As someone who grew up without VCRs (and who had to stay up late at night to even catch a movie I hadn’t seen before, commercials and all) the idea of having to wait a month longer for a film doesn’t mean a thing. The only people this truly hurts are the young, impatient ones who can solve the whole issue by not buying any more DVDs (that will close down the studio attitude on this in a hot New York minute, as they will be *begging* the rental outfits to buy their films).

Also. A curiosity factor. You mentioned that that delay won’t apply to Blockbuster, etc. where they do a pay-per-dvd-rental policy. Blockbuster also has a netflix type rental deal where you get them mailed to you but you can also exchange the movies in store as well.. I’m a little curious how they would enforce a 30-day policy there when a customer could just go in store and exchange for one of the new releases even if Blockbuster cannot mail out the new release.

From a $ and cents point of view, the movie studios are making a sensible business move. Well, in the short term it makes sense. Long term it has the potential to cause a lose in revenue.
Netflix and companies like it are actually helping to insulate movie studios from the coming transition from physical to digital. Yeah it’s still probably 5-10 years away, but when it comes to companies as large as the studios that can sneak up on you in a heart beat(it took the music industry ~10yrs to come to some understanding on mp3′s and the way their business model was changing). Netflix deals mostly in physical media now, but I would call their physical rentals quasi-physical in that once you set up your queue all you have to do is pick up your movies in the mail box and send the old ones back(I don’t have to go anywhere to get my movies). Oh and keep paying them each month whether you get a movie from them or not. This is a nice transitional system to what Netflix really wants to do when the bandwidth is there for more people, digital/instant rentals. Low fixed costs and, if played right, huge profits.
Problem for the studios is, they got spoiled for about 3-4 years when DVD caught on with everyone. People were buying all the movies they just saw and all the movies they loved and didn’t have instant access to. This created huge additional revenue for the studios and now they don’t want to let it go. Just like the music industry is having a hard time letting go of all the money they made from CD’s.
I guess what I am getting at is the 30-day move makes sense when you look at how the businesses are operated. It makes no sense when you look at where the industry(home video) is headed. Eventually, they won’t have anyone to be holding the release back from; they will just be delaying extra income from properties that tend to become less valuable the longer they sit on the proverbial shelf.

But I am in the minority because 90% of the content I watch from Netflix is much older than 30 days and is more in the realm of 30 years =)