Stay classy, Netflix. I’m… Qwikster?

Spongebob's Quickster.

Wow. I am completely out of the loop. I blame the baby. I also blamed him for the fact that I have no time for movies anymore. But, I like him, so I guess I will keep him and give up movies. Today, someone on Facebook referenced Reed Hastings. Having no clue who that was, I Googled it and found this article.

In summary, Netflix is no more. Well. It is no longer what it was. Netflix is only going to be streaming video. If you want DVDs in the mail, that’s now called Qwikster. Two separate services. Two separate charges. Same total if you stayed on for the recent price increases. Now maybe you already knew about this, but like I said, I’m out of the loop. I barely knew of the Netflix price increase as I cancelled our Netflix a month before they happened.

I disagree with these changes for many reasons and while I have been on-again, off-again with Netflix for the past 9 years, I think this is definitely our end. Which is sad, because I was planning to reactivate eventually. I discussed it briefly with PTB and here are the main things that suck about Qwikster.

1. Two separate websites.
I loved my integrated queues. And seriously Netflix/Qwikster/whatever…if I was only getting DVDs, don’t you think I might be tempted by the “Add to Instant Queue” button?

2. Pricing/Billing
Clearly, you’re just trying to get people to choose, knowing they will choose instant (which I think is the dumb choice). If you want to stop offering DVD’s then just do it.

3. Branding
Let’s talk about branding in general. Reed Hastings, you say in the article you don’t like the logo on the envelope changing. Is it because you don’t like the logo or because deep down inside you know the whole idea is dumb?

4. The Name
Oh Mah Gawd. The name. Horrendous. Qwikster? Really? You’re going to rename your original product rather than the new product and not have it relate to the original name in anyway except that you are spelling something wrong? And Really? A W instead of a U. I mean…the X replaces 3 letters already in Netflix. THREE. The W replaces one in Qwikster, and then you just take the C out all together.

Continuing on the name. Let’s talk about how no one can spell a name like that. Everyone wants to spell it Quickster. But wait… that has other Google results. The top two being this and this. Not good enough? Think people will eventually spell it right? Not if Predictive Google has anything to do with it! It didn’t even want me to search for Qwikster. So I didn’t.

How about the other products with nearly the same name? YOUR NAME ISN’T ORIGINAL! I thought there were rules when it came to naming an internet company. I also thought you’d make sure the Twitter username was available. Good job.

What do you think?