Apparently the CEO of netflix said something to the effect of no more DVD's in 2010 or something like that. So that can really mean two things. They go all Blu-Ray plus streaming or they go all streaming. I agree though, I wish they would get new content on streaming faster. I have had the same two DVD's sitting there for a month or so.
If you give me a cheap and easy solution to access your content then I really feel no need to pirate. I pay 15 a month for a Zune pass and have not acquired any music for several months now. I know its DRMed all to hell and what not but it really isn't that big of a deal to me.
I am excited for the newest season of Breaking Bad and Sons of Anarchy to hit netflix too. I love those shows.
The CEO of Netflix is quote as saying that full streaming capabilities are still approximately 5-10years in the future.
There's no immediate plans to change the distribution model, perhaps the media on which entertainment is distributed (i.e., blu ray rather than dvd) but not full streaming.
Pricing structure will have to be changed when distribution changes. The amount of content that can be served to the end user will increase 10 fold when there's no longer the time lag between ordering and streaming. This time lag actually favors Netflix in terms of copyrights and discs.
I work in logistics and before I was involved in the transportation industry I had read a quite large case study about Netflix. USPS has altered their distribution to cater to the needs of Netflix. Rather than having those red envelopes sorted by USPS employees, the envelopes are returned directly to Netflix's DCs before the postal trucks return to their sorts for the day.
And, yes, those red envelopes are still packed by hand. Time motion studies have been conducted to benchmark how many envelopes can be stuffed an hour. The actual figure was ridiculous and the typical ethnic profile of their workers was middle age Asian.
Drake - Not take from what you mentioned, here's an article that mentions that one of the offerings by 2010 will be a "streaming only" option.
http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/02/netflix-ceo-well-offer-streaming-only-plan-by-2010.ars
Here's an article where he gives a projection on discs.
Currently 20% of Netflix users utilize the streaming feature.
There's only 16,000 streaming titles and over 100,000 disc titles.
He put a time line out of 4-9years for discs in said article.
http://www.homemediamagazine.com/ne...s-expects-dvd-rental-decline-four-years-16158