When it comes to leading the way with innovative new business models, Netflix is without peer. Already, it has forever changed how people rent movies—and others have wisely followed suit.

Now, Netflix has decided to use the cloud as its primary warehouse and distribution source. It’s a model that I frequently promote, and I hope others in the service provider community will adopt it when (not if) Netflix finds as much success with it as everything else it’s ever tried.

Notably, Netflix is offering incentives to its customers to join the cloud, too. By jacking up its subscription price for DVDs and lowering its subscription price for digital streams, it’s a no-brainer for movie buffs. Really, everybody wins: Netflix will save money as its need to store and forward DVD hard copies decreases, while its customers will enjoy the convenience and instant gratification that streaming from the cloud provides.

It’s not a total slam dunk yet for Netflix, however. At present, the company must develop, test and update hundreds of versions of its app for each of the many different devices to which its content will be streamed—a time consuming and expensive process.

But the burden on Netflix’s developers will likely get lighter as more CE manufacturers join the cloud, as Netflix already has. When those manufacturers recognize the benefits of moving the “brains” of their products out of their physical devices and into the cloud, service providers like Netflix won’t need to develop to as many device-based platforms.

It only ever takes one successful model to put everyone on the same page. Netflix has a history of being the successful model—or at least the first to move forward with the successful model. When (again, not if) both device makers and service providers move into the cloud, the current multiplicity of formats—and the myriad difficulties associated with that situation—will fade away.

That’s just the technology, of course. Here’s the part that I really love: If everything’s in the cloud, you’ll have no need to store any content in the home. DVDs and their associated clutter will disappear from your home as rapidly as CDs did with the advent of MP3 players, and as books are doing with the rise of e-readers.

Less clutter means more room for the things you really want to do—like entertain guests, paint, write music… heck, maybe you could play soccer in the house with the all the space you’d save.

This week I want to throw everyone a big KISS. That’s capitalized because it’s an acronym for Keep It Simple Stupid. It’s a sweet message we too often forget.

The big debate over cord cutters—if they’re real or imaginary—made me think about KISS. I won’t step into the debate about whether cord cutters are real or just figments of the active imaginations of over-the-top content producers. I will get into what it takes to be a cord cutter: fortitude, persistence and more than a little masochism. Cord cutting is like driving on the back roads to avoid the turnpike tolls. You’ll get to the same place but it might take a little longer and you’re guaranteed to run into more than the occasional stop sign or red light.

We all want or need to take that back road every so often. Maybe it’s for the adventure; maybe it’s to duck the toll; or maybe it’s just because we want to prove how damned smart and hip we are. On the other hand, taking the back road can wear thin after a while.

Here’s a pop quiz—or mom quiz if you prefer. How many of you actually enjoy texting with your phone? Be honest. Unless you have the dainty hands of a nine-year-old pianist, the physical task of texting with a smart phone ranks up there with listening to Miley Cyrus talk about how much she admires Britney Spears. It’s painful.

On the other hand, it’s fun to text. Is there anyone out there—and we’re being honest here—who wouldn’t toss that phone into the nearest recycling bin if someone came along with a better way to type the text?

The same goes for cord cutting. Right now finding television content and other Internet data involves searches and widgets and clandestine moves using phones and keyboards and remote controls. The content is there; the end result is worthwhile; the trip is a hassle but it’s fun to show you can do it.

Fortunately, we are just at the start of the trip. Smart people are investing big dollars and energy into smoothing connected TV. It starts with storing the content in the Internet cloud and it will end, eventually, with a device that’s smart enough to hand you the key to start it up and the GPS to guide you where you need to go quickly, efficiently and, sure, probably with a little toll.

That’s the secret of keeping it simple. Simple is for everyone, and it’s how the Internet and all the wonders of its content will eventually end up on everybody’s TV.

Just Keep It Simple Stupid and the rest will work itself out.

CES is still a couple of months away, but already I can hear the drumbeats. Smarter TVs. Internet ready. More widgets. A next-generation way to watch television.

The promise is that, at the click of a button on a remote control, the Internet will spring to life on the TV screen. The problem is that the reality isn’t quite as simple as the promise makes it out to be.

For one thing, it takes two—or more, in this case—to tango. As Google TV is finding, a smart TV is only as good as the content relationships it can forge. And the quality of that Web video is only going to be as good as the consumer’s broadband connection.

Then there’s the matter of televisions’ lifespan. In a CE world where products are turned over every two or three years, televisions have remarkable staying power. They move from family room to master bedroom to guest room, but odds are the display we buy today will be with us long after technology has passed it by.

So rather than making the television smarter, wouldn’t we be better off putting that intelligence in the network? Streaming content and interactive applications from the network cloud so your TV—don’t they call it a display?—can do what it does best, and do it for many years to come?

Rather than setting up confrontational “us-vs-them” scenarios, putting the intelligence in the network cloud leverages existing content and service provider relationships. It also allows the CE industry to make smaller investments in hardware, and gives consumers the comfort of knowing that the connected TV they buy today won’t be a dinosaur a year from now.

So as we point toward CES, let’s remember that the smartest thing we can do might not be to try to make our televisions more than they are. Ultimately, we’ll be better off if we keep the boob in the “boob tube” and put the intelligence in the cloud.