There's a couple problems for Netflix that I can see. First, House of Cards was released in bulk. What would stop potential consumers for signing up for a month to watch what they want to watch, and they cancelling until the next big thing is on? With HBO that's much more difficult, because most of their shows are serials that are released every week while in season. Sure you could wait for HBO GO, but everyone wants to watch while their friends are watching so they can chat about it. Therefore, to watch an HBO show requires a few month commitment minimum.

Second, Netflix needs to raise their game significantly over House of Cards to keep viewers interested. That show is garbage, and I only finished the season, because my gf wanted to. That, of course, is pure opinion. But HBO is really good at producing universally loved content. I don't care for Girls, but I don't think its a bad show, just not my taste. There's a huge difference.

Part of this depresses me. I wish Netflix and the studios could play nice in a way that everyone could make a fuckload of money and be happy. I would gladly pay $30/month for Netflix if they had a catalog of movies that was through the roof. I watch movies on Netflix a lot, but its always from browsing their content. I don't think that I've ever once searched for a movie that I felt like watching and had a positive result. That sucks, and there's no good reason for that to be the case.

What do you think? Is this a case of movie bosses being out of touch with reality, and not realizing that there is tons of money to be made here? I think that studios should look at Netflix as delivery infrastructure, not as competition. Unfortunately, it looks like that ship has sailed, and right now, it's a lot easier to image more fighting and less cooperation.