EOTO Project Blog Post
By Zea Hirshberg
For my EOTO project portion, I decided to research the background history of Netflix and its positive and negative effects. Netflix was founded all the way back in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph who also happens to be High Point University's current Entrepreneur in Residence. When the company was first starting out, it began as a DVD-by-mail subscription. It was one of a kind back in the day as it was the only DVD rental store that mailed its customers the DVD. This was ultimately became known as the "Netflix Rental" period and laid down the foundation for what the company became in later years. The rental period lasted from when the company was founded until sometime in early 2007 and was considered to be "phase one" of the company's growth. In late 2007, it evolved into phase two and turned into an online distribution which means instead of having the physical hard copies of movies and TV shows, they were all moved to a digital version on a website anyone could access at any time, anywhere. The company also adopted the syndicator business model which, put simply, means a few different smaller businesses join together in order to manage a larger business and its finances. This would be very difficult and almost considered impossible for an individual to carry out alone. The transition from phase one to phase two took place over a total of five years from 2007 until 2012 before it underwent its third and fourth stages to turn the website and company into the one we all know and love today. In 2012, Netflix entered the original programming business and started to adopt and adapt to what professionals call "traditional" programming genres. During this time, the website went under major renovations and changes using advanced coding to allow users to stream a video online in real-time whenever and wherever they wanted to use WiFi. Netflix started to schedule the release of new content so their viewers could anticipate new movies and TV shows. Netflix undoubtably "set" the template for Internet TV in the 2000s and their business model was easily adopted and adapted by other stream services including Hulu, HBO Max, Amazon, and many others because of its success rate bringing many other companies incredible subscriber numbers.
Netflix was such a big streaming service that in just the year 2013 alone, it tripled it's stock numbers, was awarded three Emmy Awards, and it's subscriber base just in the United States of America was just over 29 million. In 2010, the company expanded its base to Canada, Latin America, Western Europe, and various parts of Asia before becoming a worldwide streaming service in 2016 after it's completion phase. In fact, half of the 100 million subscribers back in 2017 were not actually American citizens only a year after the company went worldwide. Unfortunately, a big set back for the company occurred during 9/11 when they had to lay off one third of their total number of employees because they couldn't afford to pay them all. Clearly it's recovered from the incident as Netflix is still one of the top streaming services.
Just like every website and company, Netflix has some pros and cons to it. In the positives, we have no commercials. Something everyone can appreciate as we've all had our videos interrupted by some random ad popping up out of nowhere. The website is also extremely simple, straight forward, and easy to use. My 90-year old grandmother is able to just turn on her favorite show whenever she wants to if that says anything about Netflix's user friendly structure. I think we can all agree it has a wide selection of TV shows and movies varying from different genres on complete opposite ends of the spectrum. This also includes a new feature called Netflix Originals where Netflix has partnered with a studio to write, film, edit, and produce shows exclusive to Netflix and can't be found anywhere else. A second new feature is the ability to download your favorite movie or show and watch without internet which is especially helpful for anyone traveling. But of course, like any screen related technology, Netflix has some downsides. Often, this particularly popular streaming service is affiliated with the term "binge-watching" which loosely means a practice of watching multiple episodes of a TV show or program one after the other without a break in between episodes. We all know how easy it is to fall into this practice as we've probably all found a show that has us hooked and makes us want to keep watching to find out what happens next. Typically, producers will use what's called a cliff-hanger to capture the audience and make it just that much harder to click away. Because so many people have been practicing binge-watching, it begins to negatively affect a person's health and wellness such as an increase in the risk of heart disease and a worsened cognitive function during a person's midlife. The most common age for a person to pick up the unhealthy habit of binge-watching is during their teenage years and if they continue to practice it, the habit will worsen to a point of it becoming an addiction.
Netflix is undoubtedly a great revolution in how we watch television and movies in today's society but it is also a great danger to a person's health if not balanced well.
Sources:
https://surface.syr.edu/etd/448/
https://digitalcommons.assumption.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1039&context=honorstheses
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