - they've removed pretty much the only piece of value that they provided over Hulu/Amazon/Redbox. There was one single place that I logged on to with my ratings, my recommendations, my queues for both streaming and DVDs.

Without that, their competitors are now almost pure drop-in replacements for their product. NetFlix had an advantage (to me) in that everything was unified. Now that they're split, that's gone - and they have to find some other way to be better than the other offerings to justify me keeping my subscription(s).

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#59

Post by tlianza »

male_salmon wrote: post #15
waterlesscloud wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Billing will be separate, which is a minor annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless. The bigger issue is splitting my ratings and thus my suggestions. I already ignore other places to rate movies since only netflix provided a tangible benefit to me. Split it, and it won't.

With billing, most of us already maintain different accounts with different e-commerce sites. One more is not that bad. Ratings on either Qwikster or Netflix will benefit you because of the improved recommendations. Yes, it's a shame they won't be integrated, but overall the split will benefit the company and its customers.

Everyone on this thread knows that there is no technical reason to split the ratings. It's implausible that a company of this size couldn't break that subsystem into a shared service.

The reason for the split has to be business-related, and my best bet is to create a very clean separation of intellectual property. This among other things is why I find the post disingenuous.

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#60

Post by dave1619 »

bethling wrote: post #58
ryannielsen wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Current Netflix DVD+streaming customers will seamlessly have Netflix+Qwikster accounts. Those who care about just DVDs or just streaming would probably have already left or already transitioned to the appropriate Netflix account option which would leave them with a Netflix or Qwikster account in the end, no action on their part. So how would this move motivate anyone who hasn't already left to look at other serv…

Because by splitting the accounts - they've removed pretty much the only piece of value that they provided over Hulu/Amazon/Redbox. There was one single place that I logged on to with my ratings, my recommendations, my queues for both streaming and DVDs. Without that, their competitors are now almost pure drop-in replacements for their product. NetFlix had an advantage (to me) in that everything was unified. Now that…

I totally agree. Netflix unified gave me the added value I needed to be a subscriber. Now that DVDs and streaming is not only separate subscriptions but even separate accounts, the value of Netflix/Qwikster has plummeted to me. I might just do Amazon for streaming and Apple TV for movie rentals.
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