Netflix announced in a blog post Sunday evening that its DVD-by-mail operations would soon be rebranded “Qwikster,” and that the service would be separated from the streaming service that the company has been pushing for the last several years. Doing so clearly grants some independence to the unit, and will help it to operate without dealing with fast-growing streaming business. But it also raises questions about the future viability of a standalone DVD-by-mail operation.
Netflix isn’t completely abandoning the new DVD business — at least, not yet. After all, Qwikster will have the same characteristic red envelope and the same legacy infrastructure and library supporting it. However, it seems clear that Netflix is creating a wall between the two businesses as a way to smartly manage its profits and losses, and to help Wall Street better value the separate operations.
via Online Video News – Netflix’s DVD business: Does Qwikster have a future?. Most people have complained primarly about the price increase Netflix brought about with splitting up it’s DVD and Streaming plans. That’s a side issue, licensing fees for streaming have most likely increased as the popularity and catalog of streamed movies increased.
The thing that bothers me about this decision is it makes a worse experience for those customers who straddle the line (using both the DVD and Streaming plans). All of sudden we have multiple queues, websites, rating systems, etc. One side aspect of this is who gets the core of the team that works on predicting what movie you’ll like after ranking this other movie (Netflix’s real golden goose). Will my rankings on one site generate better results? It also begins to sound like Netflix is planning to sell off it’s DVD side of the business. Never outside the realm of possible options but now it feels like it could happen in the next 6 months and Netflix couldn’t be bothered otherwise.
How long until Qwikster becomes just another forgotten piece of internet real estate?