As the oral Silicon Valley legend goes, Netflix was birthed in a carpooling session between co-founders Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings. Netflix’s DVD-by-mail idea quickly caught on, challenging the established brick-and-mortar DVD rental businesses. A decade later, Netflix switched to the streaming platform that catapulted the company to its current status as the world’s top streaming service.
The streaming service originally had a very limited catalog, but it was the success of TV shows like “House of Cards” that encouraged the brand to go all-in on producing original content. Now, Netflix streaming covers everything from movies headlined by Hollywood A-listers and multi-season TV shows, to a stunning slate of award-winning regional content coming from markets like India and South Korea.
However, as Netflix kept pushing higher, the production costs ballooned, and the competition also got cut-throat. Eventually, Netflix turned to its subscribers to recoup those costs. The company, which openly embraced the idea of password sharing at one point in time, soon started a crackdown. Multiple price hikes also happened in the meanwhile, while moochers were asked to create a sub-profile and save some money on a subscription.
It was truly the end of an era, and it only seems fitting that Netflix is bringing down the curtains on its legacy DVD business with a parting gift.