Tuesday, September 20, 2011
http://bradcolbow.com
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ hasty announcement to divide Netflix into companies will go down in the history books as one of the most colossal marketing blunders by an extremely successful company. It is Netflix’s New Coke.
For me, a reasonably informed and fair person would understand that the previous price hike was not his fault. The studios felt they weren’t making enough money off of Netflix, so they raised their rates enormously. Netflix could either go under, or raise its prices. Users could either accept that or quit, if it was too expensive for their budgets. Hastings was club-footed in explaining this, but, in my opinion, he didn’t do anything wrong. I bit the bullet and paid more. If you really use it, Netflix is still an awesome deal. Think about the price of one movie ticket.
Now he suddenly comes out with a plan that has numerous disadvantages for his customers and doesn’t have a single advantage.
To get our old Netflix back, the answer is simple. The day that Qwikflix, I mean Qwikster, comes out, we need hundreds of thousands of people to cancel one or both of the Netflix services. It won’t be a sacrifice, as a few days later, the old Netflix we love will be back.
