View From the Phlipside Radio - Self Inflicted Wounds

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

I spent a lot of time trying to come up with just the right metaphor or image or whatever for this story.  And none of them seemed to fit.  Then I remember a basic rule in my family.  There’s no sympathy for a self inflicted wound.  If you hurt yourself by being stupid you get no sympathy.  So I have no sympathy for the folks at Netflix.  They are on a truly horrible roll and they have no one to blame but themselves.

Earlier in the summer Netflix drew immense negative reaction when they suddenly announced they were splitting DVD service and streaming video services and changed the fee structure.  They lost significant numbers of subscribers.  So you’d figure they be trying to smooth things over at this point.  On Sunday Netflix CEO Reed Hastings found a way to make it all worse.  Netflix is in fact splitting the company spinning off the DVD section.  And they are making every possible mistake along the way.  First they are sacrificing one of the most valuable assets any business has, name recognition.  The DVD service will no longer be Netflix but something called Qwikster.  Beyond losing the brand loyalty built into the old name they’ve chosen a meaningless, stupid name. Netflix combines two familiar terms for the internet and the movies.  It’s a perfect name for the service.  What the heck is a Qwikster?

But it keeps getting worse.  Because these will now be treated as completely different companies they will now have two completely separate web sites.  So if you actually decided to hang onto both the DVD and streaming services after the price increase you are now stuck having to deal with two different bills and two websites.  That’s right Netflix has decided to make your more complicated as well as charge you more money for it. It’s a truly astounding example of self inflicted wound after self inflicted wound after self inflicted wound.

How bad is it really?  One day after the Netflix announcement you found news stories titled “Are Netflix’s Best Days Behind Them?”, and “Is Netflix Committing Suicide?” and an article exploring all the other companies whose services could replace your Netflix account.  Netflix stock has lost almost 50% of its value just this year.

And they get no sympathy from this corner.  Not for self inflicted wounds.

Call that the View From the Phlipside