[flyosity]

This is not something you see CEOs write every day. Hell, this isn't something you see CEOs write ever in their careers. It took a lot of guts to write it, and regardless of the huge controversy surrounding their pricing strategies, I hope that this split succeeds.

Also, video games!

[Lewisham]

If Netflix/Quikster can get games right, Gamefly should get pretty scared. They can't afford to keep large stock (so you often don't get the game you want), and their turnaround on games is poor (usually about a week round trip, and I live in CA where they have a distribution center).

Oddly, Gamefly just launched a streaming service for the PC, so just as Gamefly is beginning the move away from discs to streaming, Netflix is moving right into that spot.

I don't think game discs have much of a long-term future, but then neither do movie discs either. I wonder if this structuring is not just so that Quikster can be killed or sold to a chump (or someone willing to settle for scaling back the business) as soon as they begin to see the tipping point on streaming.

[nl]

He's even replying to comments in the Facebook comments threads below. That impresses me a lot.

[Stratoscope]

From what I saw, he's only replying to comments praising the decision, and not engaging at all with any of the vast majority who criticize or question it.

This does not impress me quite so much.

[nl]

The first two comments he replied to (when I saw) were very critical.

[Stratoscope]

Thanks for the correction. I had a different impression when I first read some of the comments, but now I see I was mistaken.

I still have the impression that Reed isn't "getting" the two biggest complaints:

1) Customers who use both services are unhappy about losing the integration between them.

2) Quikster is a monumentally bad name

(Yes I know it's misspelled. I would look up the correct spelling, but that's exactly the point. How do you spell it without looking it up? And how exactly did they come up with the name with nobody on the team saying, "Hey, my Amway friends tell me it's not Amway any more, it's Quixtar." :-)

[troutwine]

Indeed. I rather wish it were possible to see all the comments on a single page, or to search by user. Most of the posters interest me not at all, but Mr. Hastings very much does.

[MartinCron]

Also, video games!

This has the potential to be pretty large, actually, and GameFly is pretty terrible, in my experience.

[Klinky]

I'd believe it more if he wasn't writing the apology off the heels of his company losing 50% over a two month period & 25% within the last two trading days.

I don't think his crocodile tears now are going to win many people back, nor do I think his apology will have any effect on NFLX's course of action. Promising better communication but not having all the facts about how your spun off service is going to work doesn't lend much credit to his original apology. They should be bending over backwards to make sure that customers who are affected will have an easy transition. Though if this is a move to jettison those customers off onto a 3rd party buyer, then this will have been nothing more than Hastings proving he's a hypocrite.

[foobarbazoo]

Qwikster is a joke and will be dead or acquired in 5 years.

And Netflix streaming is not ready to carry Netflix forward. We won't be subscribing to Qwikster, and we're already looking for alternatives on the streaming side -- most likely, Amazon, who would never do something this idiotic.

[iand]

Your statement would be stronger with some backup argument and justification. Why is it a joke and why will it be dead in 5 years? Why isn't acquisition a winning outcome?

[vaksel]

i really doubt he was the one to write it...he probably signed off on using it, but it was most likely written by the PR department

[bretpiatt]

You'd be surprised. I work at Rackspace and when we've had issues you'll see comments or posts from our leadership (CEO, Chairman, GMs of our businesses, etc.) -- and those come directly from the person, not from them giving approval to a comment put out by PR.

It is times like this when a company needs leadership and that isn't an executive team afraid to share their vision and apologize when needed directly to customers themselves.

Could they be "using their time better"? I firmly believe, no they can't. Having real interaction with customers on their terms keeps them grounded. Many executive teams end up drinking Kool-aid(tm) by only taking customer meetings hand picked to show "how good we're doing" by their teams -- every business has at least one happy customer.