Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Changes to Netflix!

http://blog.netflix.com/2011/09/explanation-and-some-reflections.html

Oh, Netflix.  How I've come to love your streaming service.  I know I was a late adopter, and actually joined in after the split, but I know the history.  Netflix made it big based off of their DVD rental service, where there were no late fees, DVDs were shipped to your house, and you could create a queue online for it to send you each time you returned a DVD.  Then, Netflix brought in a streaming service, with a wide selection of movies to stream instantly to your computer, internet capable TV, gaming system, or even your smartphone.

But then, Netflix split the services in half, and charged the same amount... but twice.  You have to pay the $7 for streaming, and then another $7 for DVDs if you would opt to use both.

This had led to quite a bit of uproar.  People only found out about this based off of one e-mail just saying it was happening, and oh, too bad, you will now be getting charged twice.

Netflix had to respond.  They were losing customers.  So they came up with this new idea---create a second business out of it, and entitle the DVD service as Qwikster.  Which is all fine and dandy, but it means that the services are no longer combined, which is still making people angry.

However, there is definitely some benefits to this move.  Qwikster will be offering video game rentals now, which is quite a big deal.  Netflix will also be starting to offer exclusive "video channel" TV shows, the first being called "Game of Cards."

What do you think?  Are you excited for Qwikster?  Just sticking to Netflix Streaming?  Angry all together?

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