Above, see Netflix CEO Reed Hastings apologizing on Sept. 19 and anounce Qwikster, the short-lived service. With angry customers walking and Wall Street problems looming, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings today announced Netflix is killing the DVD rental service it created on September 19. That’s right. Qwikster is dead. Netflix apparently is returning the public company to its roots. It as yet unclear whether the board forced the changes due to last week’s Netflix market plunge or whether Hastings and management made it. If it is the latter, Hastings will come out of this cluster as a hero. If it is the former, Hasting’s future at Netflix looks dubious at best. It’s a smart move. Stock value was up 10 percent at this writing, soon after Hastings wrote this in this terse post. Excerpt: “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.” The king of understatement, Hastings made no mention of his September 18 mea culpa video, shown below.
Is Netflix on its way to being the “same as it ever was?” Wall Street and longterm customers hope as much.
The Talking Heads via YouTube. For now, I’ll remain a customer but as soon as a good alternative appears I’m jumping ship. That is why I loved the previous plan of unlimited streaming and one DVD out at a time. They should of just left well enough alone. Comment
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