HIGH-DEF DISC NEWS TAGGED "QWICKSTER"

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Netflix Changes Back - No Qwickster After All

Turns out a few million pissed off subscribers can make a pretty big impact!

"There comes a time for every man who becomes rich and deserts his friends, when he goes back to how it was. For me, that time is now." - Philip J. Fry

The folks over at Netflix have come under some heavy fire recently because of price changes and decisions that would only inconvenience their customer base. The splitting off of the DVD division into a separate company appears to have been the straw that broke the camel's back.

In response to the outcry across the internet, Netflix has completely pulled the plug on their planned change. There will be no new site, no need for two accounts and two subscriptions and no further inconvenience. They're still gonna jack those rates on you if you like discs and streaming though.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings says that the price is going to stay stable, and that there's no chance they'll revert back to the old pricing scheme. "While the July price change was necessary, we are now done with price changes," he writes on the Netflix blog.

Source: Netflix

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Netflix Co-Founder Thinks Qwickster is a Good Idea

Well, at least somebody out there does...

Netflix has been upsetting customers left and right. Most recently that has been in the form of a new pricing scheme and then a complete split between the physical and digital media parts of the company.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is taking a lot of flak over the choice, but co-founder Marc Randolph says it's a great idea. He mentions that back when Netflix first started, they sold DVDs as well, but ended up having to cut that part of their business despite the customers it would alienate.

"By trying to run a business that did two things well, we inevitably were forced to make an endless series of compromises that resulted in us doing neither of them well," he says. "Not having to worry about compatibility between the services makes it infinitely easier to optimize every decision around the real prize, which is clearly streaming."

Source: NewTeeVee

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Netflix CEO Apologizes for Changes, Then Makes Renting More Complicated

In order to make up for all the confusing changes to Netflix, there are some new, even more confusing changes to Netflix.

If you're a Netflix subscriber you probably saw the long rambling "apology" sent out by Netflix CEO in your inbox this morning. Hastings admits that he goofed with some of the new changes and he promises to make it right by - well, making some more changes that don't actually address any of the actual issues.

First up, Netflix is being split. DVD and Blu-ray customers will now be using Qwickster instead. It's the same service, but on a different site, on a different bill, and with a different name. It's the same price too, and you'll still be paying extra for Blu-rays. On the plus side, they're adding videogames into the mix - with a price increase for those too, of course.

The next change is - well actually that's pretty much it. Customers that get both discs and streaming content will be pretty heavily inconvenienced, customers that just get DVDs and Blu-rays will slightly inconvenienced, and streaming only people won't notice a difference.

Source: Netflix Blog

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