As someone who has played the great game of basketball for the past 11 years of my life, I’ve learned many great skills.
I’ve learned how to shoot, pass, block shots and play defense. However, the most important skill I’ve probably learned in my basketball career is how to backpedal. Because sometimes you just have to get down the court backwards quickly to not give up easy points.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings must have been a great basketball player.
Not even a full month ago, Hastings posted on the company’s blog about how he messed up and owed everyone an apology. His apology consisted of dividing the Netflix we all know and love into two separate companies — Netflix for online streaming, and a new service called Qwikster for DVD rentals.
Qwikster would operate on its own independent website devoid of its parent company. This would mean Netflix customers with both the streaming and DVD option would have to register and use two different websites when they used to only have to use one.
It was one of the biggest bonehead moves I’d seen a company do in recent times. If you frequent The Daily Reveille, you may remember my column from three weeks ago chastising Hastings for his decision-making.
Obviously, Hastings reads The Daily Reveille.
Announced on Monday through the company’s blog, Hastings has decided to keep both online streaming and DVD rentals under the Netflix roof — effectively killing Qwikster before it even began.
“It is clear that for many of our members, two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs,” Hastings wrote. “This means no change: one website, one account, one password … in other words, no