It is easy, however, to get into the streaming business.
Mr. Hastings said the online streaming business "is just racing ahead".
Rhapsody was a pioneer in the subscription streaming business, opening in 2001, but it has struggled to remain competitive.
Theoretically, operating margins of 5% to 6% are possible in the music streaming business, Mr Mulligan says.
Deezer, a French start-up in the music streaming business, is adopting that strategy, Eric Pfanner writes for The Times.
It does, however, face competition from Amazon.com and Wal-Mart, and analysts expect Apple to enter the movie streaming business.
Earlier this year, Apple acquired Beats Electronics, an audio company, which had entered the streaming business via Beats Music.
The deal gives Netflix a prominent hat trick in the video game console market and underscores its recent emphasis on its digital streaming business.
The musician, writer, and publisher Damon Krukowski, a longtime critic of the streaming business, calls it the return of the monoculture.
Justin T. Patterson, an analyst at Morgan, Keegan & Company, said the growth of Netflix's streaming business resulted in a decline in the costs associated with winning new customers.
Yet Apple's unwillingness to accommodate — in this first iteration, at least — defining features of a thousand-year tradition is symptomatic of general trends in the streaming business.
