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…
They’re renaming the DVD by mail service to Quikster, But, wait there’s more:
...One improvement we will make at launch is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, but now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done. Other improvements will follow. A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated.
Well, that’s really cool and all that, but they told me that a good three weeks too late. I had to change my plan to streaming only before the rates went up. I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing I may not get the same offer if I tried to pick up the DVD service again. I may, but I’m not going to bother to look.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s still a great service and a pretty good deal. But they really need to have a serious talk with their marketing department.
I fear as well that this means the streaming content isn’t going to get better any time soon. I’m currently hooked on “Mad Men” and getting caught up. So, I’ll keep it for a while. But when it generally takes me 15-20 minutes to even find something I want to watch, I question the value.