When was the last time the U.S. Postal Service upped the price of stamps? Like, last month? We all know that USPS is in a bit of a dire situation, and I know from personal experience that it likes doing big business any chance it gets. That's more money for USPS and a chance to steal market share from UPS, FedEx and DHL. But in the case of Netflix and those darn flimsy envelopes, the DVD rental company has cost the USPS a reported $41.9 million in the past two years.

To make matters worse, USPS is forecasting costs of $61.5 million over the next two years to process Netflix DVD mailers. They jam up machines and require a lot of manual processing. How time consuming and laborious!

So USPS has extended two options for Netflix—change the envelopes so that they can be machine-processed, or pay the standard 17-cent surcharge for non-machinable packages. I'm guessing that when Netflix first spoke with USPS about its master plan for mailing out DVDs, USPS didn't think those envelopes would be much of a problem. Two years later, and the Post Office wants more money.

What does that mean for Netflix? Higher subscription rates to compensate for the improved mailers—or a bigger push for download rentals? With Blockbuster having found a way to fight Netflix with a triple threat of options for consumers (it's also important to note that Tech Trader reports Blockbuster's mailing packages cause no qualms for USPS), Netflix probably can't afford to raise subscription prices, and I don't think a bigger push for web downloads would compensate for the changes that need to be made. Perhaps Netflix will have to take a bit of a loss in order to get new mailers.