[darkane]

The reasons for this are obvious, and probably have nothing to do with the cost, difficulty, or politics of streaming. It's more likely due to the majority of their by-mail customers routinely going inactive for months at a time, while still paying for the service.

That inactivity is so well known that it became a talking point in social commentary and has even been the punchline of late night jokes.

[Roboprog]

Ouch. That's exactly what happens to us: 2 disks, that we wait a month to remember to send back.

The article does point out the "for now" aspect, though. "f(x) = DVD profits" is large, but with a negative derivative, while "g(x) = Streaming profits" is smaller, but with a positive (first order, at this point?) derivative.

[waterlesscloud]

Yeah, I wonder if the per-user profitability will fall now. It would make sense that the remaining DVD users are largely ones who are making a decision to stay with it because they actually use it.