When Wall Street was just starting to get the spins a few months ago, I read some commentary from an analyst who firmly believed Netflix would feel the recession burn away at its subscriber growth. Consumers, he thought, were looking to cut entertainment budgets, not jump into something that had them paying a monthly fee regardless of how much they use it. So far, though, Netflix has been doing just fine. Last month, it reported a 45 percent jump in profit, and it added 718,000 subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2008 — twice as many as it had earlier predicted.
