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Netflix focusses on movie/tv-series subscription model (streaming+dvds), and they are laser focussed on improving consumer experience in this area. On the other hand, Apple, Google, Amazon focus on other businesses (hardware, advertising, and e-commerce). That's why I think Netflix will survive, and that's why startups survive and thrive: Focus!

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The problem is for avid tv-series watcher (I admit I am one) netflix is a very bad solution. The obvious problem is that they do not have the fresh stuff. I wouldn't mind some delay, but when it's a season worth of delay, it stops being useful. This, however, is not the worst part - I also watch some old ones. But even there - netflix has way less than full collection, some seasons are missing, some episodes are missing from otherwise complete season, etc. And there's no way for me to track which episodes I already watched, make a list of my favorites to re-watch, or do any other useful things with them. The should at least do something like next-episode.net, but they could probably do even better. But they don't seem to be focusing there, unfortunately...

This is where torrents come in handy. It's amazing how easy it is to grab a whole season of a show in 720p (if it's just aired) or 1080p (if the Blu-ray set is out). Yesterday I torrented season 3 of Downton Abbey - it won't even air (in the US) until January! I use Anigrate[0] to keep track of which shows I've watched.

0: http://anigrate.glacicle.org/

I was just about to comment about that: browsing for content on Amazon is a terrible experience, because they use mostly the same layout as the rest of their products. Netflix has the advantage of focussing and a single type of products and (hopefully) give a better experience.

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