Everyone knows what Netflix is, even if they don’t own it themselves. It was the first successful streaming service when it released, and as it grew in popularity, it simultaneously created a competitive market that now often sees it struggling to stay afloat. The platform saw subscribers leave in 2022 in order to sign up for other streaming services that will fit their wants and needs better. The pandemic only exacerbated this, as people were now off of work and home more often, turning to these different streaming services more than they would have, exploring different options than Netflix. As Frank Pallotta writes for CNN:

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Netflix lost $54 billion in a single day in 2022, due to the falling stocks; in comparison, Paramount+ has lost half a billion dollars, Peacock lost $2.4 billion, and Disney lost $1.5 billion this year from Disney+ (even CEO Bob Iger knows that streaming is becoming less profitable). In order to try and help their subscription rates, Netflix has been cracking down on password sharing and also introducing Netflix Basic, and Basic with ads. These two subscription tiers are cheaper, but Basic with ads comes at the cost of not having access to the service’s full library. Now, people using streaming to get away from the ad breaks might not be able to anymore, with ad breaks also infiltrating Hulu, Peacock, Sling, Paramount+, and HBO Max. There’s a feeling that the massive streaming bubble is about to burst, and a highly competitive market with myriad platforms means that any one of the services could go under at any time.

Netflix First Opposed Blockbuster

     Netflix

The long bankrupt and nearly forgotten Blockbuster was something which seemingly everyone used (along with less frequent independent video stores). If you didn’t want to buy a movie yourself, you’d go see if the nearest Blockbuster had it for you, running itself like a movie library that lets you rent the movie for a small fee.

Netflix would do the same thing, but it was much more efficient: you didn’t have to go anywhere for your movie. They would mail it to you, and when you were done with it, you’d mail it back. Convenience is one thing that tends to drive a market, and people loved to get their DVDs mailed to them instead of going out to the store. There were also no due dates or late fees, making it seem even better than Blockbuster.

As technology developed, so did Netflix. They created a streaming service for their subscribers in 2007 and started offering some of their movies directly on customer’s devices without needing to wait around a few days for the mail to get to them. They continued to focus on this aspect of the service, even starting to make their own original shows. The streaming competition came around slowly, meaning that for a while, Netflix’s streaming service was unmatched, offering convenience that little to no other place could bring. Everything else that came after strived to be as successful and as popular as Neftlix was, and its success lasted for several years.

Netflix claims one of their biggest issues is password sharing, but in reality, the competitive nature of the market today is what is bringing them down. Netflix can host their originals just fine, but they need to contract and buy the rights to stream any other movie or show. This means trying to outbid the competition to get the hottest new movies, and sometimes getting stuck with less popular movies no one is really interested in. If Netflix couldn’t keep up with movies the audience actually wanted to watch, they might cancel and move over to the other subscriptions to get what they do want.

Looking at the market today, it’s no wonder Netflix is struggling: Disney will never give up another one of their movies or shows to another streaming service thanks to Disney+, Warner Bros. Discovery owns HBO Max so anything their studio produces will end up on that platform, Universal Pictures is owned by the company behind Peacock, and even Paramount has their own service now. Netflix might have its originals to keep people subscribed, but as it loses out on the popular blockbusters, it loses more subscribers and more money. It’s becoming less profitable to be a streaming platform (which is why we see shows and movies being canceled left and right). That’s why something like Netflix Basic was necessary to try and entice people to come back for low rates, but in a way, Basic just means that they’ve come full circle.

Netflix Basic Isn’t Very Different From Cable

You could argue that Cable TV represents the real companies struggling at a time like this, as all the TV networks are now also streaming their shows, some often simultaneously (CBS on Paramount+, NBC on Peacock, ABC on Disney+). Because of this, people have been considering or actually canceling their cable for a while, paying the fees for streaming services instead. By introducing an ad-based subscription, though, it makes it almost no different from having cable in the first place. You can only watch on one screen at a time with the Basic subscription too, meaning password sharing is next to impossible, and you couldn’t watch something at the same time as a friend somewhere else, or even a family member in the same house on a different device.

The whole point of streaming was to let people watch what they wanted when they wanted, uninterrupted. Not only does that now include ads, something many people don’t like (especially in the middle of a movie), but Netflix Basic with ads won’t even give you access to the full library and has lower resolution, so they hope you’ll buy one more expensive. Seeing how Netflix isn’t the first service to offer subscriptions with ads, it almost looks like streaming services are slowly turning into what cable TV has always been.

On top of all this, there are simply so many streaming platforms and so many titles that most of them get lost in the shuffle. People haven’t heard of half the things on Netflix or any other streaming service, because it’s expensive to promote so much ‘content.’ And that’s exactly what the streaming wars have done, reduce art to ‘content.’