Netflix Inc.’s chief executive and co-founder said late Sunday that the company will rebrand its DVD-rental service as “Qwikster,†and offered a public apology over a recent price hike.
“It’s hard for me to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary and best,†wrote CEO Reed Hastings in a corporate blog posting whose contents were also emailed to subscribers. “In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to ‘Qwikster,’ †which will be moved to a separate website from Netflix’s streaming service.
“DVD by mail may not last forever, but we want it to last as long as possible,†wrote Hastings, adding that the streaming service will remain under the Netflix name at the current Web address.
cccuuunnttt !nIGga.SL0w (OP) double-posted this 15 years ago, 1 minute later[^][v]#217,250
Their email starts out kind of weird:
Dear Becky,
I messed up. I owe you an explanation.
It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. Let me explain what we are doing.
For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn't make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us). So we moved quickly into streaming, but I should have personally given you a full explanation of why we are splitting the services and thereby increasing prices. It wouldn’t have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do.
Anonymous B joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 2 minutes later, 3 minutes after the original post[^][v]#217,253
inb4 this idea tanks and redbox rentals go through the roof.
Broseph !!fxnDb+Ve4 joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 2 minutes later, 6 minutes after the original post[^][v]#217,255
@217,250 (cccuuunnttt !nIGga.SL0w)
What Netflix failed to understand is that the reason most people choose Netflix over other streaming services is because their discs supplement what can't be watched over the internet. When they split the two, some people switched over to other streaming services. @previous (B)
You're right. Redbox rentals went up as soon as Netflix did that last price change.
Ks !KansasxqvM joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 11 minutes later, 17 minutes after the original post[^][v]#217,261
I can't believe they dove into price hikes so fast in the first place, I mean that was fucking retarded. Now they pull this shit? I don't even know what to say... shock our customer base, lose trust and respect of our entire fucking customer base, hurry and abandon our identity and treat it like a scandal. Wow. I wanna see the evidence they looked at and decided this was a good idea.
Also, whatever morons came up with and approved the instant and massive price-hike should have been immediately fucking fired. It really doesn't get much more incompetent than that.
(Edited 3 minutes later.)
brie !OudrPWaUDQ joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 33 minutes later, 51 minutes after the original post[^][v]#217,270
Well this is better than what they originally told everyone, which was that they were just going to end the discs by mail service completely and fuck you if like DVDs.
Oh and considering that the instant streaming has been 'a free add-on to your existing Netflix service' for so long, wouldn't it make sense for it to become cheap as fuck now?
Anonymous F joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 4 minutes later, 55 minutes after the original post[^][v]#217,272
I'm surprised people still use the disc service.
If they weren't already, i guess people will just torrent content that can't be streamed, now.