I honestly can't attribute any profiteering here. This is pure geek fun. Reminds me of the days of the Netflix Prize. http://www.netflixprize.com/
This is part of a marketing campaign not unlike the office depot "easy" button, except they've designed an actual button that sort-of works.
The point is to get people excited about the idea of a Netflix marathon and create some buzz among geeky subscribers. It doesn't matter how many people actually create or use "the button".
If I had to attribute anything, it's more of a recruiting move. They want clever hacker geeks working for them. Maybe they are moving into home automation and this will be an interview question? I dunno how effective that is, though. I think someone just said, yeah, screw it, let's do it!