Netflix Kills Qwikster!

Well THAT didn’t last long!

Netflix kills Qwikster after customers bash spinoff of DVD service

“Three weeks ago, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said his company would split its DVD-by-mail service into a new site called Qwikster while keeping video streaming at Netflix.com. The change seemed needlessly drastic and complicated for many users, forcing customers to be billed twice and to search for DVD and streaming content on separate websites. But now, Netflix customers will never have to hear the word Qwikster again.

Customers complained about the confusing changes and Hastings apparently received the message. Hasting announced in a new blog post titled ‘DVDs will be staying at netflix.com’ that Qwikster will now simply go away. ‘It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs,’ Hastings wrote. ‘This means no change: one website, one account, one password… in other words, no Qwikster.’

Hastings had argued last month that DVDs by mail and streaming are such different businesses that they must ‘grow and operate independently.’ But curiously, the same post touting the benefits of separation also detailed the problems that would lead to extensive customer criticism.

‘A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated,’ Hastings said at the time. ‘So if you subscribe to both services, and if you need to change your credit card or email address, you would need to do it in two places. Similarly, if you rate or review a movie on Qwikster, it doesn’t show up on Netflix, and vice-versa.’

That, in a nutshell, is why customers didn’t like the idea of Qwikster. Coming on the heels of pricing changes, the attempt to separate DVDs and streaming had Netflix dealing with a PR nightmare. The new, higher pricing for the combined DVD and streaming service is still in effect, but if you type Qwikster.com into your URL bar today, you’ll be redirected to Netflix.”

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