Now we know what people have been doing with their spare time after being fired - they are watching rented movies. Online movies rental house Netflix announced today an impressive 45 percent increase in profit in the fourth quarter. Revenue overall was up 19 percent and the company is close to breaking the 10 million subscriber mark.

Netflix rents predominantly DVD-Video discs, but has seen a surge in Blu-ray rentals, despite the fact that the company charges an extra $1 per month for the right to rent Blu-ray movies. Even in an economy that loses 70,000 jobs in a day, consumers can justify the cost of a Netflix subscription because of the incredible value offered. Consumers pay based on how many (and what variety - such as Blu-ray) discs they want to be able to rent at any time. Netflix is also making smart strides to be the leading download firm by having deals with gaming systems and Blu-ray players to allow standard-definition downloads to come right to your source components. This was previously territory reserved exclusively for pay-per-view services via cable and satellite. Now the Internet and AV source components are making their move as home entertainment moves towards a downloadable future and Netflix leads the way.