Bucks right has pretty good coverage over the latest outrage. Seems they are spinning off their DVD business like it was an infected appendix. I was willing to live with the price hike, but destroying the value of the service is enough to make me think about dropping it.
16 thoughts on “Netflix Needs to Fire its CEO”
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Netflix said before that migrating from DVDs to online content was it’s intent. Spinning off the DVD business was probably their business plan from the beginning. I’m not surprised at all.
If their streaming business had as many selections as their DVD business, this would make sense, but their streaming selection is still paltry compared to the DVD selection.
yeah, but doing this forces their hand on the online streaming side of the equation. If it works, and they are able to jumpstart the streaming angle, then he will look like a superstar visionary.
From what I understand, much of the rights to streaming for recent movies has actually been with the Starz network (that’s why you always saw the “starz” cable logo come up and they’ve been balking on renewing the agreement.
This may very well be an attempt to merge the companies into a focused online/cable entity to ensure better access to new movies.
Comcast, and it’s ever expanding VOD library, will welcome you back!!
If they’d sell it to me for 30 bucks a month, with some nice iPad, PC, and Mac clients for watching them, I’d consider it. Comcast wants to sell me a product for 100 bucks a month that I have to watch through a large pizza box device, generally on a TV. That’s not how I want to do my content.
Quit Netflix long ago for Redbox. In our relatively small town of 30k, there are 7 or 8 Redboxes with a decent selection. We rent maybe 5 dvd’s a month. Way cheaper to do it that way.
I couldn’t help but notice that there was a Netflix Banner ad on the Bucks Right page. Oh sweet irony!
They’re down the road from me on the outskirts of Los Gatos, and probably singlehandedly supporting the Postal business in this region. If the USPS tanks or collapses, what happens to the DVD’s.?
Oh, and Aarrgh!
It’s almost like they’re trying to kill the DVD side. I don’t get it. What’s the most likely new use case scenario now? Go to Netflix, search for content, find they don’t have it, then go to another website to add the DVD to a queue?
Blargh. Might as well just start using RedBox.
The DVD side is untenable as a business model.
RedBox already eats all the “casual” users (contra Mr. Buist, I don’t think they’re worried about him going to one – people are already doing that instead of waiting two days for a Netflix DVD, when they’re out buying groceries or getting lunch), warehouses and shipping cost a fortune, and the Post Office is tottering, for that matter.
What countertop said – having one entity doing nothing but streaming might well help them get better deals with the studios, and that’s what’s going to keep them alive, if anything.
(Yes, people “want” unlimited DVD and streaming at the same time, for $10 a month.
But they’re not going to get it, because nobody can afford to provide that.
As Mrs. McArdle helpfully points out above, “Unlimited instant streaming of movies and television at the prices Netflix was charging will not support the content generation machine that currently fills your cable channels.”
Content has to come from somewhere, and somebody has to pay for it, or nobody will bother to make it.)
“…and the Post Office is tottering, for that matter.”
Isn’t it the case that some very large percentage (I want to say 30%) of the Post Office’s current traffic is NetFlix DVDs?
The won’t get any of _my_ money until they stop treating linux like an unwanted stepchild.
with aids…
and leprecy…
and a club foot.
I gave up on the DVDs once streaming came to XBOX 360. I had the same 2 movies out for 2 years, and decided that was my sign to watch them, send them back, and switch to streaming only. I did did that before the DVD price hike happened. I have no objection to the DVDs getting spun off, as I have more product in my queue than I ever could stream.
I agree that more selection would be beneficial, as would a Linux client, although my Android phone can stream now, so I wonder if I could run the app in an Android emulator on a Linux PC.
I bailed from NetFlix about a year ago when their loving CEO insulted the American populace by calling us ‘self absorbed.’
http://consumerist.com/2010/09/netflix-ceo-americans-too-self-centered-to-notice-netflix-is-cheaper-in-canada.html
They have emailed me frequently, and even one phone call, requesting that I return to do business with them.
Seems like he insists on offending his customer base yearly, though this year twice. I wonder if next year he’ll do it three times.
Reed Hastings mI’ve is a smart one. But he fumbled the presentation and the new name sucks.
Here is the fumbles. Should have simply announced that streaming was no longer free. But would be a great deal at the price of one DVD. This is essentially what happened. People would have understood the honeymoon was over.
So why split the company. To save it. See the problem is that streaming TV is probably not that profitable to Netflix. The studios want a LOT more cash. From $300 mil to $1 bil. So where would Netflix get that money? Why from the DVD side.
By splitting the company Mr. HStings reduces the size of Netflix pockets. Sorry StudioZ. We don’t have $400 mil for a license agreement. Can you do $50 mil?
Sadly the change up was fumbled.
Of course at this point they have decided not to split the company (pubic outcry or more likely falling stock prices works…)
But they have kept the price increase. If they had gradually increased it, this might have worked. But a big jump coupled by the loss of movies from two studios (Disney and Sony) sounds like a raw deal to many customers. Yes they announced a new deal with dreamworks, but those movies are not suppose to show up until 2013. Not nearly soon enough to bring back the 1 million customers they already lost and the countless more customers that will leave once their favorites have been dropped from netflix.