Mere weeks after announcing that its DVD rental business would be spun off under the name Qwikster, Netflix has today announced that it’s backtracking on the decision.
In a blog post today, CEO Reed Hastings says
“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.
This means no change: one website, one account, one password… in other words, no Qwikster.
While the July price change was necessary, we are now done with price changes.”
On 18 September, Hastings announced the intended split, noting: “We realized that streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently.”
The move followed criticism of price hikes for users who used both the DVD and streaming services offered by Netflix. However, announcing the launch of Qwikster spurred a backlash from both the stockmarket and users who would be inconvenienced by having to maintain two different accounts.
Still, whether operated under the Netflix brand or as a separate business, it’s clear that DVD rentals only have a limited future, streaming is most definitely Netflix’s future. So don’t expect to be receiving DVDs in the mail for many more years.















[...] Shared Netflix isn’t spinning its DVD business off as Qwikster after all. [...]
[...] Source: http://thenextweb.com/media/2011/10/10/netflix-isnt-spinning-its-dvd-business-off-as-qwikster-after-... [...]
[...] Netflix isn’t spinning its DVD business off as Qwikster after all Mere weeks after announcing that its DVD rental business would be spun off under the name Qwikster, Netflix has today announced that it’s backtracking on the decision. [...]
[...] Source: http://thenextweb.com/media/2011/10/10/netflix-isnt-spinning-its-dvd-business-off-as-qwikster-after-... [...]
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[...] which as gotten a lot of grief lately from consumers after the Qwikster open and close, has announced a new streaming partnership with the CW Network owned by CBS Corp. and Warner [...]
[...] its DVD delivery business, forming a new company called Quikster to handle the service, but pulled the plug on its plans before it even launched after customers [...]
[...] under the name ‘Qwikster’ was stung with such negative reaction that the company had to backtrack. This followed harsh criticism stemming from a previous announcement in July that announced price [...]
[...] This is just the latest blow to the DVD business at Netflix, which tried to break the service out as “Qwikster” but quickly backtracked. [...]
[...] its long-rumored entry into the UK and Ireland, to take place “in early 2012″ and began to weather its investor panic when it announced that its users streamed over 2 billion hours of content in the fourth quarter of [...]
[...] million customers after making a decision to spin-off its DVD by mail service, although it later u-turned on the move, which drew a distinctly negative reaction from across the Internet and amongst its [...]
[...] million customers after making a decision to spin-off its DVD by mail service, although it later u-turned on the move, which drew a distinctly negative reaction from across the Internet and amongst its [...]