Digital delivery: Amazon Video-On-Demand, Hulu, iTunes, etc.

Physical rental: Redbox, Blockbuster, etc.

Netflix does their job very, VERY well, making it hard for any new players to enter the market.

But stuff like Hulu and Crackle shows how easy it is for the the content providers to start their own service and block Netflix from the content entirely.

Hulu also shows how hard it is for content creators to capture customers with a new business designed primarily to protect their existing business.

The biggest impediment to a Netflix competitor is getting the licensing from the media companies. After that, Netflix is a very bandwidth-intensive service and it would require a significant upfront investment to establish a competitor, which is probably why not many are trying. Even if you just want to do rental only, that still takes a significant investment to provide processing centers and make the required arrangements with the Postal Service. It's definitely not a low overhead venture.

There are some people that seem to be posturing to compete with Netflix. Amazon has some video on demand services and an unlimited solution on some titles for Prime subscribers. YouTube has made forays into the rental business and if they were interested in providing a service analogous to Netflix they'd be able to do so, and this may be beneficial to Google if they decide they want to ramp up on Google TV.

Furthermore, Microsoft refuses to license its DRM, which is used to encrypt Netflix streams, for use on desktop-grade Linux systems so Netflix can't do anything with the desktop Linux market for the time being. This is a major detraction for custom HTPC builders and some others. YouTube and Amazon both use Flash to deliver their content and both are playable on desktop-grade Linux machines.

I actually use Amazon on Demand because Netflix does not support Linux.

I believe that Disney and maybe a few of the other big studios could take their content and make competitors. It would basically be a VOD for them. People pay $8 to $12 for HBO alone. An on demand version playable from a bunch of devices woul work too. Netflix would basically end up being the small guy combined collection.

Amazon Prime offers free streaming videos. There selection anywhere as good as Netflix's yet but it seems to be improving.

In the UK, there is http://lovefilm.com

Also interesting: http://zediva.com

Actually, Amazon acquired Lovefilm in Jan. [1], and Zediva is being sued by the MPAA[2].

[1]http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/01/20/amazon-acquires-lovefilm... [2]http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/04/mpaa-sues-zediva/

Both true points, but not sure what you mean by "actually".

Presumably that disqualifies both as being competitors to Netflix.

In Canada there is zip.ca (http://www.zip.ca).

Netflix.ca is pretty dismal, half the stuff is unavailable or doesn't even exist on the Canadian version I may try Zip.ca

The Netflix.ca free trial was OK but only two weeks in and I watched everything that was interesting, now what. And Netflix.ca doesn't update the content very often.

Maybe Zip.ca is better. If not back to torrents and try to resurrect the corpse that is ushare.

In New Zealand, Fatso competes with physical rental. http://www.fatso.co.nz

I use greencine.com

what did you have in mind?