While the thought occurred to me (I have netflix to the mail time is two day round trip) to do that mostly so I could watch the movie while the disk was in the mail, but I quickly realized that occasionally I have a disk for three or four days in a row for a very good reason. I simply didn't have time to watch the movie. If I had ripped it I still wouldn't have watched it, but would now have two movies to watch. In the end I concluded that the ripping them didn't get me anything and in fact was a hassle because it took time and energy to rip the disk (which I am not spending watching the movie means I am doing something more important). When I get free time I watch a movie and return it. I have the two movies at a time plan and I find that on a given week one of the disks will sit on the TV for a day until I get around to watching it. I can't imagine having the three disks plan.

If you really want to collect movies for $300 you can get massive used DVD lots with hundreds of legit movies off ebay for way less hassle.

How is this even relevant though? You've been able to do the same thing with Netflix, Blockbuster, etc for a long time now. The housemate of an ex-supervisor had a Netflix account and would immediately rip the DVDs he got and send them back (sometimes not even watching them), and this was from 2002 or so.

The dollar value of a rental is, for Lovefilm UK, about 90 cents. Because of this low price, ripping a DVD is MUCH more effort than simply renting it again.

Not if you rip it in your car while sitting in front of the vending machine. This avoids gas and time spent on returns, and worry about watching the video before late fees pile up.