There's a couple problems for Netflix that I can see.

Just a couple? ;-) I don't disagree, and am posting all the following because the discussion is interesting, not because I don't think you have valid points.

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?

The thing about Netflix is they don't have to release any data on what they do. They aren't Nielsen monitored. They can play cards very close to their chest. They have data on staggered release - any time they get a Starz Play miniseries (*Pillars of the Earth*, for example), they have release windows they have to follow. So they likely have data on what their subscribers do with staggered stuff vs. what they do with mass-released stuff (*Lillyhammer* was released all at once). And although I'm hardly one to credit Netflix with infallibility (Quickster, anyone?), I'll bet they have their reasons for doing it the way they did.

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.

Bearing in mind that HBO started with Oz, not The Sopranos, which is the show that really put them on the map. Also keep in mind that by the time HBO premiered Oz they'd been making original movies for 15 years. This is Netflix's second series. Not disagreeing with you - I haven't gotten around to watching House of Cards yet - just saying that it's not a permanent problem.

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.

Part of it should excite you. There was a two-week period last year where the most streamed film on Netflix was a Will Farrell movie, made for $80m... and the second-most was a little flick I helped some friends make for well under $1m. Hollywood requires massive distribution channels that are simply not available for any movie that isn't predicted to gross a quarter billion dollars - the only place for Indies to go, really, is Netflix. When they raise their game so that it's lucrative for, say, a $15m movie to go to Netflix, the quality of content is going to go through the roof.

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.

There's ample reason, lots of it quoted in the article.

For example, back in 2008, Netflix convinced Starz to make a deal for $30 million a year. When it came back to the table in 2011, $300 million wasn't enough for the network.

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 this is a case of the entire industry seeing the writing on the wall and keeping the gravy train flowing as long as possible. They're not stupid. They watched digital destroy the music industry same as everybody else. But they know that they're going to retire soon and then it won't be their problem. There's no real "middle" in Hollywood any more - there's the guys on top and there's the guys eating shit in the mud. What we're seeing is the guys on top putting their toes to the back of the heads of the guys eating shit because the longer they stay down there, the fatter their pensions get.

The industry, as a whole, is doomed. No doubt about it. In my brief tenure in Hollywood I've seen a "low budget" movie go from $8m to $15m to $1m. I've seen a "micro-budget" movie go from $1m to $100k to $50k. Meanwhile a "big budget" movie has gone from $100m to $250m or more. The studio stuff is headed for the stratosphere, where it will fizzle out and vanish for all but the James Camerons of the world, while the indie stuff is going from Miramax to Troma.

Same thing happened in music. It was exciting until everyone realized that the only thing left was the bottom.