It's at least a step up from how studios like HBO operate. If you want to watch HBO's content, there's no legal way to do so without being part of an expensive cable package. If you wanted to watch House of Cards and you weren't already a Netflix member, you could just pay the $8 (or get a free first-month trial) to essentially rent the entire Netflix catalog for an entire month. That's what you might have paid not too long ago to borrow a single scratched-up DVD from Blockbuster for a few days.