I don't think it's really fair to Netflix to say they're throwing anything away. They exist totally at the pleasure of big content, and big content has decided that they want people to use cable. There's not really anything you can do when your distributors buy out one of your competitors and start to cut out the middle man (you.)
I hope the [relative] corpse that Netflix will inevitably become is made a poster boy for copyright reform. Netflix was used as the "streaming delivery" guinea pig by big content, and now that they've seen it to be profitable, they don't see why they should give Netflix a slice of the pie (thus comes Hulu). I completely agree that the media companies are actively trying to harm Netflix.
Netflix, of course, is aware of this and is quietly attempting to procure rights to in-demand programming. This is the motivation behind picking Arrested Development back up. It's a good strategy if they believe they can swing it, but it's very threatening to the media conglomerates (who are already terrified of the internet); certainly a tough act to balance. Netflix is between a rock and a hard place.
