Netflix (Photo credit: adria.richards)
After it’s customer relations nightmare last fall when it announced it was splitting the streaming and DVD business into two entities, renaming the DVD business “Qwikster”, the industry and current subscribers alike are wondering about Netflix’s latest move in purchasing the domain DVD.com on March 30. Without a doubt, their DVD rent-by-mail businesses is it’s bread and butter, and it would be a very good move to focus some attention on it, as well as nurture the existing relationship it has with subscribers.
Subscribers are lighting up various message boards on several forums, noting that they can now no longer view streaming subscriber ratings when they are looking to rent a DVD by mail, and vice versa. This distinction, while it may serve to be a frustration to some subscribers, is important. Streaming only customers in the past were able to read reviews of movies that were only available by DVD, and then they were frustrated because they couldn’t stream it. Licensing agreements had Netflix’s hands tied about this, and it left customers scratching their heads. With the removal of browsing capabilities in the DVD-only titles also came the removal of the DVD queue from Netflix apps.
This move could potentially be a good solution. Apparently in the near future, subscribers of both the DVD service and the streaming service will be able to view user ratings of both sites, but streaming only customers won’t be able to access the DVD ratings. Because the DVD mailing service is only available in the United States, this will alleviate a lot of headaches that streaming subscribers in other countries have when browsing the website.
The only other DVD subscription mailing service in the United States is Blockbuster Total Access, and in the United Kingdom LoveFilm provides both DVD and blu-ray rental, as well as an online media selection for streaming.
Source: Film School Rejects
