I wonder why they don’t mention those other plans on their homepage. I’m sure it will confuse new members. From their info, it seems they only have two plans: Streaming for $8 or streaming plus 1 DVD for $16.
I believe the intent is to discourage DVD rental.
Then they must be planning to expand streaming of current movies and shows (after the 28 day grace period), because right now the offerings aren’t much broader than the free on-demand movies my cable company offers, and they show little I couldn’t catch some weekend watching USA and TNT. 200 episodes of an 80s lawyer show and so on are not going to draw people to their streaming plan.
Netflix shares fall 10% today in response to rate hike.. Mind you, they are still up 155% over the last year.
Agreed. The choices for children’s programming are particularly weak. If you want to watch an episode of some cartoon show that you probably already get on your cable package, fine. Movies, though? They have one Muppet movie available streaming, one Disney movie the last I checked, and no Pixar movies.
I can agree with that. A few months ago, I decided that every week my (5 year old) daughter and I would watch a movie on Sunday mornings before we get moving for the day…it’s a struggle, to say the least, to find something. Luckily, she’s interested in how things work, so I can even throw on a documentary on how they make school buses or firetrucks and she’s content, but I usually find myself trying to time things so my movie gets in the mail by Thursday if I want to rent a physical one for her for the weekend.
I’m really hoping with the price increase they open up their selection.
So, like you, I just received a GREAT (read: bullshit) email from Netflix, detailing their new service, Qwikster. Oh wait, that’s the old service, just renamed. But that’s neither here nor there. What I really wanted to point out was this:
[QUOTE=Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO of Netflix]
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).
[/QUOTE]
Those are your examples of greatness?? AOL, which is like the short bus of the internet, and Borders? Border, who, you know, just this weekend CLOSED THEIR LAST RETAIL OUTLETS?? That Borders?
We should all aspire to such greatness.
Well, that was the point, no? Those companies both were once massive in their respective areas, but did not change course when people’s needs and wants changed. Netflix is pointing out that if they do not make the necessary course changes now, they will become “the short bus” of movies.
I just don’t get it.
All this uproar over price increase of 6 bucks a month??? That is about what a large popcorn at AMC costs these days.
Netflix is the best entertainment deal going.
I too question the sanity of spinning off the DVD service – and giving it a name so indicative of Web 2.0 silliness, “Qwikster”, ugh – but I’m pretty sure that’s his point. AOL was (supposedly) good at providing dialup service and Borders good at being a brick-and-mortar bookstore, but they failed to evolve and thus shuffled off the coil of relevance; Netflix hopes to avoid such a fate.
I tend to agree with you re. the monetary value of Netflix, but nevertheless consumers bristle at (relatively) substantial price increases when uncombined with increases in value. There is no question that the price changes are meant to encourage subscribers to shift to the streaming service, but – if you’re unhappy with its very limited selection, soon to become even more limited – then that doesn’t seem like a very appealing shift.
The email sent out this morning … man, talk about silly. It starts out
So the attempted rectification involves confusing consumers even more by renaming the traditional service, for which Netflix is still most widely known, to something utterly silly? I really, really, really don’t think this is going to be received how Netflix wishes …
Good grief. The name change is just silly (“Qwikster”? Really? Sounds like they’re going into the chocolate milk business.) But splitting the company into two separate websites, forcing the user of both DVD and streaming services to manage their queues on separate pages, and making separate credit card charges–that’s all is another pain in the ass.
At least I got the announcement this time; never did get any official notification of the price increase.
Biffy, I thing you’re absolutely right. I’m not a Netflix subscriber, but the two website thing is beyond asinine. That’s going to be unworkable, and I can see it being the kiss of death. Yikes.
I don’t understand why they can’t do something like what the Gap/Old Navy/Banana Republic does with their websites – three sites that offer one shared shopping bag among them.
I’m keeping my two-DVD plan and dropping the streaming option, because I enjoy watching DVD extras, commentary, etc. and streaming doesn’t have those features.
Be careful, though - more and more, studios are now sending Netflix “rental copies”, which also do not have those things. One I got didn’t even have “scene selection” on it and had something like 8 commercials at the beginning that were not skippable (unless you fast forwarded each one separately).
I still haven’t gotten the email.
The last few newer DVDs I have received from Netflix have had the Bonus features disabled. All I could watch was the movie itself.
I blame the early hour and jetlag for lack of reading comprehension. :smack:
Hmm. I dropped my 1-DVD-out plan in favor of streaming only, and was considering adding 1-DVD-out back. The streaming selection is increasingly depressing— I didn’t recognize a single title in the 20 or so new releases, last time I checked. It’s like browsing the world’s shittiest neighborhood video store at five minutes to close on a Saturday night.
“Qwickster”? Separate websites? Think I’ll hold off.
Never mind, didn’t read the comments.
Maybe they hope that, by disassociating themselves from the DVD end, it’ll be less blatant how sparse their streaming service is (and will become) compared to their DVD selection.
We dropped the discs with the price increase and I’m thinking about dropping the streaming. We don’t watch it much these days with the cable’s On Demand service and Netflix is just seeming like they’re losing more and more stuff.