Soon you'll be able to buy season one of Netflix's original show "House of Cards" via Comcast cable.
Please don't.
"House of Cards" will be available for purchase on Comcast within the next 30 days or so, a source with knowledge of the deal told The Huffington Post on Monday. Comcast is charging per episode: $2.99 in HD and $1.99 in standard definition, the source says.
That comes out to $38.87 for the first season in HD and $25.87 for standard definition.
Currently, all of "House of Cards" is available for just a $7.99 a month subscription to Netflix. There you can watch it anywhere you have an Internet connection at any time. Watch one episode. Watch all of them. Netflix doesn't care. You can also watch any of the thousands of other TV shows and movies, all for the same price.
"House of Cards" is currently available to buy on Verizon Fios for the same price as Comcast, and on DVD elsewhere. If you get the feeling that you'd be interested in watching more than one or two episodes of "House of Cards," it makes sense to just subscribe to Netflix for a month.
Of course, Netflix is betting that it will get lots of subscribers by creating original content like "House of Cards" that people can't get anywhere else. In fact, Netflix's chief operating officer, Ted Sarandos, has said that the company plans to double its original content this year. When "House of Cards" was first released, it was the most-watched show on Netflix. The fourth season of "Arrested Development," which was released only on Netflix, arguably grew Netflix's membership.
Comcast just cut its deal for "House of Cards" with Sony, which bought the TV rights to the show in 2011.
Comcast will also get "Breaking Bad," which is available on Netflix, and a bunch of movies, including "American Hustle," "Captain Phillips" and " 21 Jump Street," which are not currently on Netflix.