How Netflix Destroyed Our Patience For Media
Today, it takes a matter of seconds for your favorite movies and latest binge-shows to start up once you’ve hit “play” on Netflix. That's quite the drastic improvement from the days when it would take at least twenty-four hours to get a DVD shipped to your home.
In the grand scheme of things, twenty-four hours doesn’t seem like a long time. But it has been the loss of that full day wait that has changed media history forever and altered the way we interact with and consume media.
Founded in 1997, the streaming platform started out very different from what we now know it as. It would have been difficult to imagine the same little mail-order DVD rental company, created by Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings, becoming one of the largest entertainment media companies in history. The ingenuity of new ideas and clever use of new-at-the-time technology allowed Netflix to capitalize on a new form of business model and convert their operations to something much bigger that other rental companies like Blockbuster or Family Video could keep up with.
Even then, as it was still small and experimental, Netflix was changing the way people felt about how they should be able to consume media. It's human nature to crave an easier way to get the things we want so with every step Netflix took toward a simpler, faster way to get the entertainment their audience wanted, the more impossible it became to look back.
As the technology became available, Netflix was quick to adapt to new business models that would better suit their movie-renting audience and their need to keep the cost of operations low. According to “Netflix, inc.” published in the academic research journal EBSCO, “In 2007, the company began delivering content on demand by streaming video content over the internet.” This was essentially an early stage of what we know of the platform as today only, at the time, it was something completely new for the company which had only previously handled media with stamps and their iconic red / white envelopes.
The change not only made it easier to get movies and TV onto renters’ screens, it also cut down shipping costs and opened up a much larger market of users who would later become subscribers once the monthly-payment plans became available in 1999.
Now, the company is entirely online and makes most of its money through user subscriptions while also generating revenue from ads and creating its own movies and media.
Netflix originals began appearing on our screens in 2012, premiering with the comedy drama series Lilyhammer which was followed by the wildly successful thriller show House of Cards in 2013. These TV shows paved the way for tons more original, and pop-culture defining, content such as Stranger Things and Orange is the New Black. With these titles in their catalog, Netflix made itself even more valuable to its users. To have a subscription to its services was no longer excessive or extra. In fact, it became so common that it is now considered obvious for someone to have their own account. Not only was it a familiar and easy way to access a world of media, it was the exclusive home to some of pop-culture’s favorite TV shows and movies. This meant if you couldn’t go without watching Squid Game when the world wouldn’t stop talking about it, you couldn’t go without Netflix.
Netflix’s audience has only grown since its shift toward easy-going streaming. Investopedia cites Netflix's latest 10-K filing in their article “How Netflix Generates Revenue Through Streaming Services” and explains that “the company reported net income of $8.71 billion, up 61% from the previous fiscal year.” This incredible growth and the monstrous size of this media giant gave it massive power in shaping the future of media distribution and consumption. But that doesn’t mean it's completely untouchable.
Netflix might have started the streaming game but since 2007, many more big players have joined in such as Amazon, HBO, Spotify, and Disney+. This new competition has funneled a fraction of users (who only have so much money they consider appropriate to devote to entertainment and can’t justify five different monthly subscriptions) away from Netflix and toward differing, sometimes cheaper, options. While the competition hasn’t necessarily determined the streaming platform in a serious way yet, the video “Three Major Issues Facing Netflix” by TLDR Business explains that several other factors such as rising prices, cheaper ad-filled subscription options, and password-sharing restrictions, are making it a challenge for Netflix to keep their subscribers happy.
That being said, the platform still has a sea of devoted users, valuable properties, (like their hit originals) and the corner on the market that almost makes worrying about their success a waste of time. Until the next big technological revolution rolls in that makes media even easier for consumers to get their hands on, streaming, and Netflix in particular, will continue to control the industry.
Streaming services offer a look at a classic form of media competition in a new light. Media distributors have been competing for viewers' attention and money forever but now, options to attract audiences through differing subscription prices, bundles, ad-less plans, and the offered media itself can bring or push away potential subscribers easier than ever before.
From the business standpoint, the ease in which audiences can shift around can either be a dream or a nightmare depending on whether it's your platform or that of your competitors that the masses gravitate to.
Meanwhile, from the audience’s point of view, the advancements in streaming’s technology and business model have made accessing a plethora of media so easy and fast, we can’t stop consuming it.
Think about all the time you spend consuming content on a regular basis. Do you eat lunch with something playing in the background? When you drive around, do you play music? Do you usually watch a movie or some TV to help you unwind after work? Now think about how much of this media is distributed by some form of streaming.
It's now considered normal to have something playing at all times. Because of streaming, the way we consume and interact with media has changed forever. We can watch what we want, when we want it, wherever we are, and as many times as we want with only a few taps on a screen.
In this way, Netflix ruined our patience when it comes to media. And no, I don’t mean the way we give up on whatever movie we picked because it didn’t load within the thirty seconds we waited for it to start after clicking play. (Imagine waiting those twenty-four hours for a DVD to ship to your house. I'm not sure I have the endurance.) We now expect all media to come to us as easily as Netflix makes it. With things like Netflix’s recommendation features and Spotify's “Made for you” playlists, we no longer even need to pick out what sort of media we want to consume next. Instead, our next watch / listen is thrown in our faces and we happily take what we can get because it’s simply right there in front of us.
We are spoiled by easy, fast access and an incredible amount of options to the point of no return. Imagine if all streaming services were to disappear tomorrow and the world had to convert back to cable. Or worse, if we suddenly had to go back to driving out to the nearest Family Video to get our movies!
It would be like if we lost cars and suddenly had to ride horses everywhere. It would be chaos, ponies in the street, hay and broken arms everywhere.
Maybe that's a bit dramatic but it demonstrates just how comfortable we’ve gotten with the shift toward easy streaming. We’ve settled in and gotten used to the idea of constant access to most forms of media.
Now it seems impossible to go back.
Through my research, I've learned that the relationship between media and business is a lot stronger than it might seem at first glance. Business not only can control what media is made, (like if season 2 of your favorite show gets cancelled because it simply wasn’t making enough money) but also what we see and have access to. I knew that Netflix was a massive and powerful company because of its tight grasp on, and its foundational role in, the streaming service industry but what I failed to recognize was just how much it has changed the audience itself. Netflix created a product that quite literally changed how an entire society treats media and therefore, how other companies will market and sell their own media in the future. We’ve seen the end of VHS, then the death of DVD. Now, thanks to Netflix and the many other streaming platforms catching on to users' new need for effortless and speedy entertainment, we are seeing cable’s hold on the television entertainment industry quickly slip away and our ways of media consumption as we know it, forever changed.
