When Netflix nearly doubled my rates, I was outta there.
Cancelled my subscription yesterday as did millions of others.
The Starz no-deal simply says they were too greedy. Now they get nothing. Do they think they'll find someone who'll pay more than Netflix would for their re-syndication rights? Doubtful. I never heard of Starz before they showed up on Netflix and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Netflix is big enough now that they can deal with Disney and other studios direct rather than through some middleman licensee. The same is true for any deep-pocketed competition (e.g., Apple, Amazon). So the real loser here is Starz.
What third-tier players need to understand is that folks are not going back to $100+/month digital cable TV "bundles", certainly not in this economy.
Meanwhile, International expansion is the next frontier. In a couple of months when we learn that (a) the feared subscriber drop-off didn't happen and (b) Netflix is now rolling out its previously announced expansion into Latin America and South America, nobody is going to care much about Starz. It's even possible that Starz may quietly come back to the table with more reasonable demands once they realize this too.