In 1997, so the story goes, Reed Hastings spent the best $40 of his life. At the time, he was frustrated. He had just returned a rented copy of Apollo 13 six weeks late and was slapped with a huge late fee. Why, he wondered, could the price of renting films not be more like a gym membership, where you pay a flat price to work out as much or as little as you want? At the time, DVDs were a new but untapped technology poised to explode in the US market. Not only were they a burgeoning market, but they were also perfectly sized for slipping into post boxes.…