Those that continue to insist that people stop complaining don't understand society very well. It also amounts to an attempt at censorship by bullying others into not exercising their right to protest. (To see if you are at least being consistant, check how you feel about the occupy movement.)

The continuing claims that we have nothing to complain about is hooey. Here is the real list;

During a monumental economic downturn, one of the only businesses to remain profitable increased its price... A LOT. When the people struggling to make ends meet said hey, this seems a bit much, the company said tough. (This is a cornerstone of the problem, with major corporations folding left and right, a profitable company, instead of choosing to lose a little margin or streamline like other companies were doing to survive, decided a massive price increase was the answer.) 

This was followed by the revelation that the recent decreases in content that were implied to be temporary contract issues that would get resolved, would in fact likely not get resolved and would be joined by more lost content. As customers we stopped and said, wait, what?

This was then followed by the announcement that the service would also be less convenient. What was a one stop entertainment source would now be two completely seperate services with no ability to reference one against the other. Here is why this was a big deal. A lot of us are busy and already have enough time sucks in our lives. Having to search two services seperately for a movie that may not be available, even if it was previously, is very annoying when for years we were able to do one search only.

So as consumers, when a lot of us had less to spend on our daily needs and a few entertainments, we were asked to pay a lot more for a lot less. Summed up, profitable company, bad economy, charge lots more, deliver lots less. Why are we mad? Oh yeah, the icing on the cake. When the cries of foul and the exodus of customers became too great to ignore, the head of the company, who was responsible for all of the questionable moves, apologized by essentially saying that he was sorry the customers were too stupid to understand why the changes were necessary.

I find the list of offenses unforgivable. It is the same as when we all left Blockbuster. It's talked about now as if it was just the late fees that drove the exodus away from them, but that isn't the whole story. First Blockbuster made sure their stores were physically positioned to drive other rental stores out of business. Then, when competition was minimal they began enacting policies that looked for ways to grab as much from the customer as possible. Late fee policies were manipulated to maximize Blockbuster profit and when it was discovered that large numbers of customers would leave a late fee balance unpaid for awhile, especially if it was a small balance, it was decided they would put those customers in collections to maximize profit. This unfortunately failed to account for the fact that most of those customers did pay the next time they wanted to rent a movie and that after being in their collections department, wouldn't come back to rent another movie. When companies lose sight of the importance of their customers perception of them they lose.

If I wanted to watch the junk on television, I would turn on the television.  I pay for Netflix for the movies .  I don't want the company to spend money on original movies or television shows.  I just want the latest movies, thank you.

Thanks for reminding me to cancel Netflix!  :)  To answer your question, "So Netflix is trying to differentiate itself from Amazon and Apple by forgoing box-office hits in favor of original shows and an ever-expanding television lineup. Is that what its subscribers want? "

NO

I have streaming only with Netflix. Yes, I'd like to see more top movies but for $8/mth it's still worth it. There are plenty of good movies on there. I watched 'Buried' last night and thought it was great. 'The Machinest' another good movie. Then there's Family Guy, Bones, The Tudors, Spartacus. Plus, I get to watch any of this stuff on my Kindle Fire when I'm on the road. For $8/mth it's still entertainment for me and I haven't bought a movie in months !!!!