How many times does Netflix (NFLX) have to say it? The company doesn't want to replace your cable box. It can't afford to compete with everything on television.

Instead, Netflix just wants to be an online premium network. Think HBO on the Web. It wants to offer big original shows that you can't find anywhere else, plus a ton of less significant programming that doesn't cost too much.

That's the company's new business model, like it or not. And the good news for Netflix is that people are coming to terms with it. Subscriber numbers are stabilizing, and so are customer satisfaction levels. Quite a change from the high-drama of 2011, when Netflix seemed to be doing everything it could to outrage customers.

"We are just another network competing for viewing time with, and licensing content from, other networks," CEO Reed Hastings said in a letter to shareholders Thursday.

One analyst points out "blemishes" with Netflix in the following video.

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Still, Netflix has turned a corner. Shares were up more than 21% Thursday to $115.64 after the company surprised with better quarterly earnings than Wall Street expected. Profit and revenue beat expectations. Netflix is now the top stock performer this year, The Wall Street Journal reports.

But perhaps more impressive was that Netflix added 610,000 subscribers in the U.S. in the fourth quarter. That's not enough to match the 800,000 subscribers who dumped the service in the previous quarter, but it's a move in the right direction.

Netflix ended the year with 24.4 million customers in the U.S., nearly 22 million of whom are streaming customers, paying $8 a month. A little more than 11 million pay to get DVDs by mail, and 8.4 million pay for both.

Netflix is done with DVD-only subscribers. It won't spend any more money attracting them or keeping them, and executives expect that category to decline every year.

Instead, the company is putting its money toward international expansion and original content. It has about 500,000 subscribers in Latin America, for example, and has recently launched in Britain and Ireland. It had 1.9 million total international streaming subscribers at the end of the year.

The quarterly performance was solid enough to win back the hearts of many analysts. Several upgraded the stock Thursday, and some significantly raised price targets in anticipation of continued progress from the company. Citigroup's Mark Mahaney raised his price target to $130 from $80, saying customer satisfaction seems to have stabilized.

But other analysts were skeptical. "Our ongoing concerns regarding building competition continue to feed into our longer-term questions surrounding the economic value of a streaming subscriber," wrote analysts from Canaccord Genuity, which is maintaining its "sell" rating on the stock.

Some of the concerns revolve around Netflix's push into developing its own programs, a model HBO has done so well with. Netflix describes its first original series, "Lilyhammer," as a "fish-out-of-water story set in Norway." What if that fish flops? Much is riding on the company's push into original content.

It's too early to say that Netflix is back. The company is certainly better off now than it was six months ago, but Netflix has a lot to prove before it becomes the highflying market darling it once was.