BREAKING NEWS: QWIKSTER HAS DIED!

[stypee]

As per AOL.COM - Huffington Post...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/1 ... d=webmail3

[molly1216]

technically i think that was a miscarriage.

[stypee]

technically i think that was a miscarriage.

ouch!

[mavrach]

Interesting. Netflix's much-hated charging for steaming actaully makes sense if they were going to split into two companies. Of course they probably won't take that charge away at this point

They were indeed skating on thin ice. The increase lost them a lot of business, so I'm glad they backed away before hurting themselves further.


I've said this before, but I want all of my movies in one place. I don't want a streaming website and a DVD website, all with rotating licensing rights to view certain movies. If the future is cloud media, I am not going to subscribe to 10 different services in order to have access to every movie. I'm hanging on to my DVD collection, so I'll have any movie worth rewatching at my immediate disposal.

Having everything in seperate places is like having multiple formats, just a bad idea. We don't have Blu-Ray & HD-DVD, didn't have VHS & Betamax. That's how it works for video games though - if you want every game out there, you have to buy an Xbox 360, a PS3 & a Wii. Thus, I don't have the ability to play any Xbox games because I'm not willing to buy another system. I don't want this to happen to movies too!

[stypee]

I'm still aggravated by all this.. I have streaming subscriptions to both Netflix and Hulu Plus... I'd like to rent both DVD and watch the streaming on Netflix but its not in my budget. So I get screwed because of the variety on Hulu Plus.. Its great to watch TV when I have the time and I love the Criterion Collection.

The whole thing just isn't fair to the consumers... The studios better get their asses together on these streaming rights bullshit, believe me, I've always been a DVD guy - I like the actually disc in my hands and all the extras but still this is ridiculous. Let the schmucks like me at least have the oppty. to watch the dam movie!

[mavrach]

And another thing, for those of us who'd have a big movie collection. If we moved to streaming, wouldn't it be a major pain to have to remember which service hosted which movie?

I already had this problem with Hulu & Netflix. I've been watching South Park's older episodes on Netflix, starting with the newer seasons and moving backwards. Then I watched some of the current season on Hulu. So then the current season moves to Netflix, and it shows that I haven't watched that season since I watched it on a different website.

Or you might check into Netflix looking for a movie, and forgotten it was on a different service.

And the licensing will affect this too. So Hulu has most of the Criterion Collection...then let's say Criterion decides it's financially viable to host their own streaming service. "I could've sworn I watched that here."

[HGervais]

Eh. For about 23 bucks a month I have both Netflix & Hulu. A almost endless movie & TV buffet for under $25.00 is still a pretty serious value.

[mavrach]

Eh. For about 23 bucks a month I have both Netflix & Hulu. A almost endless movie & TV buffet for under $25.00 is still a pretty serious value.

For now it is definitely really good. Between Netflix streaming & DVD's I'm watching more movies than ever at a cheaper price than I'd spent when I was blind-buying everything I wanted to watch.

I just worry what the future holds when everything goes disk-free. If you take away Netflix's DVD's, their streaming has a lot of big holes in its collection.

[Kenneth Morgan]

Eh. It didn't really matter to me, since I wasn't signed up for the streaming service, and I was assured that my DVD rental queue wouldn't be affected.

On a side note, I spoke to a Netflix customer service rep asking if they were planning on adding any discs from the Warner Achives collection or similar catalog offerings from other studios. He told me he wasn't aware of those collections, sounded interested and said he'd pass it along to the appropriate department. I'm hoping they'll end up adding those titles.

[Dan Mancini]

I just worry what the future holds when everything goes disk-free. If you take away Netflix's DVD's, their streaming has a lot of big holes in its collection.

The DVD business is choking the streaming business, though. It's responsible for many of those big holes. If studios only have the option to license content to Netflix for streaming, and can't make money from the snail mail distribution of physical media, they'll be more eager to license new and high-profile content.

What people can't seem to grasp about Netflix's attempt to kill the DVD business is that doing so would (probably) have produced the kind of rapid evolution of the streaming business that won't be possible as long as physical media lingers. The fact that consumers responded to Netflix's plans with pitchforks and torches is a sign that Netflix completely over-estimated the maturity of their streaming business.

They're keeping the current pricing model even after nixing Qwickster because, though unpopular, it's a tolerable incremental step toward killing the DVD rental business (which, at this point, is only holding Netflix back).

Having now screwed the P.R. pooch, Netflix needs to sit back, take a deep breath, and figure out some things they can do in the short-term to mature the streaming business without causing consumers heartburn. They can begin by using the money they're now not paying STARS to put together some creative content licensing deals that begin to convince everyone that those big holes are fillable.

[J.M. Vargas]

^^^ You mean like the $1 BILLION Netflix just paid Warner Bros/CBS to stream the entire line-up of The CW network shows?