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cellioEarlier this summer Netflix announced a 60% price increase for DVD+streaming, as they split the two services apart into separate subscriptions. This has forced me to do some thinking about whether I really use $8/month's worth of DVDs, but I haven't dropped that half of the plan just yet. Then yesterday I got email announcing that they are splitting the two services apart more completely -- two web sites, two billing records, two brands, two companies.
On the one hand perhaps it's just marketing spin; I've never claimed to really understand what goes on in the heads of people who do marketing for a living. But the change also lowers usability quite a bit. Currently I can manage two linked queues, moving items between them as availability changes (titles come and go on streaming all the time); now that will be more work. When something I have in my DVD queue becomes available for streaming it tells me; that probably won't happen in the new scheme. And currently I can rate things I've seen and that influences the suggestions I receive, which are good enough that I pay attention; now half my ratings would be on each site and the overall quality of recommendations will go way down.
If Netflix doesn't want to provide an integrated service any more they're free to do that, of course, but placing more stumbling-blocks before their customers so soon after the second price hike this year seems unwise. I think I will probably drop the DVD service now; it was marginal for an integrated service and is even less valuable for an un-integrated service. If it's not going to be integrated anyway, I may as well get DVDs from RedBox or somebody (nominations for "somebodies" who do TV series would be particularly welcome). Or, with the savings of $96/year, I can even buy a few and be ahead of the game.
They say they're not trying to kill off the DVD service, but I'm skeptical. I think the handwriting is already on the wall for a service that depends on the postal service -- longer mail-delivery times coming soon to a mailbox near you [1], combined with monthly pricing, means fewer DVDs for the price. If they spin it off into another company they can let that company fail without hurting the Netflix brand and streaming business. I've stuck with doomed companies to the end because they continued to provide a valuable service, but Netflix seems to be giving up on the "valuable service" part of that. What a pity.
[1] There are two factors here. First, of course, is the plan to eliminate one day of mail delivery, but the bigger factor is that the post office plans to close a bunch of mail-processing centers to consolidate operations, which they say will double the minimum delivery time for first-class mail to two days. So if you always watch a DVD the day (or weekend) it arrives and send it back the next morning, you'll be able to watch approximately one DVD per week.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-09-21 03:04 am (UTC)If Amazon is smart, this is a great opportunity for them.