Is Netflix Trying to Commit Corporate Suicide or Just Bore Us to Death?

I used to love Netflix, back in the DVD era.  Eventually, I happily made the move to a streaming-only subscription.  I didn’t even care about the Qwikster thing.

But over time, my love began to fade a little every time I read the weekly new releases post at Hacking Netflix.

(see Hacking Netflix for a weekly listing of new Netflix content)

It has become a rarity for me to see something on the streaming new release list that I would watch if Netflix paid me, and almost nothing I would pay to watch. I find that I’ve already watched anything worth a hoot via iTunes and my AppleTV.  Yet another example of how Apple is beating everyone at everything.

Still, $7.99 a month is low enough to stay off of my cancellation list.  As long as Netflix doesn’t run off a gigantic cliff of stupidity.

The first time I read that Netflix wanted to become- wait for it- a cable TV station, I honestly thought it was a joke.  Someone writing a satirical headline in the name of outraged traffic.  I’m way too smart to fall for that old trick.

But, as it turns out, that is exactly what Netflix wants to do.

Really, Netflix?

If you’d  asked me three months ago how Netflix could ensure its demise, I would probably have said to partner up with some cable television outfit (who, ironically, used to be your arch enemy) and go from super-cool, useful service to yet another dying medium trying to eek out a few years of life while technology- and maybe even Apple– renders it completely obsolete.

Seriously, I understand that the empty bag holding, long-gone cat searching dinosaurs like the MPAA and the RIAA are thrashing around trying to harm the inevitable forces of their demise.  But why go from a threatened business plan to a dead one?

I’m not going to bail just yet, but it looks like Netflix may soon join Tivo in my shrine to wonderful things that were killed before their time.