You've heard the expression "doubling down on dumb" right? It's where a public figure says something incredibly stupid or insensitive. Then, instead of a simple mea culpa, the celeb or politician gets mad, blames the media, and proceeds to explain what s/he really meant – despite all recorded evidence to the contrary.
Netflix is doubling down on dumb.
First, the company which became famous and popular for delivering DVDs and Blu-ray in bright red envelopes via the mail, raised its prices, especially on those folks who liked to get both physical discs in the mail and also liked to stream movies and TV shows to their connected Blu-ray players, HDTVs and media streams such as Apple TV – like me.
Okay, that's annoying, but the higher combined price was still a bargain compared to renting videos separately every couple of days or even venturing out to a crowded, NBA-player-sitting-in-front-of-you, teenagers-yakking-behind-you-kicking-your-chair movie theater.
But now, Netflix has announced it has split its business in two.
"Netflix" will be strictly a streaming video service.
Its DVD-by-mail service will be "Qwikster."
Forgive me for judging without having tried it, but…
DUMB!
Take a letter, Maria
In the height of understatement, Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings noted in a letter to subscribers that:
A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated.
Plus, dual subscribers will have their credit cards charged in two separate pieces.
WTF?
So let's say my wife suddenly has a jones for a particular flick. I sign onto Netflix. If said movie is available for streaming, great. Grab the popcorn, turn down the lights and let's get busy granting her immediate gratification (watching the movie – get your mind out of the gutter).
If said flick is available only on DVD or, even better, Blu-ray, I place it on the top of my Netflix queue and try to satisfy her movie-watching desires another way.
Now I have to go and sign into two different Web sites (and that's http://qwikster.com – no wwww) from the same damn company to search for one damn movie?
How does this make any #@$%^&* sense?
Which do I go to first if I want to find a movie if I don't care if I can get it now or latter? (And the Qwikster site isn't live yet, so I couldn't check if a movie's information listing tells me if a title also is available via streaming on the new streaming-only Netflix).
Plus, now I have to reform my typing muscle-memory and not type "Quickster." QW? Good grief.
Oh, Qwikster will also send you video games. BFD.
Multitaskers beware
From an inside-business POV, Netflix/Qwikster is cheesing off two important sets of subscribers: current DVD-only customers, who I have to assume make up the bulk of Netflix customers who now have to get used to a new name and Web address, and, two, its highest-paying (ergo best) customers, those who pay for both discs and streaming – like me.
The photo at the upper left is my current Netflix disc – the first Harry Potter film. I've never seen any of them and I feel culturally disabled as a result. Since they're done makin' 'em, I can watch Daniel Radcliffe progress through puberty in a collapsed period of time instead of waiting a year or two between wizardly voice changes and facial hair.
But I'm catching-up multitasking. I'm also using Netflix streaming to watch all the Battlestar Galactica eps I missed since I could never figure out when SyFy (owned by NBC-Universal, which also runs this Web site) was running them, so my DVR kept failing to record them.
I can't see how this new one company/two names arrangement is of any benefit or improvement to me and my dual-subscribing ilk.
I'll give Qwikster/Netflix a shot, unless its combined brains trust decides in the next few weeks that this split/renaming is as AWFUL an idea as I think it is (or until I'm through both the Harry Potter and the Battlestar Galactica series). But I may decide just to move to iTunes for all my instant gratification home movie-watching needs.