Yes you'd need multi-million dollar contracts with all of the major studios. Netflix isn't as much a technical problem as it is a business problem.
HBO has a far worse network, UI, and technology in general but its still competitive simply because it has Game of Thrones and other shows.
After pioneering streaming and realizing that the studios were asking themselves why they don't just load up their own computers with movies and get paid to stream them out, Netflix was forced to start its own content division to keep subscribers onboard and prevent the studios from poaching all of their customers by failing to renew contracts for content.
We have a similar problem in online services. It's impossible to compete with Facebook because the law allows them to hold data hostage.
We badly need copyright reform. The current incarnation is impractical in the digital age.
Copyright should be adjusted so that people can make money off of their creations without allowing the culture to be held hostage to corporations. If the copyright term was shortened to, say, 10 years, a Netflix-with-only-content-from-10-years-ago would be totally viable without having to ask for anyone's permission.
Copyright is a government-granted monopoly. It's gotten totally out of control and severely restricts competition in this type of space.
The movie industry has Long spent its years fighting piracy instead of providing a solution to a problem. Now there are solutions to the problem and the industry is refusing to adapt and continues to hold the content for themselves instead of licensing it to the likes of Netflix.
We know the studios have the right to license content because that's exactly what they do when they sell licenses over seas to broadcasters in other countries to air content.
This isn't about copyright. It's about the studios lack of ability to license content.
This is why in 2017 piracy is still a major issue.
This isn't even getting into exclusivity licensing that the studios seem to be real keen on doing with Netflix, Amazon, Crackle, VUDU and a jillion other streaming services. You know those shows that are branded "Netflix Original" on Netflix? Those aren't literally made by Netflix, they've just paid for some/all of the production and licensed them exclusively for some period of time. They're still produced by all the same studios that have been producing shows and movies for years.
Right now, competition is hamstrung because people are prevented from entering the market with anything that the consumer would find desirable, barring permission from the rightsholders.
Competition is not real competition if the same data cannot be accessed. For example, Chrome and Firefox compete because they both access the same internet, and whichever browser provides the better experience for that internet will win out. That kind of thing is not possible on walled gardens like Facebook because the law allows them to obliterate anyone who would create an alternate "Facebook browser", and it's not possible with things whose primary offerings fall under copyright protection, like Netflix.
We need to open these things up so that people can compete and provide the consumer with the best experience without needing anyone else's permission. It's true that most people will want access to new releases, but if copyright expired after 10 years, you'd at least have a secondary service that people would actually want to use, which would compete with Netflix et al for viewership on a lot of the content.
"Netflix operates its own content delivery network (CDN) called Open Connect. Netflix manages Open Connect from Amazon, but the storage boxes holding videos that stream to your house or mobile device are all located in data centers within Internet service providers' networks or at Internet exchange points, facilities where major network operators exchange traffic. Netflix distributes traffic directly to Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, and other big network operators at these exchange points."
Everything else - such as the Netflix UI, your account management, billing, etc - is on Amazon. But Netflix has an enormous amount of hardware distributed around the world. If you wanted to compete with Netflix, you would need to do a lot more than uses Amazon's cloud services.