Qwikster is scrapped.
As a kid, I loved nothing more than sifting through the VHS tapes at the locally-run Tommy K’s video store; I knew the store better than my own movie collection, and could pick out my favorites in an instant. Deep down, I even knew that when I was old enough to get my first job, this would be the place I’d look first. The employees were all movie buffs who were more than willing to give great selection advice, the prices were reasonable and, as regulars, my family was almost always told “not to worry” about paying late fees. In essence, Tommy K’s was movie bliss.
Only about half a mile up the road, however, was Blockbuster. Looming over Tommy K’s like a specter, it represented everything the local favorite didn’t; the prices and return policies were brutal and the employees were unhelpful and impersonal. Where Tommy K’s sold its used movies at a major discount, Blockbuster sold action figures and knockoff Gamecube controllers. Sure, Blockbuster had an unparalleled collection of new releases, but it just wasn’t home.
Blockbuster’s rule over Branford Hill was nothing short of oppressive. As the years passed, new policies like “no late fees” —but plenty of fine print—helped Blockbuster drive Tommy K’s into the ground once and for all, its property to be split between an eyeglass store and a Kinko’s. The next few years were rough; my family would use OnDemand or Blockbuster (if absolutely necessary), but it all felt very wrong. And then, when all hope seemed lost, there came my movie-rental knight in shining armor: Netflix.
Sure, it may have been corporate, but Netflix seemed to bring back the attention to detail that I remembered from the days of Tommy K’s. It was cheap, simple and had a far better selection than even Blockbuster could aspire to. The customer service was great and very forgiving, even of the inevitable lost DVD. They also offered the ability to stream some movies on the computer; though the selection wasn’t great, it was an awesome extra feature.
It was with this customer-comes-first approach that Netflix effortlessly took over its market. Services like iTunes, Redbox and Amazon Instant were able to carve out small niches in the new era of movie renting, but Netflix was king. King, that is, until a few months ago, when Netflix quietly announced a rather steep, confusing and certainly deliberate price hike on its blog. Almost immediately, it seemed that everyone was up in arms. Stock prices dipped, online forums were abuzz and, in the chaos that ensued, the company purportedly lost around a million customers.
What frustrated me most about this chaos was that, truth be told, the price hike wasn’t so bad. Another few dollars a month was still a hell of a lot cheaper than Blockbuster or even Tommy K’s ever could have been with unlimited rentals. Plus, the promises that this extra revenue would bring new, instant content seemed to be holding up, with great new movies and TV shows pouring onto the service. Sure, it felt a bit like the company was trying to pull the wool over customers’ eyes, but the price raise itself really didn’t seem all that ill-advised.
The latest, and perhaps most ridiculous, series of events actually emerged from a surprisingly heartfelt apology post on the company’s blog. After delving into why the pricing changes were needed, the post announced that the company would be splitting its instant and DVD rental services into two separate services, Netflix and Qwikster, respectively. Though this announcement didn’t hit nearly as close to home as the price hike, it certainly left everyone wondering what the hell was going on. This decision was hilariously opposed to the simplicity that accounted for the rise of Netflix. And sure enough, about a month after the announcement, Qwikster was canned.
Where these past few months will leave the company is anyone’s guess. With the name change scrapped, the service itself has come out of this debacle relatively unscathed. If Netflix manages to get its corporate act together, it doesn’t seem too late for a comeback. If Netflix does fail, it won’t be crushed by some out of touch corporate giant like Tommy K’s was; more likely, Netflix will become that giant and destroy itself. •
