Netflix FAIL: How did the company get it so wrong?

Tone deaf is the term you hear most often these days when it comes to Netflix, as the fallout from this week’s highly publicized apology by Netlix CEO Reed Hastings continues. “I messed up,” starts the e-mail he sent to customers Sunday night. But talk about too little, possibly too late.

Customers and investors alike are pillaging the company for its amazing inability to recognize what customers want, and make a big mess even worse.

Millions of us raked the company over the coals for its move in July to separate streaming and DVD delivery, raising prices by as much as 60%. But rather than reverse it as people cancelled in droves, Hastings waited almost two months before sending an apology and announcing the company is splitting into two.

“If there was a popular vote to get someone into the lower circles of hell…I think the CEO of Netflix would find himself being munched on by Satan’s head,” jokes KTTH’s David Boze.

Listen to David Boze on why Netflix users feel so betrayed

Netflix will now be the crappy streaming service with old and b-movies, while the DVD service will be branded Qwikster. Suffice it to say it’s been almost universally ridiculed by the press and people.

“So you have to keep two different lists, two different bills, go to two different websites,” says 97.3 KIRO FM’s Bill Radke, host of Seattle’s Morning News.

Listen to Bill Radke on why Netflix is failing

Radke is like many who dropped the service, saying it was a way to get in on the world telling a huge company “No, to hell with you.”

But it’s not just customers. Investors are fleeing in droves. Netflix has lost over 50% of its market wiping out about $8 billion in stockholder wealth.

Boze wonders what all the anger is about. “I personally don’t understand where this passionate animosity comes from, because of how much they’ve liberated you price wise from the structure they had beforehand,” Boze says about the $16 fee for two DVD’s and streaming.

Not all the reactions are angry. Some are downright funny, like the fake Netflix Global PR account that popped up on Twitter:

Radke says it’s simple. The company isn’t listening to its customers. “Thanks for the mail Read. But it’s too late,” he says.

-Josh Kerns/97.3 KIRO FM