Known for its hit series, new films and spectacular trailers, Netflix has now become the king of paid streaming, with nearly 270 million subscribers worldwide in 2024. Faced with this digital success, it is difficult to imagine that the company built its success thanks to an object that is now in decline: the DVD.
It all started in 1997, when two entrepreneurs, Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph, decided to mix two concepts: movie rental and mail order. But there was a problem, because at the time, movies were on cassettes, a heavy object that was expensive to ship. Hastings and Randolph then bet on a new medium: the DVD. It was light and required a simple stamp to send it to customers. This is how Netflix was born.
The rental platform quickly set up a subscription system and algorithms that allowed it to offer a personalized offer to its customers. With this early know-how, when the company moved from DVD to streaming in 2007, it was ahead of the competition. Since then, its success has been little contested.
Despite its successes, the firm has attracted criticism. It has been singled out in particular by the film industry, which has denounced unfair competition and dubious tax practices.
This video was originally published in 2020.
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