My comment about software DNA is not central to my point, so I take that back. Regarding the game business, it's not a good comparison. Selling games is like t

My comment about software DNA is not central to my point, so I take that back. Regarding the game business, it's not a good comparison. Selling games is like the DVD business: games are produced at a fixed cost and sold at nearly zero marginal cost. This is true of games sold on disc as well as games sold online through Steam. But this is not how the movie streaming business works. Content is licensed, not sold. It's licensed to a single buyer for a fixed window of time. After that, it's licensed to someone else. This is why HBO, AMC, and Netflix will never be showing the same movie at the same time. This is a profit maximization strategy by the studios. I doubt that major studios would make more profit with a direct to consumer model, at least not with one that would replace the windows in which Netflix typically buys content. It could potentially work for new releases, though. I'll leave the exact reasons why as an exercise to the reader.