Just three weeks after announcing it would split its Mail Rental DVD service and video streaming site into separate entities, Netflix has decided to axe Qwikster, the proposed DVD rental side of the business.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has again taken to his blog to address the issue, with a new post entitled “DVDs will be stating at Netflix.com”. Within the blog he explains that the Qwikster idea will be disappearing, as many Netflix customers have already complained that splitting the business was unnecessary and complicated.
“It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs,” Hastings wrote. “This means no change: one website, one account, one password… in other words, no Qwikster.”
Qwikster came about when Hastings decided that DVD rental and web video streaming (two services that Netflix excel in over in the U.S.) are completely different, therefore it would make sense to separate the two into different entities.
Hastings’ wrote another blog at the time: “A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated, so if you subscribe to both services, and if you need to change your credit card or email address, you would need to do it in two places. Similarly, if you rate or review a movie on Qwikster, it doesn’t show up on Netflix, and vice-versa.”
This is pretty much why customers hated the idea of two different services, and is why Netflix is now axing the Qwikster idea and keeping both sides of the business in one place, under the familiar Netflix brand name.
The Qwikster website that was will now redirect you straight back to Netflix.com.
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