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A couple months ago, Netflix changed its pricing structure. (WAKE UP! DON’T FALL ASLEEP YET, THE POST HAS JUST STARTED!) Instead of a flat-rate for all of its services, customers would now pay different subscription rates depending on if they used the DVD mail service, the streaming service, or both. Naturally, people were outraged. I don’t mean “naturally” because this is a reasonable thing to be outraged about, it’s not. Over the entire course of history of the world as we know it, prices of things change suddenly and without warning when the people who get our money feel like they would like more of it, and there is almost never a misguided letter from the CEO explaining the thinking behind this shift. (Although the thinking is usually pretty clear, isn’t it? “We think give us more money.” The end.) ANYWAY, I say “naturally” people were outraged because that is like soooo people. Honestly it is too exhausting to even keep up with what everyone’s so mad about anymore. But, so, this weekend, Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, posted an open letter on his blog (which is usually just pictures of kittens with broken legs wearing casts so you know this is IMPORTANT) addressing the price changes and introducing new changes and it’s like I don’t even know who Netflix IS anymore. Example:
So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently. It’s hard for me to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary and best: 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.
What? I mean, I went to college. I think I get it. But this is a very weird way to apologize to customers for your previous lack of clarity and communication. (Over the course of this whole thing, Netflix lost almost a million subscribers and their stock went down 19 percent but I’m sure this blog post cleared it all up and it’s back to business as usual.) “We have heard your complaints over our price changes and that is why in response we are going to become two separate companies.” I’m not saying they shouldn’t do that. Do it! Who cares? Fuck it! NO RULES! I’m just saying it’s a weird announcement to make couched in a supposed apology and attempt to clarify the situation. (OK, I’m going to write a little bit more, but if you haven’t already you should DEFINITELY go to sleep now.) More Reed Thoughts Backslash Blog Dot Doc:
For me the Netflix red envelope has always been a source of joy. The new envelope is still that distinctive 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 the same for many of you. We’ll also return to marketing our DVD by mail service, with its amazing selection, now with the Qwikster brand.
Ooooh, you guyyyyyys! Great news: they will return to marketing their DVD by mail service! So dope. Swagger on a hundred thousand trillion, or whatever. This is literally why most companies do not allow their CEOs to talk to actual human beings. Because it always comes out WEIRD. Are we really supposed to believe that because Reed Hastings himself is going to take some time acclimating himself to the new Qwikster logo (which, that name, MORE LIKE UGHSTER!) that somehow he gets us? I think that’s what this is supposed to be! We are all in this together, man. This incredible and meaningful corporate restructuring at the place where I rent movies sometimes. (Can you imagine thinking this much about Blockbuster video? Can you imagine thinking this much about Netflix?! Just kidding. No one is reading this. Too asleep/dead.)
Anyway, the comments on the blog are pretty great. It’s mostly very legitimate and well-expressed customer concerns about how this change will affect them (long story made short: it won’t! Read a book! Take a nap!) with panicked replies from Reed himself and then strange inter-customer sniping such as:
OUCH! That IS why you are only an xray repair tech, Jason Teasdale, you piece of shit! Man, the Internet is just THE WORST PLACE ON EARTH. I wish I could have the blog posts I want to read printed out and mailed to me. (This would not be one of them.) The company would be called Blogflix and everyone would fucking hate it.
In conclusion, something something Netflix video games Qwikster two websites people are monsters Reed Hastings goatee who cares.
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I saw this on my elevator news thingy this morning and in my email in-box. I am now officially overloaded with this and still don’t care. How long until it’s curtains for quickster (sounds like a bad lay to me). I give it a few weeks.
“What if we tried to make it up to people with a weird email that would make us the laughing stock of the internet before people on the west coast even wake up?” – Netflix/Qwikster PR department
The PR department was most likely not the one who made the call on this one. More like they were directed internally to issue a release explaining the name change and may have counselled that a blog post released over the weekend to avoid the Monday news cycle would be more manageable.
Sorry, everyone. I so rarely get to flex my professional muscles here. Some sort of weird gif in my next post. I promise.
…and we are back to normal.
I actually watched this movie on Netflix Instant. Way to bring it full circle, Sir FLW!
Big fan of their web marketing.
Aaaaaaand I was just a touch slow referencing everyone’s new favorite Twitter feed.
This is a bunch of bullshyt, Qwikster.
So Netflix is going to start sending me boba tea? I welcome the change.
I will miss the iconic red cups, though
I love the outrage people have over products and services to which they feel entitled. This reminds me of the big uproar over advanced screening procedures for airline security. If you don’t like this security, that is okay! It is okay to have opinions! But, I mean, nobody is making you buy airplane tickets! They are a commodity, not a right, and if you do not want to follow the rules associated with them, then don’t fly!
Uh yeah, except that the TSA is like molesting old ladies and little children. So there’s that.
Uh yeah, I heard there is going to be a whole Law & Order: SVU episode dedicated to that very instance.
That would be sexy to watch Mariska Hargitay and Chris Meloni frisk each other for an hour.
being as neither actors are on the show anymore, you’d have to watch re-runs on something like Netflix. what? they don’t have it streaming? why don’t you see if they have it on the DVD by-mail service? oh? that’s gone? I’ve heard of this new up-start called Qwickster that probably has it. why don’t you try to get it from there? all you need is a new log in ID and password and to re-submit your credit card information for separate billing to get the same exact service you used to have from one company at a 60% lower rate…but now they are two companies. you know, for your convenience!
^ THIS. Netflix is essentially free when you think of it. 1996 you would blow a deranged hobo for the service that Netflix provides today. Everyone go watch Louis CK’s “Everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy” bit again right now.
And that comment is why you are only an xray repair tech.
BOOM! My new all-purpose smackdown. 148 upvotes, please!
“Hmmmmm, maybe I WILL start reading more.” – No One, Unfortunately
In 1996 you would blow a deranged hobo for the service that The Library provides today.
There is something very weird about a word that includes a Q, W and K. UNSUBSCRIBE!
Actually I love it, because fuck you people who are better than me at scrabble. It’s a word now! BLAMMO!*
I really am not sure what I mean with that. My mind is still reeling from finding out that the Lion King is 17 years old. Give my aged mind a break!
I think if they add a Z somewhere in there then I will have to subscribe again because Z is such a cool kid letter.
Qwikzter
QwikstzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZzzzZZZZZZ
Qwickster is now the Strikeforce of home movie rentals.
Can we just turn this into another thread about what to watch on Netflix Instant? Because that was very fun! And Netflix Instant is my boyfriend in cold weather times so need to prepare for our next date ASAP.
Dr. Who. That’s all you need to know.
it’s pretty much the only thing i watch. they need to add more of the old episodes!
watch “Some Folks Call it a Sling Blade”….the short that was developed into “Sling Blade”…it’s only 25 minutes or so and it’s really good! JT Walsh is super creepy in it.
other than the occasional Newsradio episode, i haven’t had much time for movies lately, so that’s all i’ve caught recently.
Right now I’m rotating between Mad Men, American Pickers and the UK Kitchen Nightmares. Breaking Bad is on now, too. AND Felicity! There is no need to ever leave your house ever again.
My boyfriend is the best!
Go watch Downton Abbey! It is The Best and you will love it!
You can just start watching All The Anime Ever Made, apparently.
I also received this in my inbox, at 3:15am. My favorite parts were when he tried to humanize himself by talking about how people love DVD by mail and instant streaming JUST LIKE HIM and that he wasn’t sorry about the price change, just that he didn’t come right out and explain/apologize for it when it happened?
The uproar didn’t make sense to me in the first place, when I’m paying over $100/month for cable, I can’t really gripe too much about having almost every movie and TV show available to me for $20 a month. But I don’t feel like this is really going to help with any of the people already fuming thinking a huge corporation doesn’t care about their feelings.
“But I don’t feel like this is really going to help with any of the people already fuming thinking a huge corporation doesn’t care about their feelings.”
One of my favorite things I ever learned was that when Sears Roebuck invented the mail-order catalog in 1890-ish, they found their customers often wrote them letters: “Dear Mr Sears & Mr Roebuck, we wanted to let you know little Frances sleeps so soundly in the rocking-crib you so considerately mailed us, and Theodore remains so fond of those biscuits you send us a tin of every month. Stewart is growing up and you’d be proud; he has become quite the baseballman when not doing his chores, and… (etc.)”
People did this because it was how they’d related to the General Store in town, where they used to buy everything. They had no concept of “huge corporation not caring.”
This is fascinating. Is there a place to read more stories like this? (Not sarcastic, this looks like an Americana nerd hole I want to fall down for a few hours today.)
Me too.
Gosh, it was so long ago. At the time I was reading stuff by Lewis Mumford (“Technics and Civilization” I think?) and Henry Adams (“The Virgin and the Dynamo” — btw, that’s also the title of a memorable weekend), and some guy with a name that reminded me of a gossip columnist who wrote a thing about grain elevators that turned into this examination of how by changing the landscape people changed the way they thought and therefore the nature of humanity. So it is probably from one of those. There was also a book called “Fables of Abundance” by Jackson Lears that is about how advertising has shaped our ideas; it may have been in there. I don’t know what’s on the internets for nerd-holing, but good luck.
The more I think about it, the more I think it might have been in the Lears book, which was also more readable than the Mumford and the gossip columnist.
FYI presently I am reading The Prisoner of Azkaban, you guys, so, no nerdo. (or is that maxi-nerdo?)
The Sears story was definitely not in the Adams.
Okay, I think Walter Lippman was the guy who wasn’t a gossip columnist.
Are you talking about the Machine and the Garden? [flexing my American Studies nerd muscles right now...]
Oh damn, badideajeans, I might be. CHECK OUT THE AMERICAN STUDIES GUNS ON YOU.
Student chair of the department.
Just looked through both Virgin Land and the Machine in the Garden and neither reference Sears. I will look up your books and order them now. Once an AmStud nerd, always an AmStud nerd. (coincidentally also reading HP again) so Donna Darko nerdo.
I vaguely remember bits and pieces of this but I did a lot of stuff on material culture and its role in social identity so it may have been part of my light summer reading stuff on the establishment of brand identity as consumer identity as self identity and national pride during the Great Depression, etc.
BTW, Leo Marx wrote Machine in the Garden and very much sounds like a gossip columnist and looking that book over — hot damn was that boring.
Also, I believe the book A Consumers’ Republic by Lizbeth Cohen is what I was referring to in my light reading… ordering it and some more on Amazon. Because I find identity through owning a lot of books on something I haven’t majored in in 12 years.
I am probably going to order Machine & Garden & Cohen, thanks to you. Curses! As for Fables of Abundance, Amazon’s “see inside” feature showed me the Index and there’s no Sears listed, so… huh. And (lol?) that book was also my light summer reading, not assigned for class. Eesh, I gotta say, these books bent my mind and I loved them, but they might be kind of dry rowing now that I am out of that context.
“The impact of the technic upon the interpretive/transformational capactity of the human mind has been civilizational in scope.” — 1990s me
“Derp.” — 2011 me
The Cohen one was easy summer reading compared to people glorifying Walt Whitman. But I just had that same derp moment looking over what I might be reading in a few weeks…
Have you read “Where The Girls Are: Growing Up Female With The Mass Media”? That’s a really good one too.
I never heard of that one but based on how it looks at the Amazon I will throw it on my list, and I hereby counter-recommend Susan Sontag (“Against Interpretation”). Also you might like “Boxed In: The Culture of TV” by Mark Crispin Miller and “A World Elsewhere” (or “Performing Self” or “Trying It Out In America”) by Richard Poirier. Those are all summer reading list things (if you are a nerd like me), not heavy tomes.
Number of videogummers who are excited about this thread now, out of a possible 4,137: 2.
Oooh, fantastic! Adding to the Amazon list now so I don’t forget. I also just got Enlightened Sexism by Douglas (honestly a very fun academic to read) and would HIGHLY recommend Cinderella Ate My Daughter if we’re heading further down the feminist media critique path… (esp bc I used to work for the Mouse and can verify that all of what was written is so true)
I’d also like to add that I just made shoes out of bubble wrap and they’re totally awesome.
Probably at this point we are mentally married. Or at least hanging out. Mentalbartender, a round of mentaldrinks for me and my friend!
me three! i need some new stuff to read about!
You know what will happen next, guys. For now, the price for each service will be billed seperately and add up to the same as what we pay for both. In time (no time at all) each will rise and we will find ourselves paying 20 bucks for DVDs and another 20 for streaming. The cat’s out on the roof for “Quickster”, right?
It’s always an excellent idea to rename your core service you’ve spent a decade branding until it’s universally known.
Agreed. But I think they did it so when they shut it down (because we eventually won’t use DVDs and only use Mp8s to watch movie-shows) it won’t reflect poorly on their Netflix streaming.
.mp8: THE OCHO
The Qwikster logo is our generation’s Gap logo.
after a while, you keep calling a donkey a horse and people will stop believing you…just ask String
explainer guy tries again, you have not been recognized. Now, Prop Joe, what were you saying?
is you taking notes on a corporate fucking conspiracy??
We are going to raise our prices because Qwikster and also we are losing a bunch of streaming content in February!
“I’m perfect at business” – Reed Hastings
“No I do not feel stupid for complaining about this” – Me
I actually think they split because streaming content is going to be the main business and they don’t really care what will eventually happen to Qwikster.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they came out with new streaming content announcements soon.
I’m glad I changed my subscription services to only include streaming so I don’t have to be associated with something called Qwickster, which sounds like a cross between a run down convenience store and an unsatisfying sex act.
Ex probably: “I got a qwickster behind the Qwickster last night. It was a’ight.”
I’m so lazy. Please don’t make me use two different websites…..
terrible user experience design, it makes my head ache that major companies pull crap like this.
Why didn’t they call it “Flickster”? Or is that too much like Flickr? Why am I wondering about this?
Good call– they could have even teamed up with flixster or something…but then that idea would have made some sort of sense, and therefore that is probably why they just didn’t even entertain it.
Qwikster?????????? OMG. SO crazy. Firstly, who the hell even cares what they call it?? And secondly, what the HELL does that name have to do with mailing DVDs??? Did these guys even spitball other names?? Mailflix? Flixinmail?? P.O.Flix? Wait a minute….OMG, I think Qwikster might actually be the best after all. *gunshot*
Especially since “qwickness” isn’t their egde with the mail-in program. What’s quicker than DVDs in the mail? REDBOX! Instant Streaming! Driving two towns over to the last Blockbuster in your area! Everything else!
That said…. er, SelectionFlix? ObscureFlix? Yeah, nevermind.
So I was catching up on Breaking Bad when I got an apology email notice from Reed. Reed being 1. a school I never applied to but thought of attending for a week in 1995 and 2. a guy from my high school who I defriended after learning he was a hard-core Tea Party douchebag after the 2008, I naturally assumed it was both of them working together to address the time I broke a reed on a friend’s clarinet.
The point is you never forget where you were when you got the Netflix to Quickster email.
I didn’t get an email. I had to go to a gas station with a little TV on top of the pump.
the 2008 = the 2008 election. I’m going to get coffee now. This is getting embarrassing.
God damn it. I just got my parents to understand the price change. Now I’m going to have to explain to them that there are two different companies?! THANKS A LOT, REED HASTINGS.
Wow. I never even considered the angry parent “what the hell is this company charge on my bill” reaction. I wonder how many credit cards will be assumed to have been stolen after a Quickster charge shows up.
Nice rebranding guys.
Haha. I just talked my Mom into DVR because my nieces didn’t understand why you couldn’t fast-forward the TV show. I’m impressed you guys are already to the Netflix stage. ***Applause***
I called my mom to preemptively explain the change and how it will affect her experience before I got any questions
Hmm, that sounds a bit too much like I’m coaching my mom through menopause.
I think we are going to need a bigger face palm.
I just looked up Jason Teasdale to find out if he has his occupation listed on the Facebook, or if Christina Gomes just revealed that she is stalking him. I could not find Christina Gomes’ profile, so I cannot verify if her occupation is actually “JERK.”
“MRI Repair Tech”
i get all my movies online. i would be down to pay for things and such if netflix streaming had a better selection, but i understand that’s not how the world works so i’ll have to keep pirating all the media i want.
woops didn’t realize this was saintsgum.com
Netflix wants out of the DVD business. It requires more cost and labor to deliver and it’s perceived as “old.” They can’t just close it because their DVD customer base is the only thing that made their streaming arm possible. So, they pick an intentionally horrible name that evokes deceased brands of the past, split the services into separate companies (including separate queues!), and make one substantially more expensive than the other. Basically, a “fuck you?” instead of a “FUCK YOU!”
Sorry to get all
- Conpiracy Theory now available on Netflix Streaming
I hope they keep all the red envelopes because it would be really wasteful if they tossed them, printed the Quickster logo/name on everything and then had to reprint Netflix on the envelopes when they toss out this incredibly bad idea like so much Coke II (which we all know was created so regular Coke could switch from sugar to corn syrup). Because our Earth is going to shit and blah blah hippie tirade on pollution and stuff.
I’m liking these changes, you guys. I think it would also be cool if they replaced the DVD by mail thing with a traveling projector (by horse cart) to screen movies made in the 1990s in churches or rec centers. It’s risky, but all innovation is inherently risky.
My boyfriend Dennis Duffy agrees, because technology is cyclical. “Beeper King 4 eva” – My Neck Tatoo
“My Neck Tatoo” – My Knuckle Tattoo
I woke up this morning to a thud, and realized my phone had fallen off the shelf onto the floor. I picked it up and saw that I had gotten this email. Basically, it made my phone try and commit suicide.
This post reinforces my belief that all girls named Christina are insufferable bitches.
What annoys me about this is less the price increase, which in makes sense (although a 60% increase is a little ridiculous), it’s more the fact that there really is no apology in this email. People do tend to like sincerity, at least a little bit. At least, I do.
Prices increase, fine, happens all the time…but I sure hope that their online options get better.
And uh…did the PR dept miss the obvious Quikflix? That is if they’re dead set on the whole quick thing.
Whatever, who cares. -Netflix/Quikster PR departments.
I feel like his message “alluded” to better content streaming. I LOVE having the online streaming from my PS3 but I hate to admit that I have watched some crappy stuff because of the lack of content. I don’t think they would make this change if they didn’t have something up their sleeve.
Or… wishful thinking. – Me
Quikster sounds like something that will do my taxes.
Can I just plug my movie lifestyle choice here? The thing I didn’t like about Netflix DVDs by mail is the feeling that you are bleeding money by not watching the movie that is sitting there on your mail desk. (Especially when I ordered things for the wife and had to say “you SAID you wanted to see this.”) The same would be true with a streaming subscription that I don’t use much.
I do SwapaDVD, and buy the occasional thing on Amazon. It’s about the same $$, it’s kinda fun, and there’s no sinking feeling of wasting money. Right now I have a stash of 10 things to watch whenever the hell I feel like it.
I think they explained themselves pretty well in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnLycTPoNy8