Breaking up is hard to do, and sometimes it may not be the right choice.
On September 19, Netflix announced that it would separate its DVD-by-mail service from its online streaming service, moving the former to an entirely new website called Qwikster.
Customers subscribing to both services would have to manage two accounts using separate websites and billing procedures, as the services would no longer be integrated.
But the breakup only lasted three weeks. In fact, Qwiskter never made it to the market. Netflix announced on October 10 that it had decided to keep its DVD-by-mail and streaming services together under one name and one website.
"This means no change: one website, one account, one password," Netflix founder Reed Hastings '83 wrote on the Netflix blog. "In other words, no Qwikster."
Netflix received tens of thousands of complaints from angry subscribers, and while the company expected some of its 25 million customers to drop their subscriptions, it has said that the cancellation rate exceeded expectations.
"It should certainly be a first ballot entrant into the Bad Decision Hall of Fame, enshrined next to New Coke and Prohibition," Huffington Post technology blogger Jason Gilbert wrote in a post about Qwikster.
"They just made life difficult for subscribers," said first year Denis Maguire, who is a long-time Netflix subscriber.
Netflix stock, which has lost almost two-thirds of its value in the last few months, rose on the morning the breakup was cancelled.
Questions still remain as to why and how the company made the decision in the first place.
Hastings asserts that streaming is the future of Netflix and the future of the entertainment industry.
"For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn't make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming," Hastings wrote on the Netflix blog.
Hastings wrote that he believes that DVDs and online streaming have different cost structures and different consumer demographics, and that Netflix has to act aggressively to expand its fast-growing streaming service.
"We feel we need to focus on rapid improvement as streaming technology and the market evolve, without having to maintain compatibility with our DVD by mail service," Hastings posted.
For now, most people are happy about the reunification of the two.
"Looks like Netflix is finally sober again," McGuire said.