... the hell?

[sholio]

So in addition to splitting its streaming and DVD packages, Netflix is renaming the DVD service "Qwikster".

I can't even say that name with a straight face. And what makes this seem like even more of a stupid marketing decision ... who are the people who are going to be having to deal with the name change? Probably people who don't do a lot on the Internet, so ... people like my parents and my grandmother. I don't want to put my grandmother down here, because she actually deals with change pretty well for someone who's 80, but THINK, NETFLIX, THINK.

Also, the two websites (Netflix and Qwikster) will be separate, so if you want to know what your viewing options are for a given movie, you have to search in both places. Nrgh.

I can see why Netflix wants to boost its streaming side, but as a customer I'm mostly just frustrated. I would love to do streaming-only (I really prefer that to the DVDs), but of the movies and TV shows in our queue, probably less than a third of them are available streaming. It just makes more sense to take the DVD option; why sign up for streaming if I'm not going to be able to watch most of what I want to watch?

ETA: Although bironic offered this link which kinda ... makes sense out of it. Sort of. It's fascinating reading, anyway.

ETA2: Another useful link (with a different but also quite sensible explanation) supplied by torachan.

Comments

[auburn]

Yes, that ticked me off this morning too. Streaming just doesn't work for me. Even my improved connection isn't fast enough to handle it reliably. Not to mention I don't want to watch everything on my laptop.

Quikster. *rolls eyes* sounds like microwave oatmeal.

[sholio]

Hee! Yeah, as a business name, it's almost approaching "Syfy" levels of bad! (Not quite up to that shining standard, though.)

There are times when I want streaming and times when I want DVDs. We were really enjoying the DVDs with Fringe, for example, because they have neat extras on them. I really want to have both and I'm very frustrated at having to pay twice the price to keep it!

[torachan]

I also found this article's explanation plausible.

[sholio]

Oh, thank you for the link! That does make a lot of sense -- I'd like to understand this, if I can, because clearly Netflix is pretty savvy at marketing themselves, and it's hard to believe that they (or any business) would do something this drastic without having some sort of revenue-related reason behind it.