We were delighted to learn that Qwikster is no more this morning. You finally came to your senses, shuttered that DVD ghetto you had planned and admitted us back into the Netflix family.
After our last letter, we’ll admit, we didn’t hold out much hope of you changing your mind. You seemed so hell-bent on washing your hands of us, so certain we were tainting your chances to create that dynamic, forward-looking streaming service of your dreams. And we don’t flatter ourselves that we changed your mind. It was the subscribers — or more likely, it was Wall Street, which has sent your stock plunging more than 60% since July.
Still, if there’s one thing movies have taught us, it’s forgiveness. Well, okay, Unforgiven taught us the opposite, but we’ll let that go. By the way, did you know that Unforgiven is one of many thousands of movies you can currently only see on Netflix DVD, and is nowhere to be found on streaming? Just thought we’d mention that.
Seriously, though, that’s kind of the point. If you want Netflix to be comprehensive — and that does seem to be what the customers want — you can’t possibly forget about us. You need us, like it or not. So you just got Breaking Bad and Walking Dead on streaming? Bully for them. But if you want to see The King’s Speech, or Inception, or Thor, or Avatar or Weeds season 6, streaming can’t satisfy you. Only we can. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.
The fact that you ever thought otherwise suggests you haven’t been thinking like a movie fan for a while. So here’s a suggestion: take a couple of us home tonight. Any of us will be happy to accompany you; we’re not jealous. We suggest something big and brash in Blu-Ray, or some major release of the last year you’ve been meaning to see. Let your gaze linger over our special features, our deleted scenes, our director’s commentaries. Then tell us: can streaming do that for you?
And if we might make one more suggestion: Before you radically restructure the company again, focus on the user experience. For instance, we couldn’t help but notice that the Netflix iPad app is a little limited. We’re not mentioned at all on it, for one thing! What are we, chopped liver? There’s no way to reorder your queues, either, and customers do like to do that — play with the order in which they’re going to get us. They like to push the good stuff to the top of their streaming queue, too. It’s kind of a Christmas morning experience, if you will. By the way, remember A Christmas Story? Totally not available on streaming. Just FYI.
Alright, we’ll stop rubbing it in. We’re truly grateful you came to your senses, and we’re looking forward to our date. And please, let us never mention that awful “Q” word again.
Love,
Your DVDs
Source is
http://mashable.com/2011/10/10/dear-netflix-ceo-qwikster-apology-dvds/
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