"...they become a very tempting acquisition target for Amazon/Apple, or possibly even Google." Or Microsoft. They're not the prettiest girl at the dance anymor

"...they become a very tempting acquisition target for Amazon/Apple, or possibly even Google." Or Microsoft. They're not the prettiest girl at the dance anymore, and they don't get a lot of love on these pages. But they've quietly positioned themselves as a very serious force in the entertainment space with the XBox platform. And they've been known to throw big chunks of their warchest at strategic acquisitions. Facebook may also be a potential buyer. They've got a huge userbase that they need to keep engaged, and if they acquired a blue-chip content platform, it would be a huge deal. Amazon, absolutely. Makes total sense for them across so many dimensions. Apple, yes and no. Owning Netflix would be nice, but their hands would be tied on how to leverage it. How do you use Netflix to sell iPads, because restricting it to iPads is not a viable option? Doing so would piss off the entire userbase -- possibly devaluing the platform fundamentally, and giving competitors a major opening. They might be able to offer some sort of premium tier that is available only on Apple devices. But even that would be iffy as a draw. Then they've got the issue of how to make Netflix and iTunes live together in a coherent, cohesive, sensible way. I could, however, see Apple's buying Netflix as a purely defensive maneuver if Amazon made a bid. Google, I could see pretty easily. They've been trying to make premium content deals for years now. Netflix could make sense for G+, YouTube, Android, etc.