Pete Simon

Allow me to join the resounding chorus of “OH NETFLIX WHATTHEFUCKISGOINGON?”

Why are you explaining your business to me. If you have to explain your business to me, you are failing at business.

I give two shits about Qwickflix or Netster and the nuances thereof. I want to watch movies and I want to select from a complete library. That’s why the movie model of getting instant where I could but falling back to DVD makes so much sense, and why Netflix rise has been meteoric.

Conversersly, that is why explanatory emails from netflix make so little sense:

It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. Let me explain what we are doing.

Hey Reed, get this: I know what you’re doing, and yet it still makes no sense.

So you had a big idea while puffing a Cuban in your walk-in humidor. Like the ashen embers of the cigar tip, you saw the DVD business dying off, and the streaming was becoming ubiquitous like the smoke in the air.

It was a vision of the future, not the present. Nor is it what I subscribed to.

Yes, the move did lack humility, it was a dick move really, because you’re going against the agreement I signed up for. If the cost of shipping is going up, eating at your margins, then pass the cost on to me. You jacked up my price, doubled it really. That bothered me, but I downgraded my plan accordingly and stayed on board.

But what the hell is this?

It’s hard to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”. We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name “Netflix” for streaming.

So the service that started out as mail-only, added instant streaming later, will now be streaming only and run alongside another business… Why is that necessary?

There are no pricing changes (we’re done with that!). If you subscribe to both services you will have two entries on your credit card statement, one for Qwikster and one for Netflix. The total will be the same as your current charges. We will let you know in a few weeks when the Qwikster.com website is up and ready.

…What in the name of Drug Addled Elmo are you guys smoking?

Do you dolts have any concept of your own brands value? Regardless of trends, people have come to associate Netflix with a dual pronged service, and you dumbdumbs are shitting on that brand like it’s Reed Hasting’s $20 bill toilet paper.

This has got to be one of the stupidest decisions in business history. Netflix has gone from one of my favorite brands, to strange two-headed brand like one those anomaly snakes that weird me out in a bad way.