Founded in 1997, Netflix launched as a film rental company delivering DVDs by mail to the doorsteps of its subscribers. In 2008, Netflix debuted its own website and has revolutionized online streaming today making it one of the most successful streaming platforms today.

The website leads the market in online streaming for up to 139 million subscribers, the most of any streaming service and is available in over 190 countries worldwide.

“You are witnessing the birth of a global TV network,” proclaimed Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings in his keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2016.

The concept of a global network or audience is key to Netflix’s success. Part of the process of their rapid internationalization included adding subtitles and dubbing in a multitude of languages, as well as investing in locally sourced content to appeal to foreign markets. In 2018, they were producing original content in 17 different markets.

Despite their efficient business model and rapid response to different markets, what is it about Netflix from an artistic perspective that has made it so triumphant?

"We can spend less on marketing and still generate higher viewership, even from smaller, quirkier, less traditionally commercial material. That means we can take more risk," mentioned Ted Sarandos, chief content officer at Netflix.

Because Netflix has access to a global audience, the wider variety of demand allows them to offer a wider range of content. Unlike Hollywood’s limited blockbuster archetypal forms, it’s easier to sell niche content on Netflix where the demand does not have to be large, just easily found.

Netflix has massively invested in original content with some budgets larger than Hollywood’s most well-known production companies. In 2018 alone, Netflix spent between 12 to 13 billion dollars on original content. Among the most watched shows produced by the streaming giant are Stranger Things, Orange is the New Black, 13 Reasons Why and Black Mirror.

As reported by Canadian Business, Elizabeth Bradley, Netflix’s vice-president of content acquisition, stated, “What our original series have been very conscious of is what can we license in the market based on what’s traditionally been available on linear networks and what are they not making?”

“Orange is the New Black is very different than what’s been on linear, Sense8 is something that would have had a hard time on linear, Grace and Frankie for people over 65. We’ve been very conscious of trying to keep the diversity and that’s what we’ve learned from the data,” Bradley continued.

Many celebrate the attention given to diverse characters and casting for featuring deeper and more complex portrayals of people of color and LGBTQ, as well as representing the issues they face as marginalized members of society. Shows such as OITNB, Queer Eye, Sense8 and Narcos have transformed the stereotypical representation previously seen in films.

It was not higher Internet speeds alone that contributed to the company’s success, but the algorithm used on the site. It constantly learns about users’ preferences, creating a customized experience in order to suit each individual. Once something is viewed, similar content that may interest the viewer will be recommended to them.

During the 2016 CES presentation Sarandos said "Members can enjoy shows anytime, and based on their viewing habits, we can put the right one in front of them each and every time," As a platform it is flexible and accessible. The ease at which a user can navigate an array of choices makes it preferable to other platforms. Users can watch what they like, when they like, where they like on multiple devices, from their computers, televisions and tablets to their phones and game consoles.

Netflix has essentially transformed the art of viewership.

Offering a diversity of options empowers the viewer unlike before, not to mention the ability to binge watch episodes. The newfound freedom of spectatorship gives total control to the viewer by allowing them to view as much they want as they can pause and continue at any time. Gone is the need to leave home and drive all the way to a movie theater or be stuck with television networks’ limited selection of series.

Awam Amkpa, Associate Professor of Drama, Social and Cultural Analysis and Director of Africana Studies, explained that “in the past, if you were just doing your film only for the cinema hall, the aesthetic of the cinema hall suggests if it’s Bollywood it can be a 3-hour long film. If it’s Hollywood it cannot be more than Seventy-something minutes”

Amkpa has directed a number of film documentaries and curated a variety of film festivals. Netflix, Amkpa contended, is a different platform altogether.

“... With Netflix it doesn’t matter because [viewers] can stop, go do something else and come back to watch. So, [with] the originals, the format is much more flexible and it’s authentic to the platform because you are not restricted in terms of timeband.”

Though watching a film or show has never been easier, one should not mistake the novel experience and setting of viewership for a decrease in quality of series or films offered by Netflix. If anything, it has the opposite effect on production of content.

Netflix also changed the process of filmmaking. Amkpa continued, “It’s made how people make films more intense because of the quality of spectatorship. Some people argue that you’ve lost the quality of the cinema…[however] Netflix has upped the quality [of their content.]”

The new process of filmmaking can also give creative freedom to directors in some instances. Joel Coen spoke to the LA times stating that “...the more fundamental thing is that they’re the people who are stepping up and spending money on movies that aren’t Marvel comic movies or big action franchise movies and that type of thing, which is pretty much the business of the studios now.”

In a piece from earlier this year, Mitchell Blatt wrote “Netflix, then, is not destroying film. It might even be saving the film industry from becoming antiquated and overly concentrated on a single model with a single form of distribution, single-minded industry elites and fixed ideas.”

So, is Netflix the new Hollywood?

To this question Ampka replied, “Hollywood is a place. Bollywood is a place...but Netflix is many places at the same time….It has a broad demographic. The lowest common denominator for Netflix audiences is that they are move visually literate, they are more cosmopolitan.”

He continued, “So that was what Netflix capitalized on, that there is an international market, and their job on their platform is to provide a platform that’s accessible culturally to people across the board.”

No matter the diverse opinions on Netflix as a platform, it is a force to be reckoned with in the entertainment industry. From the previous golden ages of cinema and TV, Netflix dominates in this golden age of streaming.