Remember that infamous apology letterNetflix customers received from CEO Reed Hastings announcing the birth of the Netflix spin-off company, Qwikster? Turns out they were “JK”-ing.
About three weeks ago, Netflix customers received an e-mail that, among other things, announced that Netflix would be splitting into two companies; Netflix would now only be a streaming service and they would spin-off a new company called Qwikster to handle all of the DVD/Blu-ray-by-mail service and expand that service to video games. Reception to this idea was almost universally negative and seemed counter productive. How would this split be a benefit to the consumer? Now instead of one account to manage your DVD mailing and instant streaming queues, we would need two. Two separate accounts with two separate queues, two separate logins, and two separate bills with no connection between them seems like the exact opposite of making a better customer experience.
Before even becoming a functional site, Qwikster has ceased to exist. Netflix has decided to keep both its services under one roof and Reed Hastings has once again issued an apologetic-esque statement on the matter:
“Consumers value the simplicity Netflix has always offered and we respect that,there is a difference between moving quickly — which Netflix has done very well for years — and moving too fast, which is what we did in this case.”
With their consecutive missteps as of late and these ridiculous statements from Reed Hastings I’m seriously beginning to doubt Netflix as a company has any idea what they are doing – something I and the other robots from the Big Shiny Podcast talk about in length in last month’s episode. The idea of splitting you popular, easy to use, convenient DVD mailing and instant streaming site into twoseparate service seems like a step backwards, no matter if that happens now or in the future. Yes, Mr. Hastings, your customers were upset because the idea of splitting Netflix into two companies making a far lesser user experience for your millions of customers was just too progressive for us to handle; it has nothing to do with the fact that it’s just a bad idea, period.
It’s unclear if Netflix will still be expanding its mailing service to include video games. Personally, I think for now Netflix needs to get their feet back underneath them and get back to the basics of offering a DVD-by-mail rental service and a decent streaming service at a reasonable price – hell, go ahead and look into expanding your service to include video games, but keep it all under one roof.
Netflix seems to have a long ways to go in regaining customer trust and confidence and showing that they are a company that can adapt well moving into the future of home entertainment. Lately it just seems they are grasping at straws.
What do you think of this latest move by Netflix? Have you cancelled any Netflix services in light of these missteps by the company? Have you moved on to a competitor? Sound off in the comments below!