Netflix says that it will continue to offer the current bundled service
Movie rentals are a big business for many companies and traditional movie stores have been around for many years. As technology matured and the speeds of internet connections increased, streaming video online became a popular pastime for many users.
Netflix started out as a mail order movie rental firm that was popularized in part due to the no late fee nature of the service -- subscribers could rent and keep films as long as they wanted as long as they continued to pay the month service fee.
More recently, Netflix began to offer a smaller library of movies that could be streamed online. At first, the service was for use on subscribers’ PCs only. Later as the service became more popular, dedicated set-top boxes were launched to work with the streaming service and manufacturers began to integrate the ability to stream from Netflix into Blu-ray players. Microsoft also added Netflix compatibility to the Xbox 360.
Netflix's streaming service has proven to be very popular with the application currently installed and active on over a million Xbox 360 consoles today. Reuters reports that Netflix CFO Barry McCarthy said this week that the company plans to launch a streaming only service in the future. McCarthy said at a conference, "We're likely to do that [offer streaming only] in the foreseeable future."
Netflix announced this month that it has 10 million subscribers for its mail order rental service now and they can all stream movies from the online library if they choose.
Reuters reports that McCarthy stressed that Netflix will continue to offer a service that bundles mail order with streaming films, but the company sees that some users would prefer the streaming service only.
DailyTech - Netflix CFO Says Streaming Only Plans Coming in the Future
