Re:Neil Hunt on Netflix and the Story of Netflix Streaming
by Aron on Tuesday May 30, 2017 @04:57PM
(#14448474)
Yeah it became one of those cliches everyone repeats about it being 'the Qwikster debacle'. Complete nonsense. They discounted streaming to move their customer base into it, and that created a deficit when they had to charge for it. There was gonna be pain. If you look at the numbers, they had returned to full growth and higher subscriber numbers within 9 months but now completely butterflied into a streaming company ready for the future.
Only thing I think it might have hurt a bit is that Netflix remains too low a price IMO.
Re:Neil Hunt on Netflix and the Story of Netflix Streaming
by dublinben on Tuesday May 30, 2017 @11:28AM
(#14446011)
The DVD subscription service is still far better than the streaming service if you actually want to watch recent or not-so recent Hollywood content. The streaming service has lost most of its mainstream catalog, in favor of original content.
Re:Neil Hunt on Netflix and the Story of Netflix Streaming
by chiph on Tuesday May 30, 2017 @11:36AM
(#14446059)
The physical disc catalog seems to be culled as well by not replacing lost/broken discs. My saved queue seldom gets any smaller.
People ask me why I still get discs, and the answer is "guaranteed bandwidth". I get no blockiness or drop-outs when watching. :)
Maybe it was too soon and poorly communicated, but they were right 6 years ago that streaming was the future and DVD lending was the legacy product.
Anyway they survived that PR blunder, luckily.
edit: and it seems they separated the DVD subscription anyway, to DVD.com. Well that makes sense.