Netflix splits off DVDs - separate company Qwikster

[mnewsham]

They may not be around 5 - 10 years from now, at the rate they are going. It's a case of a company jumping the gun before the market was ready.

How is the market not ready? They havent killed qwikster yet so they still have the profit from that. And if someone is dropping netflix BECAUSE of the split they are idiots.

 

[vi edit]

Why Netflix Is Smarter Than Its Customers

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Why-Netflix-Is-Smarter-Than-usnews-584478147.html?x=0

Quaint article, but it does nothing to address the pink elephant in the room....AKA looming price increases as current lowcost studio contracts begin to expire.

 

[sactoking]

How about the people who hate the Netflix selection list some of their favorite movies of all time, and of this year

Beerfest- no streaming
Super Troopers- no streaming
Back to the Future- no streaming
Three Amigos- no streaming
Blazing Saddles- no streaming
12 Angry Men- no streaming
The Sting- streaming
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly- no streaming
The Goonies- no streaming
Smokey and the Bandit- streaming
Happy Gilmore- no streaming
The Empire Strikes Back- no streaming
Lonesome Dove- no streaming
The Muppet Movie- no streaming
Raiders of the Lost Ark- no streaming
My Cousin Vinny- streaming
Last of the Mohicans- streaming
Goodfellas- no streaming
Heist- no streaming
Robin Hood (Disney)- no streaming
Coming to America- no streaming



That's 4/21 or 19% of decent-quality movies off the top of my head. That's not a good hit ratio.

 

[LookBehindYou]

Beerfest- no streaming
Super Troopers- no streaming
Back to the Future- no streaming
Three Amigos- no streaming
Blazing Saddles- no streaming
12 Angry Men- no streaming
The Sting- streaming
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly- no streaming
The Goonies- no streaming
Smokey and the Bandit- streaming
Happy Gilmore- no streaming
The Empire Strikes Back- no streaming
Lonesome Dove- no streaming
The Muppet Movie- no streaming
Raiders of the Lost Ark- no streaming
My Cousin Vinny- streaming
Last of the Mohicans- streaming
Goodfellas- no streaming
Heist- no streaming
Robin Hood (Disney)- no streaming
Coming to America- no streaming



That's 4/21 or 19% of decent-quality movies off the top of my head. That's not a good hit ratio.

Holy Shit you got good taste. I absolutely love almost all the movies you have on that list, the ones I dont I havetn seen.

Creepy, now would you say that I have a plethora?

 

[slayer202]

20% doesn't seem that terrible for a random list of movies that you like. For every movie that isn't available, there are many that fill it's place. Many that are just as good and better. Personally, I'm happy with looking through and finding a ton of great movies I've never heard of previously, or that most people haven't seen. "Oh, they don't have "x" movie, but they have "y, z, etc etc." I suppose some people base their opinion on different criteria.

 

[Macamus Prime]

Some people are saying a huge deal will be announced were most new movies will be streamed. Which is why they want to seperate DVDs from their streaming service.

Sounds like these "some people" are giving the CEO too much credit. But, lets see what happens next.

 

[zinfamous]

Quaint article, but it does nothing to address the pink elephant in the room....AKA looming price increases as current lowcost studio contracts begin to expire.

I'm thinking that was why they dumped DVD mailing to it's own entity.

Eliminating operating cost of that part of the company should free up a decent chunk of revenue to invest in those upcoming renewals.

I'm sure this pisses off USPS too, which has more or less been a Netflix-delivery service for the last 3 or so year.

 

[zinfamous]

Beerfest- no streaming
Super Troopers- no streaming
Back to the Future- no streaming
Three Amigos- no streaming
Blazing Saddles- no streaming
12 Angry Men- no streaming
The Sting- streaming
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly- no streaming
The Goonies- no streaming
Smokey and the Bandit- streaming
Happy Gilmore- no streaming
The Empire Strikes Back- no streaming
Lonesome Dove- no streaming
The Muppet Movie- no streaming
Raiders of the Lost Ark- no streaming
My Cousin Vinny- streaming
Last of the Mohicans- streaming
Goodfellas- no streaming
Heist- no streaming
Robin Hood (Disney)- no streaming
Coming to America- no streaming



That's 4/21 or 19% of decent-quality movies off the top of my head. That's not a good hit ratio.

the bolded have been available in the past. But such is a lot of their selection--here today, gone next week. Sometimes individual selections are extremely buggy--highly compressed video, locks up, or audio sync is WAY off. these often get tossed and re-released, or they just leave them up for the lulz. I've seen the same audio-sync problems with On Demand, on occasion.

 

[vi edit]

I'm thinking that was why they dumped DVD mailing to it's own entity.

Eliminating operating cost of that part of the company should free up a decent chunk of revenue to invest in those upcoming renewals.

I'm sure this pisses off USPS too, which has more or less been a Netflix-delivery service for the last 3 or so year.

It still doesn't do anything to address the upcoming disaster of offering the same amount of content (or less) for significantly more than what customers are paying. When the contracts renew I doubt netflix simply eats the cost without passing some of that on to the consumer.

While Reed Hastings may be an intelligent guy and able to see into the future, he's not good enough to prevent the arrogance, stupidity and shortsightedness of the movie studios.

 

[irishScott]

I'm thinking that was why they dumped DVD mailing to it's own entity.

Eliminating operating cost of that part of the company should free up a decent chunk of revenue to invest in those upcoming renewals.

I'm sure this pisses off USPS too, which has more or less been a Netflix-delivery service for the last 3 or so year.

More specifically, from what I've heard most studios charge for their licenses on a per-subscriber basis. By separating the DVD-only people they effectively slice millions of subscribers they'd have to uselessly pay for under the old model.

 

[torpid]

20% doesn't seem that terrible for a random list of movies that you like.

Seems pretty bad to me. Our local library has a vast majority of those available for immediate check out. Those aren't new releases or anything like that, and several are considered "all-time greats" and are, for example, included in AFI's top 100.

Speaking of which, I wonder how many from that list are available for streaming now? I remember checking once and it was only about 20%

 

[IcePickFreak]

Whoever came up with the 'Qwikster' name is being paid too much money.

 

[rockyct]

Whoever came up with the 'Qwikster' name is being paid too much money.

Like someone said here or somewhere else, it's like a dot com startup name from the '90s. Of course, eQwik would be worse.

 

[MotionMan]

Never mind.

Geez.

MotionMan

 

[Triumph]

Never mind.

Geez.

MotionMan

Well good, it appears that they listened and killed a bad idea. I'm still sticking with dvd mailings, though. The selection is just so much better.

 

[AreaCode707]

Damage is done. I canceled one portion of my account so I went down from $24 a month to $8 and I probably won't go back. That's going to be the case for a lot of their subscribers, including people who left entirely.

How long do you think it'll take to make it into textbooks as a study in market analysis before changing business strategy?

 

[Nebor]

I'm glad they didn't change anything, I was really opposed to it (though I wouldn't have cancelled any of my service.) I'm on the 2 blu-ray and streaming plan for ~$24 a month.