Netflix Kills Quickster Brand

After receiving yet another round of complaints from customers, Netflix this week announced that it will no longer use the Quickster brand for the DVD portion of its business. Instead, it will continue to offer both DVD- and streaming-based movie services through the central Netflix site and brand.

Netflix announced its original plan to use Quickster for DVD rentals and Netflix for streaming video just last month. But the announcement, which was accompanied by an apology for a previous price hike, was met with derision by customers and others.

So Netflix finds itself apologizing yet again.

"We underestimated the appeal of the single website and a single service," a Netflix spokesperson said. "We greatly underestimated it."

Netflix is one of the largest entertainment services in the world, with more than 25 million subscribers. But the company is attempting to transition from its original business as a DVD rental mailer to its future as a video-streaming service, the latter of which has less overhead and expense. A single DVD mailing costs Netflix $1, the company says, largely obviating most subscriber fees.

When Netflix announced that it would be splitting off its streaming service from the DVD service, it also attached a healthy price increase to each. Subscribers weren't amused, and an estimated 1 million customers abandoned Netflix; the company should report an updated subscriber figure later this month.

But fear not, Netflix fans: You might have another bone-headed move to complain about. The company said it wasn't sure if it would use the Qwickster brand for a coming video game rental service, instead of simply using the tried-and-true Netflix brand. "That is to be determined," the company said.

Cross your fingers.