I read through Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ apology for his own arrogance. You know, the one that got e-mailed to Netflix subscribers this morning.
Talk about stepping on your dick in the middle of a race. He totally misunderstood why his customers are becoming his ex-customers.
It wasn’t the arrogance. We’ve all come to expect that from large companies. It’s been a long time since being online made a company fresh, new and exciting, and able to crap left and right without getting anybody too ooked up.
Sure I was annoyed that a company I really liked turned out to be run by a turd bucket, but once I’d thought about it I realized I had no reason to be surprised. It was foolish of me to let down the cynicism for a bit.
But that wasn’t what bothered me. It’s arrogance coupled with greed that gets me.
Here’s a handy formula for next time, Reed: Downgraded service + upscaled price = customer hemorrhage.
When Netflix first made the announcement, we decided to switch over to streaming-only as soon as our current DVD membership expires.
And once HBO and AMC finally come out with a streaming model we like, we’ll subscribe to them. Or better yet, I have a pretty big to-be-read pile on my night stand.
Buh-bye, ya rat bastid ya.
