Netflix: the troubled teen

摘要

Eighteen is a difficult age for humans and-so, it seems, for at least one media company. Netflix - which came to life in 1997 as a DVD rental company by post and then in 1999 as an SVoD service, made headlines in 2010 when it became the biggest source of internet traffic in primetime in the US. Netflix took the media business by storm. Users loved its ease of use and its inexpensive and flexible pricing and it transitioned easily through its teenage years into a major media player. It picked up programming awards for its original series like Orange is the New Black and House of Cards and launched internationally, while its stock price rose almost as fast as its subscriber numbers. Cable pioneer John Malone admitted that companies he invests in were caught out by the super-fast rise of Netflix, which fed on subscribers' disillusionment with big cable bills.