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Marking a major milestone in home entertainment’s shift to digital formats, video streaming subscription revenues surpassed DVD / Blu-ray sales in the United States for the first time in 2016. While U.S. consumers spent $6.23 billion on subscriptions to services such as Netflix (up 23% from 2015), DVD and Blu-ray sales dropped 9.5 percent to $5.49 billion, according to the Digital Entertainment Group's year-end report.

Looking at the home entertainment market as a whole, it is clear that the future of video distribution is digital. While consumer spending on streaming subscriptions, video on demand and electronic sell-through increased in 2016, all physical formats, both sell-through and rental, suffered double-digit declines. Digital business models now account for 56% of home entertainment spending and could soon surpass box office earnings to become the largest source of income for the entertainment industry.

There are a lot of things the world does better than the US: Literacy, life expectancy, general happiness, and, of course, soccer. You can now add Netflix to that list.

On Monday (Sept. 14), the US streaming television service updated (and redesigned) its monthly speed index website, where it ranks Netflix speeds by internet provider. Given that the company has expanded into over 50 countries, with plans for hundreds more, the index now ranks Netflix speeds by country as well.

The US and Canada, where Netflix accounts for a whopping 37% of peak web traffic, are both in the middle of the pack when it comes to Netflix speeds. Scandinavian countries dominate the rankings, which shouldn’t be too surprising, as those same countries generally boast some of the fastest internet speeds in the world (pdf).

The index measures how well Netflix performs during prime viewing hours. Essentially, the higher the ranking, the better the Netflix viewing experience is in that country. Viewers in count

You mean when you raise prices, it affects subscriber levels?  No one told Reed Hastings and nor did he forewarn the market of the drop which was coming.  NFLX already has streaming competition from HBO (TWC) and talk is being bandied about that CBS will be joining that pool along side AMZN and others and well, it all equals = more competition.  NFLX is no longer 'unique'.  Yes I am short this pos based off the technical divergences on the daily chart.  Burnt popcorn anyone?