Like many, I wondered why Netflix was changing its streaming plus one-DVD-at-a-time plans from $10 to $16 a month... and while I've read some of the company's official statements and some credible analysis, I think that this is part of a larger strategy for Netflix to get out of the DVDs-by-mail business and thereby to force the hands of more content owners to license for digital distribution.

My thinking goes something like this:

1. Netflix raised the price of the combined plan drastically knowing full well that many customers will cancel the DVD part of their plan (I think they secretly hope that everyone cancels their physical DVD plans).

2. These cancellations will mean that all the holdouts who have not licensed their content for digital distribution will make even less money from Netflix. In fact, if everyone cancelled their DVD plans, it would give Netflix more leverage to say "if you'd license to stream, you'd start making money again."

Of course, when a critical mass of digital content is available, the whole disc thing will become moot, and the digital plan will become the only plan Netflix will offer. I think Netflix is just trying to force the question by its disjunctive price leap.

But what do I know?