Netflix is pretty good. I have a basic cable package with some free movies on demand, and pretty much all of the free movies available on cable are already available to watch instantly on netflix. I'm actually going to drop cable entirely once the promo rate I have ends. I have a blu ray player that lets you stream netflix on the tv. I payed close to $300 for it when i bought it around a year ago, maybe longer. I think most blu ray players have it now for maybe $150 or less, and some tv's as well. If you don't watch a lot of tv shows but just occasionally want to watch a movie, it's worth it. A lot of the movies I get an urge to watch happen to be on Watch Instantly anyways.
Get a blu ray player that supports Netflix Watch Instantly and also that supports VuDu. The VuDu HDX titles you can stream are unbelievable in terms of quality.
The best thing about netflix is that it is easy to rent movies you would be ashamed to rent in stores or buy (if you even wanted to buy them). For example, I rented the whole Emannuelle series one month for nostalgic spank bank material. There's no way I would buy that shit in stores or rent it somewhere. That series seemed a lot better when I was 11.