Until you get to the very last paragraph --which I found to be the most troubling:
"But while Netflix is slowly discouraging the continued interest in DVDs, they face a different challenge even if their business model transformation succeeds. As Slate reported, if Netflix's streaming business takes off the way they think it will, it could prove a serious drain on America's broadband capacity, which is far less nimble than other countries'."
So Netflix's ability to stream will be limited by the USA's lousy internet connections? How is it that the country that practically invented the internet has the weakest internet service?
For the record, I am a Netflix subscriber who streams through my PS3 and receives Blu-Ray's through the mail. Honestly, I'd just prefer to stream everything instantly in high-def but it sounds like American internet service needs to be modernized to those of other countries in order to do so --and this is a damn shame.
It's worse than that - Netflix is shaping their future business model around a free ride on the infrastructure of others. This won't end well for them.
NFLX: Now We're Cooking (The Business Model)
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=172990
Netflix days numbered riding the free bandwidth wagon
Easy: innovative greed. Our ability to want more than what can be provided is insatiable. Until Netflix Instant caught on, average internet users had no need for gigabytes-per-day service; now some 20% of internet traffic is Netflix content and rising fast. The infrastructure was built, the concept of streaming video became viable, and now EVERYBODY wants on that freeway.
Countries behind the curve have the advantage of cheaper and better technology to build their infrastructure with than we did when we built ours. Don't worry, we'll catch up and race ahead once we sort things out.