Ben Thompson, from a fascinating Stratechery post:

The problem Apple has in premium video — and given that the company has been trying and failing to secure video content on its terms for years now, it definitely has a problem — is that its executives seem to have forgotten just how important the piracy leverage was to the iTunes Music Store’s success.

Ben quotes the next paragraph from this Wall Street Journal story from last summer:

[Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services Eddy] Cue is also known for a hard-nosed negotiating style. One cable-industry executive sums up Mr. Cue’s strategy as saying: “We’re Apple”…TV-channel owners “kept looking at the Apple guys like: ‘Do you have any idea how this industry works?’” one former Time Warner Cable executive says…Mr. Cue has said the TV industry overly complicated talks. “Time is on my side,” he has told some media executives.

Ben continues:

Time may be on Apple’s side, but the bigger issue for Cue and Apple is that leverage is not; that belongs to the company that is actually threatening premium content makers: Netflix. Netflix is the “piracy” of video content, but unfortunately for Apple they are a real company capable of using the leverage they have acquired.

This is fascinating on many levels. First, there’s the notable absence of Netflix from the Apple TV section of last week’s Apple event. Buying Netflix would not only solve the problem of Netflix’ absence from Apple’s new TV App, it would also build an interesting bridge over to Amazon. Netflix is a first tier, searchable citizen on Amazon’s Fire TV, and Apple buying Netflix would certainly help the Apple TV pull back even with Amazon in the area of search.

But buying Netflix would give Apple more than that. On one hand, it would give Apple leverage in their relationship with Amazon, a lever they could use to nudge Amazon Video onto Apple TV. On the other hand, if Amazon doesn’t play ball, Apple could use Netflix as a marketing edge to distinguish Apple TV from Fire TV.

Either way, I’m a fan of Apple buying Netflix, think it’d be an efficient use of capital, way more so than an umbrella purchase like Time-Warner, which I think would be much more of a derailing distraction than its content is worth.