Tag Archives: Qwikster

Thrusters on Reverse! Full Speed Back!



netflix logoNetflix apparently woke up from its stupor and stepped back from the plan to spin off its DVD-rental service into a separate unit called Qwikster.  Universally panned by critics and users, the attempt to separate the businesses seemed like a terrible, terrible mistake.

Fortunately for Netflix users, it was a mistake and Netflix has been smart enough to reverse course and listen to the wants of its users.  There are other companies I wish would do the same (facebook and Google, I’m looking at you!).  Of course, it is really too late for users like me, who already left Netflix when prices increased by 60% or so.  I was never a fan of their streaming service, since it never had what I wanted as a stream option.  I could get very old things on streaming, including some old television shows, but what I wanted to stream were recent releases most of the time.  Or at least, releases from the last ten years or so.  I thought the idea of streaming was wonderful, since I could use streaming on my laptop when I was stuck in a hotel room in a random town for an evening.  But nothing I ever wanted to see was available through their streaming service.

As for their rentals, We had pretty much watched everything there was to watch that we wanted to watch.  At some point, we realized that we were not getting new rentals very often (maybe once or twice a month) and that wasn’t worth what I was paying.  It certainly wasn’t going to be worth what I was going to be paying once the price went up. There was a time when movies were coming and going from our mailbox like that flap was a revolving door.  But towards the end, when I canceled our service, we just weren’t using the service all that much. That time was past.

And overall, streaming was never really a huge draw for me to begin with, as we have no device with our television that will allow streaming to happen.  We don’t game, so there’s no XBox, and we don’t have OTT boxes either.  It’s not how we, as a family, operate.  And I’m sure we’re not alone.

I’m still happy to see that Netflix knows when it has made a mistake, and is willing to change direction.  And if they’d drop their prices back, we might just subscribe again.  For now, it will be RedBox and whatever we can pick up from our pretty up-to-date local library.  And there’s always MegaVideo, which my teenager uses to watch almost everything.


Netflix Kills Qwikster, DVD by Mail Still Netflix. Suffers $200 Dollar a Share Loss.



netflix logoMaybe it was the weird spelling, the fact it was too close to Qwikstar (the Amway rebrand) or the twitter is owned by the Pot Smoking Elmo. Nonetheless, Netflix announced today they will not be seperating the company into two. Netflix DVD rental will still be $8 (with an additional $8 for streaming).

How Netflix Screwed themselves in the last 3 Months.

In July, Netflix came to the realization their service was not priced efficiently for the company to make a profit. Therefore, they announced by Sept 1st, they would be changing price plans.

The service separated the streaming from the DVD rental. For $8, you could get one DVD at a time. Add another $8 and you could get Netflix streaming. It was a move that happened too fast, so people lashed back.

Last month, Netflix’ CEO Reed Hastings outlined plans to separate the DVD by mail business and give it’s own name – Qwikster. People started speculating Netflix was planning to sell the DVD mail side and focus more on streaming. Within 14 days, Netflix saw a major decline of customers (Some calling the idea “Qwikstupid”) .

Netflix stock dropped almost $100 a share from Septembers’ announcement, and over $200 a share from July. Netflix lost millions of dollars in the last 90 days with these changes. Needless to say, this is not a great business plan.

What Netflix Needs to Do to Recoup this Large Deficit.

First of all, it would be a VERY GOOD idea to offer at least 1 free month to current customers (although 3 months would be better). After all, these are the people that stuck through it all. Next – cut the service price for DVD rental and streaming. Meet in the middle – $12 a month for 1 DVD at a time and streaming.

Reed Hastings also needs to put together a very big public apology. I don’t think it’s time for him to pass the CEO reigns just yet, but maybe Netflix needs to shake up the board a bit. This was a horrible idea that was ultimately agreed upon by the directors.

Will You Go Back to Netflix?

This is the biggest question. After all these bad decisions, would you choose to go back to Netflix? They do have the most coverage in streaming options, being on most Over the top TV solutions and game consoles. Still, loosing 1/3 of their operating share makes you wonder if they can ever get back to the $300 / share peak they enjoyed back in July.

I personally use the Netflix streaming service – I abandoned DVD rentals simply because they sat on the coffee table for weeks at a time. With new additions in AMC’s Walking Dead and Discovery’s Mythbusters to streaming, I have a month’s worth of shows to watch. Tron Legacy also showed up this month, which gives me more of what I really crave – top movies that are only a year old.


GNC #706 Netflix Debacle



No hiccups during tonight’s show, this one went off without a hitch. Plenty of tech content tonight and of course I have to talk about the big mess over at netflix. What an absolute mess they have made over these past couple of months and it is not going to get any better.

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Listener Links:
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*** Fly over Planet Earth.

Links to articles covered in this Podcast on the GNC Show Notes Page [Click Here]

Credits: Jack Ellis – Executive Producer


Netflix = Stream – Qwikster = DVD =?????



Netflix CEO just dropped a bomb shell, he announced that Netflix is splitting their businesses. Netflix will be for streaming and Qwikster a new company will be for renting DVD’s by mail. The two sites will be separate, and you will not get to cross queue, cross search anything.

With loosing Starz the streaming business will really suck, as their will be hardly any titles available so they have a few months to fix that.  Wow is all I can say, and I bet their stock gets hammered in the morning. My wife has been telling me to cancel Netflix for a while, guess it’s time to figure out what else is available.

Whoever is their PR company they better get busy as they are going to have some very pissed of customers in the morning.