Whither Netflix?

(shamelessly reposted from a FB comment I made from a link I posted on FB...how many sins is that?)
I think I can sum up my feelings on recent Netflix doin's pretty quickly:
1) The price hike: Somebody in the studios remembered the old days of where they would sell new releases on VHS at near $100 at first as most copies were going to rental stores that would recoup that investment anyhow and/or somebody in the studios realized that the average Netflix customer (myself included) was paying the monthly fee to hang on to "rentals" they never watched and they weren't getting a cut of us idle customers....result: strongarm NF to get more money. (consumer result: Let's pass the savings...er...costs on!)
2) The breakdown in negotiations with Starz: My best guess is that somebody in NF thought "Wait, we're licensing all this content through a third party...we could probably get it cheaper going direct" and Starz figured "Nuts to them, without us, the studios aren't going to listen anyhow." (consumer result: The anemic (compared to the DVD selection) streaming library becomes even thinner come February.)
3)The split: Pandering to the stock market? Hiding number of subscribers lost? Who the hell knows? (I kind of like the theory that a baffled CEO out there got sold on the idea of "If you just change the name to this, then all your problems will be solved and you can go back to whatever CEOs are supposed to do." (consumer result: Well, you can kind of get what you used to, but at the higher price, and now it's more of a hassle...but if you close your eyes and wish real hard, it's almost like you remember it.)

The thing I don't get (and trust me, I bristle at a sense of entitlement) is "More money, more hassle, less value (*cough* content)", how does this sell your "product" at all?

Can I make a snarky joke about the Web 2.1 (aka Facebook model) of "Let's make things worse, any publicity is good publicity!"

Hey, leave those kids alone!

er...

and before I start on that whole detox mission...

yikes, am I getting younger?

Exhibit A (May 2009):


Exhibit B (September 2011):

Oh, this is going to leave a mark....

My girlfriend and I had a talk the other night that I keep myself (paraphrasing) somewhat toxic at all times, so as an experiment, starting Monday (that'd be Labor Day here in der 'murica), I'm going a week without anything. No caffeine, no cigarettes, no alcohol, nothin'. Well, food...and I've sworn to myself that I won't start free-basing pork products as a substitute. Should be interesting.

As an aside, I'd mentioned that the last time I'd sincerely not wanted a cigarette was the time I went through about half a pack in a few hours on a bet. She encouraged me to smoke a whole carton on Sunday, to which I responded "Do you want to see me in the hospital? That'd probably kill me."

Yup, going to be a fun week, but at least I'll have something to write about =)

-erik