Do you ever get so perplexed by something that you start to think of strange ways to apply the same logic? You know, real word examples of philosophical issues?
I wouldn’t go so far as to call the current Netflix situation a philosophical issue, but I would call it a bit perplexing. It seems that most people on the interwebs feel that same kind of confusion regarding Reed Hastings’ Sunday night announcement regarding Netflix’s new DVD-only sister company Qwikster.
The announcement was wrapped up inside a supposed apology for the way Netflix handled the whole plan-restructuring, price change, whatever you want to call it. Hastings admitted that Netflix might have been in the wrong by just splitting up the streaming and DVD services, subsequently upping the prices by 60% in one fell swoop.
Basically, “I’m sorry for that whole splitting up thing we did a few months ago, we’re going to make it better by splitting it up some more.”
This is a perfectly understandable decision if you think that Netflix is trying to package their DVD service in order to get rid of it. It’s a mind boggling decision to Netflix customers who have valued the functionality and simplicity of the service for all of these years. Those customers are a little confused as to why the two services that they know and love are suddenly being disintegrated.
Back to that part about simplified scenarios helping us visualize what’s going on. This comic by internet comic force The Oatmeal is about as good as it gets. It imagines Netflix and a sandwich shop, one that decides to make an interesting decision regarding what they want to sell at their location.
Check it out below –
