All bow to Netflix

Seriously. Wal-Mart has. Wal-Mart.com is ending its online service for renting DVDs. If Wal-Mart has given in to Netflix, shouldn't we all?

There's kind of a "10 Percent" rule when it comes to Wal-Mart. When they enter a market they end up with about 10 percent market share and they cause the overall price in the category to drop 10 percent. Well, the price drop happened, but Wal-Mart appears to have given up on trying to get 10 percent market share. They are actually going to recommend Netflix to browsers at Wal-Mart.com. Of course, they'll make sure to remind people that you can buy DVDs at Wal-Mart, but when it comes to renting, Netflix rocks.

Sometime in 1999 I found Netflix. I was there for the padded shipping envelope debacle. Anyway, I used it for a couple of years, but I started getting some damaged discs. The first time I got a disc that was literally broken in half, I dropped the service. Then three months ago, I signed up again and am in heaven. They added distribution centers, went back to the original paper envelope and I couldn't be happier. They've got it down. So much so, that even Wal-Mart doesn't care to complete.

I guess my only question for Netflix is: do you have a plan for a Post-DVD-download-movies-over-the-Internet world?

NOTE: And it just keeps coming. As reported in Yahoo! today, Blockbuster is hiking its prices! You might remember that a few months ago, when Blockbuster started hitting the online rental market pretty hard, it priced its service at $14.99 to undercut Netflix's $17.99. Well, now Blockbuster is matching Netflix's price. Blockbuster is saying the "promotional offer" is over. But maybe Netflix just does it better.