You may recall that I was particularly critical of the decision by Netflix to move their DVD by-mail service to Qwikster and utterly separate their streaming and by-mail services (see my article).  You may have also noticed that my opinion on the matter happened to fall in line with popular opinion on the matter.  I know: The Horror!

Well, it has come to pass that those executives in charge (in spite of the usual tendency of executives to live in an error-free fantasy land) have recognized the error of their way and have reversed the decision to make this division a reality.

The NY Times did this full article.  What I like to see in the article is the wonderful spin put forward by company representatives which clearly signal to us that they fully intend to return to Nonerrorland immediately.  Nonetheless, for now, Netflix customers may continue their streaming and by-mail enjoyment mostly unmolested.

The price hikes are still in place and could certainly still use some reasonable refinement.  It was a two dollar augmentation to get the second (by-mail) service added to your account.  Now it’s about double.  This may work out according to the accountants (lost customer satisfaction replaced by increased revenue per customer), but this assumes there is no dollar value attachable to said satisfaction.  This is not true; customer satisfaction is paid advertising dollars and there is no better advertising than the words of satisfied customers.

Just so’s you know.