Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster • Hacker News Board

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#61

Post by grourk » Mon, Sep 19, 2011, 7:34 AM UTC

Vexenon wrote: post #19

Jarred wrote: post #7

I think the challenge for Netflix here will be to disassociate Netflix with DVD rentals. People will go to Netflix's website, and expect their DVDs to be there alongside their streaming movies.

When I think of the term Netflix, I think of watching flicks on the Internet. I'm sure a lot of people don't look at it that way, but the term Netflix makes a lot of sense when referring to a streaming service (as opposed to a service that rents out physical media). I know a lot of non-savvy people probably can't make that connection, but I think the company will make it clear that Netflix is no longer the place for…

When I think of Netflix, I think of renting flicks on the net... which is, um, what the original name meant. Also there's the whole last decade of this association.

When I think of Qwikster, I do not think of anything related to DVD by mail. The only associations that come to mind are Friendster and Quixtar. It sounds cheesy and cheap and fly-by-night.

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#62

Post by afarrell » Mon, Sep 19, 2011, 8:14 AM UTC

foobarbazoo wrote: post #49

yequalsx wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix is the one recurring bill on my credit card. I like the company and think it has great customer service. I trust the company. I don't want multiple recurring charges on my credit card. The more paid accounts a person has the more likely it is that an account will be forgotten about. Also, it would be a pain to find out a movie isn't available for streaming and then having to login to another account to put th…

I did trust the company. That's gone now. All that time we've spent rating stuff? Spun off to this POS Kwikster company, and no longer integrated. It's rare that companies this size make such stupid moves; this is one of those times.

But its not a new company. Its the same organization headed by the same person with the same employees as before. There is just some different branding.

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#63

Post by JoshTriplett » Mon, Sep 19, 2011, 8:28 AM UTC

jobu wrote: post #39

I'm surprised they din't register the domain quickster.com as well. The QW in qwickster is cute, but it's easy to misspell.

Apparently the lack of the 'c' is easy to misspell too. :)

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#64

Post by Klinky » Mon, Sep 19, 2011, 9:03 AM UTC

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!

I'd believe it more if he wasn't writing the apology off the heels of his company losing 50% over a two month period & 25% within the last two trading days.

I don't think his crocodile tears now are going to win many people back, nor do I think his apology will have any effect on NFLX's course of action. Promising better communication but not having all the facts about how your spun off service is going to work doesn't lend much credit to his original apology. They should be bending over backwards to make sure that customers who are affected will have an easy transition. Though if this is a move to jettison those customers off onto a 3rd party buyer, then this will have been nothing more than Hastings proving he's a hypocrite.

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#65

Post by sriramk » Mon, Sep 19, 2011, 9:17 AM UTC

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.

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#66

Post by toyg » Mon, Sep 19, 2011, 9:42 AM UTC

tlianza wrote: post #59

male_salmon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, to me this looks like a way to isolate the profit-making but old-school DVD business from the disruptive but fragile streaming platform. Studios are squeezing streaming providers for royalties at the moment, and sooner or later either the small players will fold, or streaming will fully replace dvds; by splitting services, Reed is trying to maximize its chances of maintaining at least one solid business. Still, the right thing to do would be to maintain technical integration between the two, maybe spinning off the analytics / suggestions as a third company providing services to both for a nominal fee.

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#67

Post by demoo » Mon, Sep 19, 2011, 9:47 AM UTC

Must have been a though move to make.

Renting out DVDs is a different business model and one that will be obsolete in 2-3 years. Putting DVD rental prepares them for a future where they can fade out or sell the DVD business and go abroad with a simple offer for the Netflix brand.

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#68

Post by Stratoscope » Mon, Sep 19, 2011, 10:01 AM UTC

nl wrote: post #52

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.

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.

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#69

Post by brown9-2 » Mon, Sep 19, 2011, 11:21 AM UTC

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 people haven't left when the prices went up, do you really think a name change and two sites will be the final straw?

Re: Reed Hastings responds to criticisms and announces Qwikster

#70

Post by Hyena » Mon, Sep 19, 2011, 11:27 AM UTC

I was skeptical of this move at first, but I think the argument is fairly sound. I think a lot of commenters are focusimg on the technical aspect of the service and I agree, Hastings is being disingenuous when he says "they're two totally different businesses". What I think makes a sound argument is that they require a separate marketing approach.

Streaming is only a separate business model insofar as there are fewer degrees of freedom because of the studios; otherwise it's just a difference in how you deliver data. But that difference could be important from a marketing perspective. As Netflix pushes the streaming model, they risk damaging the DVD business by association. So it may be better to rebrand DVD business and carry it forward with a message concentrated around its (rather massive) benefits. That move is even more important if streaming becomes more competitive im the near future; war between cable companies, studios and streaming companies seems pretty likely, so the streaming space may become even more dangerous even while the conflict extends the life of DVD delivery.

So yeah, probably about as sound as a business decision can be. It may not work out but that's not guaranteed avoidable under the old setup either.