Diffusion of Innovations

 

Netflix has easily become one of the top streaming platforms in the world. They offer a wide range of movies, tv shows, documentaries, etc with many different categories for all of their customers which is what has drawn people to their streaming services for decades. It was founded in 1997 by Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings.  

Netflix actually started off as a DVD mail service which then turned into a subscription-based DVD mailing service in 1999. At this point in time, Netflix was looked at as a convenient movie rental business, in the sense that there were no late fees like BlockBuster. Being in the DVD mailing service was not the main intent for Netflix, they instead just wanted to lay a foundation against their competition which they successfully did as BlockBuster ended up going out of business about 17 years later in 2014 whereas Netflix has only increased since then. 

From 2002-2003, Netflix was enjoying its constant growth however, they did lose $4.5 million in quarter 1 of 2002. By the end of 2006, Netflix had gained around 6.3 million subscribers which generated about $80 million in profit. Netflix is vastly different from cable tv in the sense that cable tv calculates its audience based on the number of viewers that are tuning in and watching. Whereas with Netflix, their main focus is on how many movies or shows a subscriber is watching, and in order to increase their subscriber count, they customize movies and tv shows that the user would most likely want to watch.

One of the main reasons that Netflix has accumulated about 233 million subscribers (as of 2023). This is due to the vast range of movies and tv shows that this streaming platform offers for all of its viewers. They even customize each subscriber's profile based off of previous movies or shows they have watched and recommend new stuff to watch that they might be interested in. On top of this, Netflix produces its own original movies and shows which I would say is one of the main reasons why there is such a large number of subscribers. Since people love Netflix shows so much, if they cannot afford a whole billing cycle, they will pay for Netflix while their show comes out, watch it, and then cancel it again. But then again, this is only a small percentage of Netflix users so it doesn't really affect the subscriber count at all.

I would say that people who do not have a subscription to Netflix just simply do not enjoy the movies/tv shows that are offered. But, in 2023, Netflix has truly added a multitude of nostalgic movies that most people love. Regarding Netflix's new policy change surrounding their password sharing in which users outside of a subscriber's family was not able to use their account. However, Netflix acknowledged this and changed it back thankfully as I personally know many people that deleted their accounts because of this.  

There are people all over the world that enjoy trying out new innovations such as when Netflix first came out and did not have a name for themselves like they do right now. Because of the thousands of subscribers at the beginning of this streaming service's reign, it paved the way for new ideas to come in in order to make this company absolutely thrive. I would recommend at least trying out Netflix and getting a subscription as there are countless movies and tv shows that you either love, may have forgotten about, or are new to you that are so enjoyable to watch and won't make you regret buying a subscription.