Qwikster

[X]

Look what I got ... Thoughts?
   
Dear Christopher,

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.

So here is what we are doing and why.

Many members love our DVD service, as I do, because nearly every movie ever made is published on DVD. DVD is a great option for those who want the huge and comprehensive selection of movies.

I also love our streaming service because it is integrated into my TV, and I can watch anytime I want. The benefits of our streaming service are really quite different from the benefits of DVD by mail. We need to focus on rapid improvement as streaming technology and the market evolves, without maintaining compatibility with our DVD by mail service.

So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are really becoming two different businesses, with very different cost structures, that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently.

It's hard to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to "Qwikster". We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name "Netflix" for streaming.

Qwikster will be the same website and DVD service that everyone is used to. It is just a new name, and DVD members will go to qwikster.com to access their DVD queues and choose movies. One improvement we will make at launch is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, but now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done. Other improvements will follow. A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated.

There are no pricing changes (we're done with that!). If you subscribe to both services you will have two entries on your credit card statement, one for Qwikster and one for Netflix. The total will be the same as your current charges. We will let you know in a few weeks when the Qwikster.com website is up and ready.

For me the Netflix red envelope has always been a source of joy. The new envelope is still that lovely red, but now it will have a Qwikster logo. I know that logo will grow on me over time, but still, it is hard. I imagine it will be similar for many of you.

I want to acknowledge and thank you for sticking with us, and to apologize again to those members, both current and former, who felt we treated them thoughtlessly.

Both the Qwikster and Netflix teams will work hard to regain your trust. We know it will not be overnight. Actions speak louder than words. But words help people to understand actions.

Respectfully yours,

-Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO, Netflix

p.s. I have a slightly longer explanation along with a video posted on our blog, where you can also post comments.

[Rico]

Hehe!  Funny, I just posted about this in the Netflix thread too.

[Dangelus]

Makes sense I suppose.

[turtlesrock]

interesting.

[spaltor]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I got this email this morning, too, and at first I thought prices would be coming back down.  But as I read it, I realized it was just something to make people angry again.  I hated it.  HATED it.  I don't care if they charge DVDs and streaming separately or even have different names (although Qwikster is a stupid name, imho).

But, one of the things I love about Netflix is that my DVD queue tells me when something on it is available for streaming, and I can move things back and forth between streaming and DVD queue. I can immediately see what's available in each. If they're smart, hopefully you'll be able to log in and edit both queues at once, but I'm sure they won't be.

[sheldor]

Hmmmm...so now there are no price hikes??

On a side note, we've been using blockbuster for the last few weeks - did a HP marathon and then went to see the last part at the theater.    BB gave us these free $1 rental coupon and when we used it, they gave us ANOTHER coupon.  I don't who's in charge over there but we can get free (although older) movies for FREE.

[spaltor]

So, Twitter has pretty much confirmed that Netflix and Qwikster queues will not talk to one another.  I was fine with the price hikes, but this is the change that really gets on my nerves, and will probably affect my usage of the DVD rentals in the future.

I really can't believe that no one at Netflix thought this would be a bad idea.  Or, more likely, plenty of people said that this would not go well, and the upper management ignored the people that actually know what they're talking about.  I mean, that's how it usually goes, right? 

[Rico]

Hmmmm...so now there are no price hikes??

No - the prices hikes are all still there.  They just renamed the DVD rental part of Netflix to Qwikster.

[moyer777]

where do I find how much the price hikes are?

[spaltor]

They're the same ones that were announced a while back.  There's a thread about it in "Tech Topics", I think.

[Bromptonboy]

Qwikster would be a better name for streaming - it is 'Qwiker' after all...

[X]

Qwikster would be a better name for streaming - it is 'Qwiker' after all...

But streaming is the epitome of "Net Flicks".

[Meds]

For a start never start a letter with the first name and secondly don't say I messed up. Looks like you run a amateurish company.