Yawn. Netflix Watch Instantly has about 3 movies that I am actually interested in, and I already watched all three of them. This was great when I was travelling and was willing to watch a movie on my MacBook Pro, but at home there's no way I'd settle for watching a movie on my computer, not when I have a DVD player and a 32" LCD TV and a comfy sofa.

But...Netflix does say that their service will work with the soon-to-be announced "LG Media Hub!" Woo hoo! A bunch of crappy movies streamed over a "media hub" that something like 8 people will ever buy. Now, how can I not be excited at that prospect!?!?!? (sorry, didn't mean to wax too sarcastic there)

6 months ago, Netflix stated that they would come up with a Mac-compatible streaming video option, but they have not yet delivered. Granted, Windows users represent a much larger market, but I don't think Netflix is ready to supplant iTunes until they can figure out how to stream to a Mac. If they can't manage to do it soon, they'll lose me as a once-loyal subscriber!

Windows users probably represent a much smaller segment of the home market, which is the primary market for streaming movies. NetFlix isn't really serious about streaming movies until they are Mac compatible.

Many first adapters have Macs and are affluent enough to subscribe to Netflix. A much greater percentage than the 7% and growing market share.

Streaming only to a PC and I know PC junkies who even hate Media PCs is a deal killer. We can't watch it with our families or on the sofa.

I tried Amazon Unbox and like some things about the service including that it broadcasts to your Tivo. The web based interface is clunky compared to a dedicated program like iTunes but I might use it again.

DRM Laden streaming to a PC. Fuhgetaboutit. Streaming to a Tivo or Apple TV, now we're talking.

But you can watch Heroes on the NBC web site for free on your computer...
I'm pretty yawnie about this whole thing. It seems you have content companies like Netflix with a large number of streaming movies but no way to watch them on your TV really, and then you have Apple with its aTV unit but not very many movies to choose from.
And on top of this you have people like me with so-so DSL getting fairly mediocre download speeds. Seems like a really clunky idea overall right now.

OTOH, they know what platform most of their users are running, and the developing a Mac client was probably cost prohibitive. The video client they have now automatically detects the download speed and adapts video quality accordingly. I'm not sure why they went with the codec they did, but I'd be they didn't simply ignore Mac users. They made a business decision to not support us.

Don't get me wrong - I want Netflix to offer its services to Mac users. But I can see a rational business case for not doing so.

None of that changes the fact that iTunes rentals are likely to seriously chew into Netflix's user base. And has anyone actually browsed their site lately? Netflix has made it increasingly difficult to simply browse movies, seemingly preferring it's predictive model (since you liked this, you'll like that) instead. Browsing new releases is painful at best. Once it's fully operational, I'll definitely give iTunes rentals a chance - at least it's easy to both search and browse at the iTs.