Netflix 25 years: Discover the trajectory of the streaming giant

This Monday (29), the Netflix streaming platform turns 25 years since its founding. But do you know how it happened? To clarify this and other doubts, Olhar Digital has decided to detail the trajectory of the company in this quarter of a century.

Now available in more than 30 languages ​​and 190 countries, Netflix is ​​a pioneer in the streaming market and has changed the way people consume entertainment products around the world. But despite being a huge global media empire today, the company was born with a very different idea from the current one.

The foundation

On August 29, 1997, Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings founded Netflix in Scotts Valley, California. Randolph was a marketing director, while Hastings was trained as a computer scientist and mathematician.

But in 1997, streaming was still a long way from becoming a reality and the movie rental market was still VHS based. The duo’s idea was to sell or rent movies over the Internet, but the VHS tapes were too delicate to send.

But in 1997 another technology appeared and expanded: DVD. To see if the idea of ​​selling and renting DVD movies over the Internet would work, the couple went through the buying process and sent a copy of the DVD to their homes. After receiving the product intact, the duo decided to invest in founding Netflix.

In 1998, Netflix launched its first DVD rental and sales site, Netflix.com, with fewer than 1,000 titles available and around 30 employees. Amazon owner Jeff Bezos even made an offer to purchase Netflix, worth between $ 14 million and $ 16 million, but although Randolph was interested, Hastings declined.

Subscription service and offered to Blockbuster

The DVD rental model evolved in 1999 into a monthly subscription concept, with one-time rentals ending in early 2000. As a result, Netflix began to focus on an unlimited, fixed-rate, and no-date rental model. commissions.

However, during the Internet Bubble phenomenon, which at the time generated great speculation in tech companies, Netflix suffered losses. This led to the founding duo making an offer to movie rental giant Blockbuster. However, the $ 50 million offer to purchase the company was turned down, and the Blockbuster CEO even mocked the offer.

Netflix suffered heavy losses due to the bubble collapse and the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers, which caused mass layoffs and caused Hastings and Randolph to delay plans for an IPO.

NFLX and patent

In 2002, Netflix made its public offering of shares (IPO). The company’s stock had an initial selling price of $ 1 per share on the NASDAQ, with the code NFLX.

In 2003, the company obtained a patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, which covered subscription rental service and various extensions. The year was also noteworthy in financial terms, as Netflix first recorded a profit, with revenues of $ 6.5 million in addition to $ 272 million in revenue.

This is because Netflix was booming and had already reached one million subscriptions in 2003. The number would grow a lot in the following years, reaching 5.6 million people in 2006 and 14 million in 2010. The big growth was the technology initially. chosen, DVDs, which were becoming increasingly popular in the United States.

In 2004, the company’s profit reached $ 49 million on $ 500 million in revenue, and in 2005 Netflix offered more than 35,000 different movies in its catalog and 1 million DVDs were shipped every day.

Netflix and streaming

Amid the success of DVD subscriptions, Netflix opened up a new market in 2007: streaming. Thus, Netflix users were able to watch movies and series online instantly, without having to wait for DVDs to ship.

The idea of ​​launching the movie subscription service directly on the Internet had been around in the company for years, but it was only launched when the Internet speed offer in the United States was high and costs low, which allowed subscribers to stream content over the network.

The initial offer was only 1,000 streaming movies and was free for DVD service members, while the DVD catalog at the time was already 70,000. Initially, Netflix intended to launch a device to allow people to download content overnight to watch it the next day. But, with the success of platforms like YouTube, even without high-quality images, the company has decided to continue with online streaming.

In 2008, Netflix partnered with electronics brands, which allowed streaming to Microsoft’s game console of the time, the Xbox 360, as well as to Blu-ray players and TV set-top boxes. In 2009, such collaborations reached Internet-connected TVs. In addition, the company has surpassed 10 million signatures. The year also marked the first time the company’s online content streams surpassed DVD shipments.

Expansion

In 2010, Netflix expanded the mobile streaming market and created an area dedicated to children’s content. But the expansion was also geographic, with the year marking Netflix’s arrival in Canada, leaving the United States for the first time.

The following year marked even greater expansion and Netflix was launched in Latin America and the Caribbean. In Brazil, the service arrived on September 5, 2011, at a cost of R $ 15 reais per month and the first month is free.

In 2012, Netflix hit the 25 million mark and expanded into the UK, Ireland and other Northern European countries. Two years later, the number of subscribers doubled to 50 million and expansion continued in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland. Australia, Cuba, Italy, Japan, Spain and New Zealand all received Netflix in 2015.

In 2016, Netflix reached 130 new countries. Thus, Netflix began offering its subscription service in more than 190 countries and 21 languages ​​around the world. In 2017, the number of subscribers reached 100 million. As early as 2021, this number doubles to 200 million subscribers worldwide.

Resources evolution

The assets we know today in Netflix have undergone a great evolution over the years and some of them already had their foundation set up when the company started with DVD rental. By 2000, Netflix already had a system of personalized recommendations on its website, which predicted future choices of subscribers based on the ratings of previously rented titles.

As early as 2005, the Profiles function was launched, which allows subscribers to create lists for different users. 2010 saw the arrival of an area dedicated to children’s titles, while in 2011 the first Netflix push button remotes appeared.

In 2013, the Profiles feature came streaming, along with My List. The evolution of picture quality reached a new level in 2014 when Netflix started streaming 4K Ultra HD. Another very important feature was the download function, which started allowing offline access starting in 2016.

The introduction of the interactive function and the jump button occurred in 2017, offering subscribers more personalized options. PIN code protection was implemented in 2018 as part of the new parental control features.

In 2020, Netflix launched the Top 10 List feature, which allows subscribers to see which titles are most viewed on the platform. Mobile games arrived on Netflix in 2021.

Netflix original content

If Netflix is ​​known today for its large catalog of original content, this was not true 10 years ago. In 2012 Netflix began producing stand-up specials and in 2013 the first original series arrived on the platform, with titles such as “House of Cards”, “Hemlock Grove”, “Arrested Development” and “Orange Is the New Black”. . .

“Beasts of No Nation” arrived in 2015 as the first Netflix Original film. The year also saw the arrival of the first Netflix Original series in a language other than English, with “Crows Club”, and the debut of the first Asian Netflix Original, with “Terrace House”. The evolution of accessibility also came, with the debut of “Daredevil”, which ushered in the audio description function for people with hearing difficulties.

The investment in original productions was crowned in 2017, when Netflix won its first Oscar for the documentary “The White Helmets”. In 2018, the stream led the number of Emmy nominations, with 23 wins for its series such as “GLOW”, “Godless” and “Queer Eye”.

In 2019, Netflix debuted its first original animation, “Klaus”, and “ROMA” and “Absorbing the Taboo” earn four Oscars for the studio. In 2020, Netflix was the studio with the most Oscar and Emmy nominations.

Netflix 25 years

In 2022, after all this trajectory, Netflix turns 25 and has already commented on the topic on social media.

In addition, the American Netflix has released a video on the trajectory of the company, thanking subscribers for 25 years:

The post Netflix 25 years: Discover the trajectory of the streaming giant first appeared on Olhar Digital.

Source: Olhar Digital

Emily

Emily Jhon is a product and service reviewer at Gossipify, known for her honest evaluations and thorough analysis. With a background in marketing and consumer research, she offers valuable insights to readers. She has been writing for Gossipify for several years and has a degree in Marketing and Consumer Research from the University of Oxford.