Netflix streaming is entering its harrowing teen years as today marks 15 years since it launched its streaming services. It’s easy to forget how things were before the streaming era, but a decade and a half ago, if you had a Netflix subscription, that meant paying a monthly subscription for a rotation of DVDs shipped to your door.
But while things are very different today, and Netflix has become a giant in the world of entertainment, the talk, even then, was about the competition from Netflix, albeit, in this case, rather than Amazon. , Apple and Warner Discovery: it was Blockbuster.
reading this New York Times Article about Netflix “delivering movies to the PC” at the service’s 2007 launch is like looking into a time capsule from a different world. Remember, up to this point, the way Netflix disrupted the world of entertainment was through logistics.
If you rented DVDs (and previously, VHS tapes) from Blockbuster, you typically paid rent and feared hefty late fees if you didn’t return on time. Instead, Netflix shipped DVDs to people’s doors for a subscription, without fear of fines for late fees: the secret sauce that spelled ruin and much lost profit for Blockbuster.
actually you can yet subscribe to this Netflix service, even though their site gives off some weird vibes and knockoffs until you notice the “A Netflix Company” branding below the site’s logo. But before DVDs became a low-key service for, I suppose, people with poor internet connections, seniors who are used to physical media, or just plain psychopaths, streaming Netflix video was a pretty limited affair.
At launch, there were only 1,000 movies and TV shows available to stream, compared to 70,000 DVD titles at the time. And streaming something on your PC (remember, you couldn’t do it on a phone or tablet) came with limitations that in our binge-watching world today are unheard of:
Most Netflix subscribers, who pay $18 a month and can have three movies in the house at any given time, will receive 18 hours of free viewing each month. Those with cheaper plans will get fewer free hours and those with premium services will get more.
Going back to more of these vintage hits from the New York Times article, it’s sobering (and hilarious) to remember that, in the early Netflix era, the very concept of movies or TV shows having no object permanence on a physical DVD or the spinning platters on your hard drive was entirely novel:
Netflix is introducing a service to deliver movies and TV shows directly to users’ PCs, not as downloads but as streaming video, which is not retained in the computer’s memory.
If today’s little anniversary makes you wonder how the heck a logistics company became an entertainment industry giant that’s now known for winning Academy Awards instead of shipping records, take a look. second season of the podcast land of the giants of recode Y vox. The seven part season, The netflix effectcovers the rise of the tech company and the sea change it helped start 15 years ago.
Imagine doing a doomscrolling on Netflix and then waiting three days before you can see what you finally selected. Let us know in the comments if you used to get those red Netflix banners on your doorstep, and definitely let us know if they still do it.
