I’ve had the opposite experience: If you have a decent connection (1gbps), you can torrent the 50GB Blu-ray in 7 minutes instead of watching the 0.5GB stream on Netflix. The difference in bitrate/quality is massive during fast action sequences where the Netflix version splits into 100 puzzle pieces made of DCT blocks that don’t quite fit together.

Oh and Netflix is one of the better sites when it comes to bitrate. Other streams are full of artifacts even when the camera is panning over a static scene.