Its only a dead man walking until Netflix decides to stream everything. It dumb as can be that they have the dvds but won’t stream them, new or old.
I am seriously considering dropping the dvd option: the only reason I have not is because the newer releases do not stream and some issues I might like to see are dvd only. [For a recent example,before the Tudors ended you could stream season 1 and 3 but not 2. Now they are all available, but periodically such a case arises.]
I love the streaming part but have yet to understand why ALL their movies are not streamed.
One word: Licensing. Early on, when videos still came on tape, video stores won enough legal cases (and they were challenged) that there is a body of case law protecting their right to rent any physical media that they've purchased, and they can purchase it as soon as it's released for sale.
Streaming requires a license that's more easily protected. Netflix can't stream all movies, because studios and distributors won't sell them a license to stream if they believe it will negatively impact other revenue streams.
So, Netflix often finds itself in a position where it has the physical media that it can readily ship for viewing, but cannot buy a streaming licensing because (for example) Comcast has purchased exclusive streaming rights for the same movie for 180 days.
They don’t chose not to stream everything, they have to negotiate those contracts separately. DVDs are easy, everybody that sells DVDs also sells DVDs for rental and anybody can buy the rental DVDs. Stream involves directly working with the content providers, the content provider sets the price, and if they’ll do it at all. The stuff Netflix is streaming costs them over 2 billion a year in licenses.