Sure I dont represent every consumer, but I think this is why netflix is successful: not overselling the customer. You get to use the content and put it back. I know how Titanic ends, I dont need to see it over and over again. I get no utility from that. Some flicks might have fanatics that want to "own" it (whatever that means), but most dont.
Aww, c'mon. Not even this?
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dvd-smokey-and-the-bandit-th...
Ah wait, you said single movie. Wink! Gotcha.
How? Do you really watch video in the browser on your computer where you can run Google-provided builds of Chrome? Isn't that pretty annoying?
What do you do if you have some random small ARM or Atom box running Linux with an UI that's convenient to use on the big TV screen it's connected to and using a remote control? I don't see an obvious way to watch DRM-protected video there. HTML5/EME doesn't help a bit as you still need a (binary-only) content decryption module that you can't get for your platform.
Edit: as someone who grew up in the 80s, Linux is the best thing that happened to computing outside the internet and Linux was a large part of that as well. It was hell before with MS, Sun, HP, SGI, Digital, etc and their flavours of hell. They did a lot of good but the closed off nature was terrible.
Myself, I run a small ARM box running (an embedded and completely inaccessible) Linux, designed as a dedicated streaming device (or sometimes a similar device that is included in the workings of my Blu-Ray player). I'm not particularly interested in using a TV as a display for a general-purpose computing device, so this works well for what I want to do.
I have a few ARM boxes that can't play anything DRMed other than what's handled by libdvdcss or libaacs, but those are the devices that I wouldn't use to play video even if I could.
So I agree with you; they make it easy for me to watch legal content, something I have been shouting for for years. I would not care about DRM if I could watch everything like I can on Netflix; unless I buy it (on a DVD or online, no difference), in that case I'm actively against DRM. I generally am because it doesn't really work for the purpose it's used for so then it's more of a hassle, but like said, I wouldn't care if it's seamless. There were times when I could not watch content in Linux because the DRM decoder didn't work in Linux, so even if I paid, I couldn't get the content I paid for. That's another story, but with HTML5 that's all fixed.
The only time I pirate things still if they put geo restrictions; if some episode (and this is not an IF this is reality) of a series i'm following is aired first somewhere else and I really want to keep up to date I have no choice. If Netflix could break that mold...
Maybe someone knows; for Netflix originals they presumably own the rights right? So why do those not air the entire world at the same time? As if my assumption is the case, that makes them more evil again. I do not know much about the rights in this case though so maybe some greater evil forces them to...