It might even be a tenable system if exclusives were permitted for a limited period. That way Netflix or any competitor could invest in their own content and at

It might even be a tenable system if exclusives were permitted for a limited period. That way Netflix or any competitor could invest in their own content and attract customers with it for, say, eight years after release. After that period, the content becomes available to all services, and Netflix gets paid royalties. Right now the closest you can get is paying one of the content services (often Netflix) their monthly tribute and treating it as such a hypothetical service. For any content not offered there you simply sail to any old bay of pirates that does have it. It may be illegal, but I find it morally defensible at this stage. It doesn't make a lot of sense from a consumer standpoint. Any royalties 'owed' to anyone for watching some thirty year old film could easily be covered by a reasonable flat monthly fee (like Netflix' $10/€10), but the content owners seem afraid to make any rational steps toward a system that would actually gain them a steady income on their back catalogues!