Netflix Broadband Model May Upend Cable

[Commentary] The explosion of Netflix's unlimited, flat-fee instant home video demonstrates how rapidly a recession can transform a living room TV into a digital hub that threatens big guns like Blockbuster, cable and other pay services. Add in the burgeoning popularity of free, ad-supported online streaming video and Web-enabled portable devices--conventional distributors, it's time to worry. Netflix is changing the home-video delivery model the same way Amazon continues to reinvent bookselling. Both are evolving personalized on-demand, subscription-based business models that are upending license fees, advertising and everything about the status quo. Netflix is skillfully maneuvering the rapidly shifting broadband terrain, using its wireless wits to conquer a corner of the new digital market--one consumer at a time.