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Aaand it looks like Starz is out. Most of their stuff was filler, but the scary aspect of this from Netflix' point of view is that the Disney stuff was probably leaving anyway, and Starz was apparently still pushing for Netflix to raise prices on consumers again.
The big issue is that the more content Netflix gathers, the better an alternative to cable the service becomes. At the same time, the money Netflix was offering was only a third of what Starz gets through traditional cable operators. So Starz (and any other network with a library) sees huge revenue shortfalls if a Netflix subscription is good enough to cause someone to cancel cable. The interesting thing is that they were apparently pushing Netflix to raise prices immediately to bring them closer in line with cable subscription rates.
I thought it was pretty certain that in a couple of years Netflix was going to have to climb to $30-$40 per month just to afford all the content they wanted to make the streaming service attractive as a primary option. If any other content holder adopts this approach (and most all of the content holders these days also have a broadcast interest), Netflix moght see themselves put in the position of having to raise their prices just to make the deals, even if they can absorb the cost otherwise.
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