The amount of fail that Netflix keeps building up is like the little engine that could. With the price hike in full effect at the beginning of this month, the ever so popular movie rental and streaming business has taken a turn for the worse. Of course it isn’t cheap to provide DVDs through mail or keep servers in full health day-after-day to keep you entertained, but Netflix continues to just bury itself a new grave one right after another.

Along with the price increase, Starz will not be renewing their distribution contract and Netflix will also be looking to separate into two different subscription names. Um what? It looks like Netflix can only be looking up from here right? How much worse could it possibly get?

Since September 1st, the new Netflix subscription pricing began as one DVD out at-a-time and unlimited streaming separated into two separate $7.99 subscriptions. If you were to have both unlimited streaming and one DVD out at-a-time, instead of $9.99, you will now have to pay $15.98. SCANDAL! What has this first world come?! Perhaps you could donate to the Netflix relief fund?

But after that bombshell, stockholders and subscribers began to question the companies intentions and future of this one beloved service. Most people I would assume would have jumped ship by now or demoted themselves down to the unlimited streaming plan.

The unlimited streaming is nice, if you haven’t seen everything that’s available in it’s very limited content. True, some movies come in-and-out of availability and there is always new stuff popping up here and there, but there still is not enough newer releases to keep everyone interested.

One at-a-time DVD plans are only valuable if you desperately want to see new movies instead of leaving your house a few blocks to a Redbox or Blockbuster. Honestly getting Netflix movies in the mail is a pain in the ass if you want quick movies (which will seem silly when you read further down.) If you watch a movie the day you get it, every time, you’ll be lucky if you can receive two a week the way it takes to send it back and wait for confirmation until you can get the next film in your queue. This would come out to be about one dollar per movie with your eight dollar subscription that you could easily spend on Redbox movies that are just as current and faster to obtain. And also, at least one quarter of the time you get the DVDs by mail they are scratched and you just wasted at least three days of your month not seeing the DVD you wanted to watch.

So if you’re stuck in a conundrum and can’t decided whether unlimited streaming is worth the time and money, fear not, Starz has made the decision easier for you to decide if you’re not looking to see more current movies. After the price hike was initiated, one of Netflix’s biggest content providers, Starz, has decided to no longer distribute its content when their contract is up February 28, 2012. Variety reports that Starz helps provide more than 1,000 recently released films that are from studios such as Sony Pictures and Walt Disney Studios.

Press release excerpts via /Film:

ENGLEWOOD, Colo., Sept. 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Starz, LLC, President and Chief Executive Officer, Chris Albrecht, issued the following statement today regarding the status of affiliation agreement renewal discussions with Netflix.

“Starz Entertainment has ended contract renewal negotiations with Netflix. When the agreement expires on February 28, 2012, Starz will cease to distribute its content on the Netflix streaming platform. This decision is a result of our strategy to protect the premium nature of our brand by preserving the appropriate pricing and packaging of our exclusive and highly valuable content. With our current studio rights and growing original programming presence, the network is in an excellent position to evaluate new opportunities and expand its overall business.”

This is like kicking a wounded soldier while they’re down, but to make matters worse, Netflix reported that it has lost one million subscribers in their third quarter, which has caused a drop in shares by almost 19 percent. Previous predictions of 25 million subscribers by the third quarter will not be reached as it is tallied that they will only receive 24 million. Not only that, there seems to be a smaller number than expected with DVD-only subscriptions, as their previous estimate of 3 million is now looking like an actual figure of 2.2 million. Netflix is also seeing a wrongly predicted streaming-only subscriptions from a forecasted 22 million to an actual figure of only 21.8 million.

So things can only go up from here for Netflix before they get any worse, right? NOPE! Just last night, while you were asleep in your beds, Reed Hastings, the Co-Founder and CEO, decided to keep messing with your heads. With an unexpected post to the Netflix Blog, Mr. Hastings decided what was best for all… He begins with a formal apology to subscribers past, present, and future about the recent price increase:

It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming, and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology.

But from there he should have put his foot in his mouth (or mittens on his fingers?) and what was to come next should have never been conceived.

Netflix will now take it’s separate subscriptions of streaming-only and one DVD out at-a-time subscriptions and ce two separate websites. Netflix will continue as the streaming-only website and “Qwikster” will be the ugly red-headed stepchild that will distribute the the DVD by mail subscriptions.

We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name “Netflix” for streaming.

Quick? Yeah, OK… At least call it QwikFlix or something to keep it consistent.

Creating an entire separate entity for your company that does practically the same thing is completely insane and a horrible branding strategy. That’s like taking McDonald’s breakfast and calling the company something else during those morning hours until breakfast is no longer served.

What’s even more terrible is that if you have both unlimited streaming and receive DVDs through the mail you will have to go to both websites, Netflix and Qwikster. So if you have to change your billing/e-mail info you’ll have to do it to both sites. The same goes for rating the movies/TV shows you watch as well.

A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated. So if you subscribe to both services, and if you need to change your credit card or email address, you would need to do it in two places. Similarly, if you rate or review a movie on Qwikster, it doesn’t show up on Netflix, and vice-versa.

WHAT’S THE POINT OF THAT?!

The only good things out of this, if any, is that there are no more price increases, for now, and that you can add a video game upgrade to your DVDs-by-mail subscription just like GameFly.com. You will be able to choose titles for your Wii, XBox 360, and PlayStation 3.

The only funny thing out of this is the horrible “Welcome Video” that Reed Hastings and Andy Rendich, the now CEO of Qwikster, had created for this “BIG” announcement:

There is no set date for when Qwikster.com will be up and running. YOU’D THINK THAT IS KIND OF IMPORTANT WHEN YOU MAKE SUCH AN ANNOUNCEMENT.

The only thing I am happy about is that they have the first four seasons of Mad Men and the first three seasons of Breaking Bad ready to stream right now that aren’t a part of Starz.